Two Plates of Shrimp

I'm not sure if shrimps/prawns have  their own season and if there is, it must be these days cos  I've seen a lot of them in the wet market I'm frequenting for three subsequent Sundays now. They are also much affordable these days.
So every week I have shrimp supply in the freezer ready when the need and craving arise. Funny, but my younger daughter doesn't like shrimp. I don't really cook it so much for hubby either cos I'm watching his calorie/fat intake. He does have it on a limited portion and only as much as possible when steamed.
So usually. it's me and my older girl who indulge.
The other night, hubby was still away for a 4 days out of town job and y.daughter was already in bed. O.daughter was still busy with homeworks and was looking for a snack.
I :

1).Took out the shrimp from the frezeer
2). and while thawing, I made a batter for the cover of the shrimp.quickly  
3). Cracked an egg,
4). dipped the peeled, salted & peppered shrimp and coated it with the batter.
5). Then threw each in a deep frying oil.



Voila ! ! Nothing but yummyness !! Also while I was frying, my multi-tasking hands were cooking a sweet and sour dip sauce. Nice and easy. Daughter was very happy with our midnight shrimp cocktail !

But hey, my shrimp indulgence didn't end there. Last night, hubby was back home from the city of strawberry and vegetables _ Baguio City! so ofcourse he brought home what? _
1).strawberry
2). and lettuce

( and many other delicacies from this highland). Two of my favorite foods in the world.
And since, I hadn't taken my dinner when he arrived, I quickly whipped a salad _ lettuce was so fresh and the strawberry was not perfectly sweet. Perfect to add mild sourness to this salad :

Wowmmmy !!!! Looks Christmas is already here huh! The peeled steamed shrimp was just so right with the rest of the members of this plate. Dressing was an easy mayo-herb-y which I prepared in a whip.



When la familia saw this plate, it was gone in less than 5 minutes !

Cheese Cake

Blueberry cheese cake -two slices. .

oh plezeee.. .  don't tempt  me . . . (I may give in. . )



wellaaaaa. . .I'm only human ! (lame excuse :)))))

Love Thy Eggs

So happy with these eggs_ Bounty Fresh.  I used to buy the generic types, those w/o brand name or those that carried the name of the grocery cos they were cheaper or so I thought. I wasn't taking so much attention to the eggs I was using in my kitchen until I noticed the yolks were ruptured and flooding along with  the whites upon breaking the shells.
So I looked around the grocery and found out that these ones are actually have the same selling price as the generic ones.

When you open a shell, you'll be glad how nice the color of this egg is. The yolk is full and in perfect circle and has tinted orange-y color which is so yummyish even raw.   Look how these eggs enhanced the color of my crab-shrimp omelet!



Family loves this, want some?

Coron Village Bar & Resto

I would like to applaud Coron Village for delicious foods rather than for its accommodation. But that's another story. Check Coron Village later at Ascertain Bliss. Coron Village Bar & Resto has a museum like ambiance.







The guests are in for an eye feast treat of the owner's souvenir collections, I assume from his/her extensive around the world trips.

The art collections are good diversion while waiting for your order to be served.

Prices are within the town's food cost range.

We had a late night snack here one time we came from a whole day tour.



The night weather was permissible of al fresco dining so we decided to be served at the garden.

Cocktails were good. A hint of good tasting dishes to come. We ordered common snacks such as calamares, pansit and clubhouse sandwich.

calamares- tasty and good quality squid inside the batter

pansit-very tasty. luv it!

club house sandwich - brother had it gone in a minute, must be good!



We were actually pleasantly surprise that we enjoyed the foods here. Nobody had endorsed this place to us and some of the popular dining places (in this town) we tried were disappointing even. so when you happen to visit Coron Town, Coron Village Bar & Resto is a safe and delicious place to fill up your ranting tummies.

Som Tam / Green Papaya Salad

Som Tam or Green Papaya Salad is one of my favorite Thai dishes. It's healthy, very Asian and quite easy to make at home. All ingredients are available in our local markets as most Thai recipes' ingredients are.

In Thailand, they eat it with sticky rice. Personally I want to eat it as side dish of a fish dish that is either steam or grilled or fried. If you haven't tried it yet , best to taste it in one of now many Thai restos around our country. After getting familiar with the tartness/spiciness/sweetness , all combined in one forkful of the salad, you may now easily re-created it at home to serve to your family. Here's a recipe to guide you and don't forget when cooking/preparing food, always be guided accordingly by your very own tongue. Trust nothing else, unless you are no foodie at all.

PREPARE :

1 small green papaya, (papaya should be very firm, the flesh white to light orange in color),grated
1 cup bean sprouts
1 tomato, cut into long thin strips
1 red chili, minced
3 spring onions, a stalk sliced into3-4 parts
1/2 cup fresh basil,chopped
handful of fresh coriander
1/2 cup honey-roasted peanuts or glazed cashews

DRESSING :

1/2 shrimp paste (bagoong)
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp fish sauce
3 tbsp lime juice
1 tbsp honey

Toss everything together and serve !

