Fresh Noodles and Cha Chiang Mien.

I have these friends who are a married couple.

They're off to China for a long-trip mission.

Salute!

Before they left though, they taught me and my friends a thing or two about noodles.

They're wicked easy and heaps tasty.

It's one of the things I cooked for Chinese New Year.

Ingredients

For Noodles:

Plain flour

Warm Water (150ml for every 200g)

Salt (a pinch or two per portion)

For the sauce:

600g pork mince

1 Litre of stock

Cornstarch for thickening

3 tbsp. of cooking oil

3-4 tbsp. of Chinese sweet sauce 

 3 tbsp. minced garlic

1 cup chopped mushrooms

Noodles.

Sprinkle the salt into the flour and gradually pour in the water.

Knead until it comes together.

Not too wet and not too dry either.

Let it rest at room temp for 4 hours or so until it's easy to work with.

My Chocolate Life

I am the biggest chocolate junkie this world has ever seen. I'm sure everyone who knows me will agree – I simply can't resist chocolate. So it's just about time that I actually wrote about my obsession, no? This will probably be the first in a series of many. :)

Chocolates I have been eating lately:

Hot chocolate at Mary Grace. 

Delicious and thick and rich, just the way I like it! Watery hot chocolate is not for me.

Dulcelin chocolate cake, with caramel sauce.

 Again, deeply chocolatey. And very moist too! Plus, the caramel sauce just kills me. I love it with a nice cup of tea! This cake is as brilliant as chocolate cakes come.

Baked (OH MY GOODNESS) NY Cheesecake.

My grandmother loves her cheese.

All sorts of cheese she'll possible have except for the stinky blue. 

She buys them by the wedge.

And since I'm around, she was fully excited for me to make a cheesy concoction up for her. 

She bought a whole block of CREAM CHEESE.

All 2 KILOS of it.

With that, she commanded me to bake her a cheesecake- a creamy tasty one.

Obviously, I did.

And this is the only picture I have of it- before it disappeared.

That sure tells you something.

2 gorgeous cheesecakes with slightly cracked tops.

1.3kg of cream cheese went into making these two and 7 eggs if you must know.

yikes.

It rested for 6 hours after baking too, but I assure you it was totally worth it.

Sakai

2011 was the year I fell in love with Japanese food.  I mean, I've always been obsessed with Inagiku, but now I love pretty much everything Japanese (note how I said pretty much -- there are still exceptions. I'm looking at you, Japanese fast food chains!). 

Anyway, today I'm going to let you in on the most brilliant (and bang-for-your-buck) Japanese place in Manila. It's called Sakai, and it's located somewhere in Makati. Like, near Jupiter Street, I think. My mom (or was it my dad? I don't know for sure) was the one who discovered it and I love it to deeeaaaaaath. Their prices are really AWESOME (300-600) and during lunch time they have special lunch sets that go for around 300-400. 

Chuck's Deli, Eastwood City

Daryl and I could have entirely different opinions at times. She's got the love for Chuck's Deli whereas I was madly disappointed. Really. Usually when it comes to food we generally see eye to eye but this is one of the exceptions.

The interior reminded me of a fire station. The bricks, the windows, and how it was roaring with red. 

Gong Cha, Mega Atrium

Those are my grandparents waiting for milk tea!

ChaTime, Serenitea, Bubble Tea, Tea Tap.

YEAH. What a milk tea trend sweeping the Philippines now.

And guess what, I've finally found my favorite!

GONG CHA it is!

Curry Popcorn with Seaweed

I love popcorn.

I think it's good for you.

I often replace butter with olive oil.

Just because I think its better that way.

And I often muck around with these weird combinations in my head.

More often than not they turn out pretty okay!

And this is one of them.

CURRY POPCORN.

Yabu: House of Katsu, Mega Atrium

My sister horribly failing to strike a pose.

I've been long over the fried Japanese dishes such as tempura, tonkatsu, katsudon, and the like.

They're usually overcooked and heaps oily. Sometimes even fatty.

And that was until we ate at Yabu.

Essentially, there's hardly anything on the menu that's not katsu, duh. 

This is the special sauce that every table has.

It's the sweet sweet soy thing.

Beside it, there are 2 sauce bottles that contain different dressings for your cabbage.

