Bistek

Bored and can't go out due to heavy rains, not to mention hungry from eating just salad for dinner for two days now, I decided to ask my mom to help me cook the meat that has been sitting on the freezer for almost a week now. She told me it was beef for the bistek which she had planned on cooking the following day or whenever she felt like cooking. I took the beef out and asked if we can cook a portion tonight, for dinner. Remembering what I had for lunch which was plain rice and tuna straight out of a can, an idea of a home-cooked dinner seemed so lovely.

Here's how we prepared tonight's bistek:

• with the back of a knife, make tadtad the sirloin beef
• marinate the beef with calamansi and all-around seasoning for 30 minutes
• prepare the potatoes by washing them carefully and slicing them round
• prepare the onions and cut them in rings
• fry the potatoes and set aside
• fry the onions and set aside
• heat the pan, put some oil and later on some butter
• prepare the sauce: toyo, calamansi and some sugar
• fry the beef until the water has evaporated and the meat is tender
• pour in the sauce

here's our output and my dinner this rainy Sunday:

yun lang! ang saya, ang sarap :)

Zapata's

It started out with my craving for some chicken quesadilla. Christine suggested we buy some pita bread and ingredients from the supermarket and prepare it ourselves but by the time we got off from work, it was already past 7pm. I was too hungry by then and suggested we go to this Mexican restaurant instead which I first read about from Kris Aquino's twitter account. Luckily, Sir Mark heard our conversation and immediately became interested in joining. The restaurant was just a few blocks away from the Korean town which was also just a few blocks away from our village so there was no problem finding it. Gladys, despite not feeling well that night, joined us also. What was supposed to be a dinner date between two friends became a dinner night out with all of us! Biglaang lakads are so much fun!


I was quite satisfied with their chicken quesadilla, by the way. The cheddar cheese they use i thought was delicious. Ate Elsa, who is the real foodie from the group, thought their ensalada could use a little bit of a certain ingredient the name of which I forgot but keep associating with Via Mare's bagnet ensalada. She says that she prefers the ensalada from El Pollo Loco which I remember to have that taste she was looking for. If I can just remember the name of that ingredient, this will be so much easier!

Anyway, everything that night to me seemed good. The place looks fun, the food tastes good. Perhaps an improvement can be made with presentation. I would have preferred separate plates for our soft taco and enchilada. No complains about the taste, as I have said, but it seems a little difficult for me to appreciate food when you see that the sauce for one is starting to slither into the other.

I don't know. I'm just being weird I guess :)

recipe for steak ala pobre

steak ala pobre ala estrella (my mom) actually.

just taking down notes from a recent cooking experience, so i don't forget:

• beef sirloin cut thinly at the grocery is preferred*
  
• marinating the beef with soy sauce and just a few drops of calamansi a few minutes before cooking is preferred. less calamansi, more toyo. this is not bistek.**
• in a heated pan, put one tablespoon cooking oil then garlic, lots of them
• add butter, lots. less cooking oil, more butter.**
• place the beef when butter is heated, around 20seconds each side. steak is good, once meat is brownish not red.*  
  

*got this wrong the FIRST time
**got this wrong the SECOND time

FIRST attempt was done a few months ago. i bought all the ingredients as told. forgot to have the meat cut at the grocery though and had to cut it myself. my mom was there to instruct me so we got the taste right, but the texture wrong.

SECOND attempt was done over the holidays. i bought all the ingredients and had the meat cut at the meat section. mom not around this time. cant remember whether to marinate or not. whether to put more oil and less butter or the other way around. so i struggled and ended up with steak that has good texture, but did not really... have much taste to it. awww.

i have no photos as i was too hungry and bit exhausted after cooking which is ALWAYS a challenge for me. i hope to take some on my third (and hopefully successful) attempt.

food trip

food, desserts, coffee, jp and me

the bluetooth feature in my phone miraculously worked without problems yesterday allowing me to upload all 51 photos from the phone's gallery into my laptop. the photos were taken from middle of last year upto just a few weeks ago documenting mostly how i have been spending my time when im neither working nor asleep: eating or having dessert with coffee, mostly hanging out with jp.

i remember a time when jp avoided rice and contented himself with bread and tuna for dinner. he would usually take his dinner after gym and ate at his office desk which was located right behind me. long gone are those tuna days. today, it seems we eat everything but bread with tuna.

there was a time when we would have "oreo w/ caramel sundae" at mcdonald's every day. another time when we would have "bunch o' lunch" at shakey's every friday. still another time when we're craving for ribs and steak. other past favorites or cravings are seafood teppanyaki, flame-grilled burgers, onion rings, donuts and jp's all-time favorite: pizza.

it's a good thing that jp and i have similar attitudes towards food and dining. we both like trying out new places to eat, obviously. but later on i have noticed that just like me, jp would often order the same dishes from these different restaurants. he would often have a favorite from a certain restaurant and would order that same dish the next time we visit the same place, with a few changes.

