Friday, February 18, 2011

Everybody's Cafe, Pampanga


We stopped at the first fastfood chain (Jollibee) we saw before heading to Everybody's Cafe. I 100% doubted that the girls would eat what us adult had in mind to eat for lunch.









But since we left home too early for breakfast, with empty stomachs we were tempted to eat as much as the kids.





So when we reached Everybody's Cafe, we were full stomached and not sure at all if we still have room for crickets and frogs.



Okey, here we go => stuffed frog, I chose this over the frog legs which were not a news to me anymore.



Bianx (background) : eooow, tita M, whayt are you eating???
Cuz che : whaaatah?? frog??



It was good!! Crunchy outside and meaty inside.



Cuz' got jealous how I enjoyed the frog and braved a piece. Well, she liked it a lot she ordered for more to take home. She had them half cooked to deep fry when she get home.



It's crickets/camaru time!



Kyla couldn't take it!



Well, it's not ala Fear Factor where you have to eat it alive and cricket-ing, haha.



But, still it's so insect-y ! You know, like eating a fly !



Allright - into the mouth!!



It was del.i.cious!!! surprisingly!!! crispy and tasty!! loveth!



We sugar coated them with glazed camote (sweet potato). Yum.

We were still asking for more exotic dishes but there were only those two. Others were familiar kapampangan dishes. We bought raw longanisa to take home.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

chocolate is love


Box of Marks & Spencer chocolates for V Day?
Nah-ah . . a reminiscence of  the recent Christmas. A gift from a very close friend of the family. You know who you are, winkies**. Thankyouverymuch sistah'! The box got emptied in just a matter of minute. That's how my family loves chocolates.



I don't know why but when I think of Valentine's Day I start to crave for chocolates. Liar! ok. Actually I crave for it everyday. I'm trying so hard to stop myself from indulging but it's Valentine, we eat chocolates on V season, right? I heard some yessess over there _ so here, my other hand is  chocolatey- sticky- dirty cos I'm binged eating. I sneaked ( hidden from husband so he couldn't stop me) a huge bar of cadbury (fruit & nut, my favo) and almost finished it in just one sitting. OMG! can't stop! can't say no to chocolates !stop me! i'm getting big again!  heeeelp!!!

Monday, February 7, 2011

Tabo-an's Dried Fish


Actually every market (and mall market too) in P.I. sells dried fish. I haven't found a market yet in our country that has no dried fish section. Ofcourse, those bay side provinces that are seafood producers (like Cebu) deliver better quality dried seafood products.



In Cebu City, dried seafood products are best bought in Tabo-an Market. Specializing in massive variants of dried products- dangit, squid, shrimp, even dried mango can also be bought here.



I especially liked the longanisa (local sausage) de Cebu I bought from here. I guess flavors varied depending on which store you bought.



The only downside was it really stank. Omg!



From there we went straight to catch our flight back to Manila and funny that when we got miles away from the market, only then we realized that we were taking home not only Tabo-ans delicious goods but the dried fish awful smell too, haha.
Oops, don't forget to ask the merchant to box your smelly goodies if you're going to fly them. We did forget for a minute and had to ask our cab driver to turn back to the store and asked them to box pack our purchase. They did,  even apologetic that they didn't box it in the first place. Very nice.

Friday, February 4, 2011

Cnt Lechon Cebu


When the cab dropped us at CnT Lechon across SM, Cebu City, I was kindah in doubt. First of all, the building looked no similar to the ones I saw in others' blogs which was a huge hut resto infront of SM. This one looked like an office building with a basement car parking entrance. But the driver insisted this was the one.  You have to take stairs to get to the upper floor which was where the CnT resto located.





I confess I'm not  a big fan of  lechon Cebu ( see Hecky's Lechon here ). I like the fact that it's already seasoned  even before it undergoes the roasting process,  but I hate that lechon Cebu doesn't come with our traditional sarsa (liver sauce dip). So usually when I chanced upon a lechon Cebu in a gathering , I cheated my way to eating it with sarsa.



We entered the place at its low peak hour ( 2pm), just the way I planned it. I gathered that it was so popular and always crowded especially during lunch and dinner hours.



Cuzin'  was excited to buy kilos of  lechon for pasalubong especially when she found out that the establishment pack/box it as you order. Now we had a major problem here, the staff said there was no available at that moment and we had to wait near dinner for the next batch of  lechon. Ofcouse we couldn't wait ! We had to be at the airport at 5pm. So the pasalubong puffed out in the air.
That was ok,we just decided to dine- in. Anyway, we hadn't taken our lunch yet. We were roaming around the city the whole day.  But then there was another problem_ no lechon either for dine-in. So we just settled for these ( the only available foods) :



paksiw na lechon




crunchy pig's small intestine


In sync, we took our first hungry spoonful of rice and the paksiw. In unison we both commented how salty it was and that it was so different from our Tagalog paksiw na lechon which we still preffered. Next we both took a spoonful of rice and the intestine dipped in the vinegar_ salty!!! . . . so in the end we surprised ourselves when we realized that we consumed everything we ordered. Nothing left. We left the place still asking ourselves, were we just hungry or the foods were better than we thought???

