June 2021 – Jellybeans in the City

Salo-salo surprise from TravelEatPinas and Goodah!!!

For many of us Pinoys, food is part of our love language: in fact, kamustahans sometimes come in the form of “Kumain ka na ba?” and part of our welcome greeting to visitors is “Kain na kayo!”

For my fellow memshie Rowena of TravelEatPinas, it’s a way to touchbase with an old friend: me!

Having missed our chickahans over sumptuous spreads, she decided to send me a salo salo package from Goodah!!! that the fam and I can enjoy for our weekend lunch.

Just the name Goodah!!! evokes so much childhood memories. Since the 80’s, this restaurant chain has been the go-to place for people seeking fuss-free comfort food that appeals to down-home Pinoy palate such as the well-loved lugaw and silogs.

And with Pinoys spending more time at home nowadays, there are more opportunities to bond over a good meal.

Thanks to Goodah!!!’s Salo-Salo Meals, the fam can get together to enjoy the various ulam that everyone loves, share stories and experiences and spend time with the people who matter the most.

With Salo-Salo Meals at less than Php1,000 per set, memshies all over the metro can easily gather their loved ones over hearty meals that they won’t have to slave over in the kitchen.

My Salo-Salo Meal set for example, is made up of Pinoy classics:

Crispy Pata. This dish of deep-fried pork trotters is the centerpiece of many Pinoy hapag-kainans.

Beef Nilaga. “Pag may tiyaga, may nilaga.” is an adage that teaches us the value of perseverance because of the delicious rewards that await us, no doubt because the comforting nilaga is a reward in itself.

Lumpiang Shanghai. Whether as ulam or finger food, you can’t go wrong with this ubiquitous dish.

I’m ever so thankful that my memshie Rowena remembered me and gave my family and wonderful meal to share.

So if you’re thinking if I’m doing good now, well, yeah, I’m perfectly Goodah!!!

Other Salo-Salo Meal sets available include:

Set A: Pork Ribs, Kare-Kare and Garlic Kangkong with Pork
Set B: Pork Bistek, Pork Sinigang and Daing na Bangus
Set C: Herbed Chicken, Pork Liempo and Pinakbet

This Goodah!!! outlet is located at 9 Granada Street, Valencia,Quezon City, open daily from 7am to 10pm. For inquiries, call +63 2 88758124 or +63 2 82473188.

It delivers via GrabFood and FoodPanda.

#QuarantineCookbook: Triple Berry Crumble

As a busy mom with a sweet tooth, I’m sometimes torn between decadent desserts that satisfy my sweet cravings and nourishing ones that contribute to the fam’s health.

The solution to this dilemma is a happy balance between the two extremes: a tasty dessert made with wholesome ingredients.

And if the dish happens to be very easy to make, then so much the better, right?

Well, with the frozen mixed berries from Ate Ceres Grocer, I was able to whip up a Triple Berry Crumble in a jiffy.

Ate Ceres Grocer is a Caloocan-based enterprise that offers a selection of plant-based food. It’s frozen mixed berries, made up of strawberries, blueberries and raspberries, are available at Php190 per 500 grams.

Mixed berries became a pantry staple in my household as Hubby and I like to make smoothies for snacking on or for post-workout drinks, considering their myriad health benefits. They are considered superfood as they are loaded with antioxidants, fiber, vitamins and minerals, as well as helps in controlling inflammation, cholesterol levels and heart health.

Frozen mixed berries have the additional benefits of being readily available and convenient to store. As they are frozen immediately upon harvest, they retain their nutrients present at their peak of freshness.

By making a Triple Berry Crumble, the fam and I don’t just get a delicious dessert but also a lot of wholesome goodness.

Ingredients:

Berry filling:

1/4k (half a tray) of Ate Ceres Grocer’s mixed frozen berries
1 1/2 tbsp granulated sugar
1 1/2 tbsp all purpose flour
zest from 1/2 lemon
pinch of salt

Crumble topping:

1/2 cup old fashioned rolled oats
1/4 cup brown sugar
3 tbsp all purpose flour
1/4 cup cold butter, cut into small cubes

Procedure:

Toss all the berry filling ingredients together in a mixing bowl until well combined.

In a separate mixing bowl, combine all the crumble topping ingredients, mashing the butter into the rest of the ingredients until well incorporated.

Spread the berry mixture evenly into a 6-inch pie plate then cover with the crumble topping.

Bake in a pre-heated oven at 175 deg C for 45 minutes until the berry filling bubbles and the topping turns golden brown.

Serve slightly warm, topped with a few dollops of homemade vanilla ice cream.