it is not seldom that our cravings are the same, either. here are some similarities we share when it comes to food:
(1) we both like pesto, tomato-based pasta with seafood
(2) we both like grilled fish, seafood especially with teppanyaki sauce
(3) we like baby back ribs and steak, barbeque
(4) we both like mango juice
(5) we both like coffee
(6) we both LOVE bread

there are a few differences also, but we seldom find problems with these. for example, jp likes his food extra hot and spicy so we always have to request for some hot sauce, tabasco or extra sili. jp hates talong and okra, so when we're having sinigang, these vegetables would often go to my plate. atsara which usually comes with barbecue are also often transferred to my plate, which i am always happy to accept.

some of the places we've frequented in the past are as follows:
(1) racks in megamall (for their baby back ribs)
(2) conti's in boni high street (for their filipino dishes, steaks, pastas and free coffee refill)
(3) brother's burger in boni high street (for their onion rings and flame-grilled burgers)
(4) teriyaki boy in market market (for their seafood teppanyaki and gyoza)
(5) selah in cybergate 2 (for their lunggo and cheesecakes)
(6) red kimono at the podium (for the seafood teppanyaki and tempura)
(7) when in malate, our favorite would be the kwago grill, on top of the blue room for the live acoustic music and cheap but good filipino dishes (P25 for a pork barbecue)
(8) when in eastwood city or the katipunan area, we would often dine in at fazoli's (to satisfy our pesto and garlic bread cravings) or stop-over at this Petron gasoline station near UP Diliman Campus and dine in at sicilian express (for some really good pizza and salad)
(9) when in quezon city on our way home to lola, we would sometimes stop-over at mister kebab along west avenue for some special chelo kabab with grilled tomato
(10) for our donut cravings, we go to krispy kremes at boni high (for my chocolate iced custard filled donuts) and go nuts donuts (for jp's pastillas de leche) at the Petron gasoline station in Katipunan or at the fort in taguig
(11) the coffee beanery in edsa shangri-la mall (for their pork & chicken adobo and tocino)

food featured above are from selah (cheesecake), kopi roti, sizzling pepper steak, sicilian (pizza), mcdo, UP isawan, conti's (coffee), crepes & cream, and texas smoke em (lime pie)

here are our other favorites, but have not had the chance to visit again:
(1) cafe ysabel (for the ambience and excellent quality of food) in san juan
(2) cafe juanita (for their bagnet and other filipino dishes) in mandaluyong city
(3) restaurant at the 31st floor of the vivere suites in alabang (for a fantastic view of the bay and the city)
(4) bag of beans in tagaytay (for their freshly-baked breads and fruit platter)

there are many other amazing restaurants we're interested to try out around the metropolis, restaurants you did not know existed but have had loyal followers throughout the years. i do not hope to be a food critique (i am far too simplistic for that), but i wish to get to know my city a little better and be able to share this experience of discovery and *wonder* with my friends and favorite people. if you have suggestions on where to eat next, please let me know!

here are other photos from our various food trips.

teriyaki girl

last night, i was supposed to meet a friend who said he wanted to meet me before he leaves for a 3-month assignment to malaysia. minutes before our scheduled meeting time, he called me up and told me he needs to stay overtime and finish some work due the following day. so, upon learning about our canceled date, i immediately IM-ed one of my APC friends and invited her to go malling with me instead. she had a better idea and immediately called up a mutual friend and asked her if she could join us. what turned out to be a dinner date for two became an instant barkada gimik on a thursday night! im not sure who suggested it, pero we decided to have dinner at teriyaki boy in glorietta. i excitedly said yes sure because i not only love japanese food but i have very fond memories about my dining experiences at the said restaurant -- sarap kasi talaga ng food nila and not too pricey. definitely much better than tokyo, tokyo (although i love tokyo tokyo's pork tonkatsu and tonkatsu sauce). at teriyaki boy, kanin pa lang masarap na talaga! i particularly like their gyoza and syempre, their various teriyaki dishes. the best talaga! and what's even better, i get to have dinner with two of my good friends at APC that night :)

-ooo-

weeks before that thursday, i attended a Japanese cooking class offered free by the company. in that class, i learned how to cook and prepare tempura and tempura sauce as well as kani salad. they're really easy to make, once you have all the ingredients you need. i can't wait to try them out on my own.

we came, we saw, we isaw-ed

One Sunday afternoon last month, my friends and I decided to go on an "Isaw Trip" to UP. Being members of the same photography club, I thought we were also going to take photos around the campus after eating. To my surprise, I was the only one who brought an SLR -- they were also surprised to see me armored with my camera. Anyway, I ended up not taking any photos that day because I was more interested in eating than anything else :)

one fine isaw day

For those of you who may be too sosy to be aware, isaw is grilled chicken intestines that you normally eat on a stick with vinegar to complement its bitter taste which by the way according to this food article is "fecal matter" or in other words, chicken jebs, hehe! yummy? :)

anyway, if interested in trying isaw or any other street food for that matter (including betamax), go to UP Diliman and ask to be dropped off near the Coop and the post-office. It's usually available at around 4PM. It's good with a diet coke :)