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Barrio Fiesta : what happened to you?

A week post X'mas season, my girls beg me to cook  kare-kare at home. They had too much of pastas and salads and missing their most favorite Filipino dish. Yet until then, I hadn't replenished my pantry and hadn't done marketing. I was still counting on finishing the holidays' left overs.
So one of these afternoons (January2011), we were out on the road  for an errand. It was already past 1pm and we hadn't taken lunch yet. Passing somewhere thru Roxas Blvd. - Malate area, we saw Barrio Fiesta, one of my favorite Filipino restos. I haven't been there for the longest time  and said to my girls: there you could have one of the best karekare in town.



It was a Saturday. My girls asked about the why almost empty BF (Barrio Fiesta). There was only another table occupied plus ours. I thought it might be because of the low-peak hour, after lunch .



sago-gulaman



We were there only for karekare and just added sizzling shrimp gambas for husband. We are trying hard to limit his pork/beef/innards favoritism. Bad for the heart.
Since it had been a long time since I had eaten there, I checked what was going on to their menu. Everything looked familiar except for the zooming of prices. Well, nothing stays cheap these days. I was tempted to compare BF's prices to the latest Filipino restos that have been mushroomed since the last visit I had here. I was thinking about the likes of Kanin Club ( see here), Bagoong Club ( see here), Tres Cuisine and many to mention others. Ofcourse they are not as big as BF yet but in quality of dishes, the latter has to take a closer look to these rising  pinoy restos. And getting back to the prices, Bf's menu is a lot expensive, almost x2 in some of the common dishes. On top of this, they (this particular branch) couldn't even afford to serve filtered water, only tap water.



Obviously it was a wrong decision to take lunch here when it's past noon and our tummies were all ranting bad. But I was thinking the non-busy hours, with almost no other guests to attend to,  would expedite the serving of food. I was not sure if our hungriness had shorten our patience or was it really long before our foods were served. whatever, we were not so happy about the service.

Still, wondering about which comes first?- the chicken or the egg ? - our ill mood or their bad service? The only two dishes we had at BF got 4 disaster  thumbs down :( from the 4 of us.



shrimp gambas_omg! too-ooo salty, husband's health in high danger!



kare-kare- omg again! the peanut sauce could be mistaken as oil sauce!!! and when we taste it_
spoiled peanut taste was very strong. Non of us took a second spoon and just left the plates untouched.
Hungry and disappointed, I choose not to add insult to injury and prevent further unnecessary incident, I told to my family to shrug their shoulders and we would just buy food to nearer somewhere.  I called the waiter and asked for the bill. While paying _ I couldn't keep to myself and told him about the disappointing dishes and in return he replied : ay ganon ba mam? sige po sasabihin ko nalang sa cook ( is that so mam? ok, I will just tell it to our cook). period and nothing else. 

We ran fast away from Barrio Fiesta and  had  a hearty meals at Mcdo.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

The Best of Davao

The best-est in Davao are the fruits _ the best quality of banana, mango, pomelo, lanzones, marang (click here ), rambutan , durian (click here, here and here ) mangosteen,  etc.etc. . .



They come cheap too. Especially if they were in season. Almost triple the price if you would buy them here in Manila.



The second best-est is that we have relatives based in Davao. luckiness!!!!



So during the recent (2010) Kadayawan when most of the fruits were in season, we flew to Davao , took a blast savoring all the fruits there. We could only eat so much and not so much to take home, prevented by baggage allowance.

So thoughtful cuz' Sylvia came in the rescue. She sent us a follow-up fruit box after a week of Kadayawan and while we were all back here in Manila missing the sweetness of Davao fruits and our relatives too.











The only fruit that was not in season during Kadayawan was pomelo, another flagship fruit of Davao. In the box included few pomelos  with ate Sylv's promise that she would send later when the pomelo season come.

And ...






true to her word, ate Syv sent us a box of suha (pomelo) this month of January 2011.






The pink seedless pomelo is to die for. I'm salivating  just seeing this photo of the suha she sent.

Ofcourse, they were gone the minute they arrived. I'm not sure with cousin ( she does hording so well, hehe).

So Ate Sylv_ you know why I'm posting this one_ where's the other pomelo box you promise to send again? hahaha!  We're waiting =)))))))

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