Want to try this recipe? Order your frozen mixed berries from Ate Ceres Grocer on Facebook or Instagram.

Looking for other easy-to-cook dishes to try out? Check out my other kitchen adventures:

Rise and shine with Sinangag Express

We hear it all the time: it’s best to start our day with a hearty meal. After all, we need to have nourishment to fuel us for the day.

While some would go for breads or cereals as their starter meal, we Pinoys gravitate towards silogs.

Silogs are made with sinangag (fried rice) and itlog (fried egg) partnered with the ulam (viand) of choice. There’s something about day-old-rice that’s been sauteed with garlic and sunny-side-up fried eggs that perfectly frames the flavors of classic Pinoy breakfasts.

Take the items on offer at Sinangag Express, for example.

Adsilog (Php120). Silog paired with the sweet-sour-savory pork adobo flakes.

Lucbansilog Solo (Php160). Silog paired with garlicky links of authentic Lucban longganisa.

Ilocos Bagnet Meal (Php180). Silog paired with slices of authentic bagnet, an Ilocano dish made of pork belly seasoned with garlic, peppercorns, bay leaves and salt then deep-fried until crispy.

With these hearty morning meals, we’ll definitely have reasons to rise and shine, don’t we?

Fortunately, we can have these breakfast joys delivered to our homes via GrabFood. Plus, until June 15, we get Php100 off our Php550 minimum order from Sinangag Express since this is a GrabFood Signatures restaurant (code: SIGNATURES).

So order now and wake up to deliciousness!

This Sinangag Express branch is located at Food Court, Third Floor, Eastwood Cybermall, Libis, Quezon City.

Other branches are located at:

Pasig: Ortigas Technopoint
Mandaluyong: Worldwide Corporate Center
Taguig: Intellectual Property Center
Makati: San Antonio Village
Manila: Nakpil Street corner Taft Avenue, Dagonoy Street
Paranaque: Betterliving Subdivision, BF Homes
Muntinlupa: Northgate Cyberzone
Las Pinas: Alabang-Zapote Road

The Jelly List: Yummy national flavors to stoke your Pinoy Pride via GrabFood

With the Philippine Independence Day just around the corner, it’s definitely time to look back on some of the things that we can be proud of as a nation.

Being a foodie, I consider the sheer wondrous variety and flavor of Filipino cuisine as a definite achievement. Using our local ingredients and culinary traditions from our forbears as well as influences from foreigners and we produced a highly diverse, down-home yet flavorful array of dishes that are close to our hearts and appeal to our tastebuds.

Despite enjoying Filipino food in our hapag-kainan at home, we also go out and dine at Filipino restaurants because we simply can’t get enough of these flavors and we appreciate the unique spins that local chefs apply to our classic dishes.

And with the restrictions on dining out still in effect because of the pandemic, we are lucky that we can still have our Pinoy food cravings satisfied by our suking Filipino restaurants by having our favorite dishes delivered via GrabFood.

Check out latest #JellyList of Filipino dishes that you can enjoy at home:

Bulalong Lugaw by Soleras

The hearty rice porridge which serves as our go-to comfort food during rainy days just got a decadent makeover with the addition of hefty pieces of beef shanks (complete with bone marrow!).

Tanduay Double Rum Among the World’s Best, Wins Gold in NY Contest

Tanduay Double Rum won another top prize, this time from the New York International Spirits Competition (NYISC). It received a gold award in the rum category of the prestigious contest that drew more than 1,400 spirits from 37 countries and 34 states in the U.S.

Tanduay was the only Philippine brand among the gold medal winners in the rum segment.

“We are honored to be in the company of such esteemed names in the industry. It makes us even prouder that a Filipino company is in the ranks of the world’s top rums,” said Tanduay President and CEO Lucio Tan III.

Tanduay Double Rum is one of the company’s most-awarded products in the most recent years. It has received the 100-Point Century Award at the 2020 PR%F Awards Tasting Competition, getting a unanimous perfect store. It was also awarded a gold in the G100 International Wine & Spirits Awards in China.

Initially available in international markets, Tanduay Double Rum will be marketed in the Philippines by the end of the year.

Apart from Tanduay Double Rum, the NYISC also awarded Tanduay with the “Philippines Rum Distillery of the Year” award for 2021. Tanduay Asian Rum Gold and Boracay Cappuccino, meanwhile, received silver medals, and Tanduay Asian Rum Silver was awarded a bronze medal.

Tanduay Executive Vice President Kyle Tan said that these awards are a big boost to the company’s international expansion.
“We are proud that the world is taking notice of our Philippine-made products. It is not only an honor for Tanduay, but for our country as well,” he said.