Yes, cabbage. 

They serve you unlimited cabbage.

100g Hire Set.
Hire= pork tenderloin.

This is what the meal looks like.

Epic portions of everything- except the pork.

Tiramisu 101

My sister LOVES to bake. She can make cinnamon rolls, brownies, bread, cakes, cookies, cupcakes, blablabla. And every Christmas season she makes tiramisu out of the panetonnes we always get. 

Panetonne in box.

My sister uses it in lieu of lady fingers because it's way tastier!

Milk chocolate, cream cheese, Kahlua (we are a den of alcoholics here: old alcoholics, young alcoholics and baby alcoholics! You name it, we got it.), and our vintage mixer

The Silver Spoon (a great Italian cookbook), Splenda & Nutrasweet (which I suggested we use because we didn't have any powdered sugar and I thought the texture was the same. Can you tell I'm not a brilliant baker?  We ended up not using them – my sister suggested that we just powderize the sugar ourselves, using our blender), organic eggs.

Separated yolks and the sugar we powdered!

New Zealand Natural Ice Cream

The first time I tried New Zealand Natural was during my first trip to Singapore many, many years ago. I wasn't much of a foodie then (I just ate everything I saw – yikes. One of these days, I'll share my old photos with you guys. For fun. Hahaha.) and generally thought that all ice cream was pretty much the same. 

When I heard that New Zealand Natural were coming to the Philippines, I told Chloe and she was really excited because she apparently has a lot of childhood memories attached to the ice cream brand. And I've also been pretty into ice cream* lately, so the timing was just perfect for me. 

My friend Trufferson (they're the ones bringing New Zealand Natural, or NZN for short, to the Philippines) brought a few pints to our bible study for us to try and I loved it. Along with Ben & Jerry's, it is now officially my favorite ice cream (I used to be a Haagen Dazs fanatic – I even have the discount card. But I've become officially sick of it, and now I am never even tempted to have a scoop) and here's why:

1. They can deliver to your house. Yes, really. All your issues can be solved in an ice cream instant. Feeling sad? Call them up. Feeling angry? Call them up. Feeling chubby and unsightly? You know the drill – they don't call it a destructive fattening cycle for nothing. ;)

Casa Marcos, Burgos Circle

Well, I got back to Manila on the evening of November 18th. Which is my dear friend, Robyn's birthday.

What a trip it was. Eight excruciating hours on a plane with no entertainment apart from my music.

Luckily I was in a good mood prior to boarding. 

I had brekkie at Danks St. Depot- Good stuff.

And I'm not one to eat on the airplane. I just think the food is fairly repulsive.

My family fetched me at the airport which I thought was the sweetest.

We steered towards Burgos Circle for dinner.

And my dad, like the pro that he is suggested Casa Marcos.

The Year That Was (AKA my backlog)

A backlog (as I've learned through my 1.5 years as a blogger) is a list of posts you have yet to write about. You know, kind of like that bunch of dresses you impulsively bought on sale and stuffed into the back of your closet. Or those books you stocked up on during the book fair, telling yourself you'd read them when you have the time... Oops.

Anyway, it's been far too long since we've last posted, and now we've come up with a solid schedule, so you can EXPECT at least 2-3 posts per week. Hooray! I found some pictures of food events I've yet to write about, and here they'll give you a rough idea of all the food I've been stuffing down my gut. Thank God I've become less aversive to the gym – otherwise I'd probably be a real porker right now.

Tonnos salata and porkchops at Cyma. Bliss!

Handmade mushroom sauce pumpkin pasta and seared Australian angus at Chloe's house. We cooked this ourselves!!!

Christmas FEAST

Every 24th of December, I'm the master of the kitchen.

Nobody could say otherwise.

This Christmas was a bit of a whirlwind.

It was chaos. It was quite the rush. 

I spent 2 hours slaving in the kitchen- I usually spend half a day.

Despite that, we had a lovely and might I say simple simple dinner.

And as always, I try to make it better than the previous year.

2012 Babble.

Happy New Year you lot! 

Daryl and I have decided that it's been too long since we've seriously updated this blog.

It's been neglected, sorta.

But everything is about to change.

Say hello to 3 posts a week.

More adventures, more to read, more spice, more fun!

That's a deal.