Enjoy your Som Tam !

Lotte 3

 Reasons why we return to a restaurant :

• was satisfied on previous experience 
• satisfied and wanted to try more of  other dishes in the menu
• forgot a cellfone
• others  

Once again I found myself dining in Lotte Seafood , not because of reasons 1,2 & 3 but of others. You see I dined here twice and got a totally opposite episodes, see here and here . Going back to why I came back, despite of my last visit which was not so alluring experience of the resto, the fact remains_ 24/7 restos are so scarce in my little city and this one is the nearest one to my house. Cousin from Davao was visiting then and we came from a long day of shopping/city tour and it was nearing midnight and yes we were hungry!

Ofcourse, we reminded the same staff of our unsatisfying last time and asked if the odd chef in the night shift was still there. Luckily, the culprit was no longer connected with the Taiwanese resto.

We ordered the same familiar Chinese dishes. The ones we already tried and enjoyed.






Our favorite dimsums.



Have to special mention that  these spare ribs were delicious.



Also tried some new dishes in my food dict.

Like this radish cake which I only first tasted here and well, guess fair enough to say_ is enough reason to give the resto another chance.



And this machang which I found delectable than other machang I had tried and discarded as not to be included in my favorite list to eat.

Food at Lotte are actually delicious and reasonable  but the thing is the resto seems not yet kicking-in to the mainstream. It stays uncrowded and well, that's another reason of going there. Expect service that is quick and attentive and owning the place all to yourself. Isn't that great?

Red Mango @ MOA

I have a lifetime affair with ice cream. Whatever weather it is, wet or dry, it remains to be one of my comfort foods. See here  and here. I indulge in the middle of a typhoon as much I do on a hot sunny day. Doesn't matter when. . . but always! Suffice to say, this sinful indulgence is the source of my bulges. To lessen my guilt = calories, I try to modify and look for alternative. Like when the craving hits me in a mall, I go to a yogurt ice cream store instead.. Which is quite easy cos couple of years now, yogurt has been a fad and yogurt stores popping out all over the country. Even groceries are selling  lots of yogurt varieties , see here.Which makes me realize now that it's a fad no longer. Meant to stay as part of a healthy diet.

One of these popular yogurt stores that popped out in my country last year is Red Mango. I wonder why most yogurt brand name has attached color  like the White Hat. As for the Red Mango, I only had the chance to try it this year thu'. latees! The mall that I frequent doesn't have one, so one so late night after seeing a  movie in Imax, ( with cuz and brod), we hit the door just right on time, a minute before it closed.

see _ we made it!

The store is color-perfect.

When asked for the flavors and toppings, didn't have much choice, it was closing and their supplies were already hitting the pan too.

Four thumbs up!

Bistro Coron

Bistro Coron was a top listed resto from the word of mouth of the locals of Coron Town. Bloggers who had been in this side of Luzon, also overrated this Bistro as one of the must place to eat when in town.



We followed our appetite and took hold from trying out this resto up until our last night when we had enough of local delicacies and started to miss the city menu which Bistro Coron specializing on.

It was an odd, tiny structure in the center of the small town. I even saw some laundry clothes hanging on the 2nd floor, one night we passed by.

At this point, we were already craving for the usual city junks_ pizza, ice cream, burgers, pasta, etc. The menu was loaded with everything we were looking for, at a price as costly as the city prices.

I figured that Coron Town's restaurants were expensive, opposite from  their low profile structures they seemingly sported. Fairly enough, it was surprising to find good, sophisticated foods in a tiny town. Credit it to the rising popularity of the town's tourism industry.

I was not sure if it was an isolated case, but we had experienced  a very low quality customer relations, courtesy of the waitress who served us that short night at Bistro Coron. It was a very unbecoming experience in the town which until that particular server of B.C., I was so impressed how tourist friendly everyone was. From the owners of the establishments down the tricycle drivers . This one from B.C. was quite odd!

We might had tried other food from the menu but the ill-tempered server short listed our order down to one drink each and a namesake pizza.
The server must rubbed the ill mood to us and we lost appetite to stay and finished our pizza. Another thing that turned us off was the presentation of the pizza. It was served bare in an old, seemingly abused tray. While the cheeses were flowing down the dirty tray. eeeekk.
Now, I couldn't share how the pizza rated cos I hardly took a bite of it. We asked for it to be taken out and the server charged us for the to-go-cutlery (plastic) . Even when we asked for ketchup/hot sauce. the server charged us. Whew! We ran as fast as we could from the place and tried to find some place to compensate for the thumbed down Bistro Coron.

p.s. : we donated the left over pizza, which was still a whole lot, to the vendors we saw first in street.