Since taking the reins at Tanduay, the Tan brothers are expanding Tanduay’s market here and abroad through partnerships with top wines and spirits distributors in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, as well as introducing new products such as barrel-aged gin.

K-Chicken munchies with Chef Park’s newest flavor: Korean Buffalo!

As we’re all nearly a year and a half into the quarantine, I can say that one of its bright spots is the additional time that can be spent discovering new shows to watch, the bulk of which is comprised of Korean Dramas.

From fantastical tales like Goblin and Tale of the Nine-Tailed, to the stylized contemporary stories such as Crash Landing on You and Vincenzo, K-dramas have done a lot to banish the ennui of quarantine life.

What makes K-drama bingeing even more enjoyable are the food you munch on while watching, yes?

How about some Korean Chicken, then?

Imagine yourself feasting on crisp boneless chicken pieces with tender and juicy meat smothered in flavorful glazes, giving rise to new chicken possibilities.

One such possibility is online fried chicken store Chef Park’s newest flavor: Korean Buffalo!

The spicy and tangy chicken dish was said to have sprung from the city of Buffalo, New York, when Anchor Bar owner Teresaa Belissimo whipped up a fresh take on fried chicken by deep-frying some chicken wings and glazing them with a mixture of hot sauce, butter and cayenne pepper to feed her son’s visiting friends.

Now, imagine that New Yorker-style chicken getting a Korean make-over and you get Chef Park’s Korean Buffalo Chicken.

Chef Park’s crispy on the outside while tender and juicy on the inside chicken pieces are now glazed with a Buffalo-style sauce, making a zesty, bold and spicy dish that’s sure to excite chicken lovers.

Enjoy it as a Solo Happy Meal together with Kimchi Rice for Php295, or get a Chicken Sharing Box good for two to four people for Php495.

Get ready to stream more of your favorite K-dramas while munching on this new K-chicken masterpiece.

You may also opt for Chef Park’s 100% addicting chicken flavors: spicy and tasty Yangyum, sweet and savory Soy Garlic, rich and buttery Garlic Parmesan, and the previously limited-edition flavor but now a mainstay Truffle Honey.

Chef Park’s is a cloud kitchen that operates from #23 9th Avenue, Cubao, Quezon City (between Col. B Serrano Avenue and Liberty Avenue), accepting orders from 10am to 7pm daily.

To order, call +63 977 8030111, email chefparksph@gmail.com or visit its website.

The Manila Hotel’s Café Ilang-Ilang opens doors to diners

Are you excited to visit your favorite hotel restaurant again? Which food station will you be making a beeline for? Which favorite dish will you be asking for first? Well, we have good news for you!

The Manila Hotel’s famed Café Ilang-Ilang has once again opened its doors to valued clients. The hotel has been responding to queries about the outlet’s reopening. After reviewing the guidelines, as well as heightening health and hygiene protocols, the decision to open Café Ilang-Ilang is an answer to persistent inquiries from its loyal guests and those who have yet to experience it.

The food stations will once again be teeming with exciting dishes, and the aroma of your favorites will surely call out to you as you approach them. As the world-class chefs are busy behind glass enclosures, diners can go around the restaurant in their face masks and face shields to check various food stations. Because of existing guidelines for dining establishments, Café Ilang-Ilang has implemented the Order & Eat-All-You-Can System, where guests can point to what they want from the spread, and it will be plated for them.

Café Ilang-Ilang serves international selections from Japanese, Chinese, Italian, Korean to everything in between; even Halal. You can get your grilled meats at the popular Churrasco station, or the beloved lechon at the Filipino station. You will surely be spoiled in this gourmand’s haven. See if you can resist the selection of desserts, or the local fave and Halo-Halo—the perfect treat to beat the heat!

A gastronomic feast also awaits guests with an amazing gift voucher deal, giving you more reasons to come and visit us. For just P3,000 nett (lunch) and P3,500 nett (dinner), diners can indulge in our vast array of culinary creations. These non-expiring dining vouchers for two are available for purchase until June 20, 2021. They can be redeemed anytime at Café Ilang-Ilang but prior reservation is recommended.

Café Ilang-Ilang still implements physical distancing and reduced capacity measures that are compliant with the IATF and DOT guidelines for restaurants, so you can be sure that #YouAreSafeHere when you come and visit.

The outlet opens for lunch at 11:30am, and dinner at 5:30pm with last call for orders at 8pm. For more information and reservations, please call 8527-0011 or 0998-9501912 or email to restaurantrsvn@themanilahotel.com. You may also book online.