I'll Kiss You For Cake and Ice Cream

For lucky couples who wouldn't mind kissing in front of the cashier at Pepper Lunch, here's your chance to score Molten a la Modes on Valentine's Day.

I wouldn't mind doing this. :-)

May you be part of the first 100 couples.

Thou Shall Not Judge A Dessert by How It Looks Like: Flana Banana from Tapa King

It is said that we first eat with our eyes, and this is the reason why preparation is important when it comes to food. This is why food has to have color or else they won't be appetizing. They have to be the right colors, though. Nobody wants blue food (well, except for me. I made blue kwek-kwek at home once... but that's another story).

Desserts have to look rich and inviting and positively mouthwatering. You rarely see a beige dessert. There's always something to give it life, something to make people wanna buy it and eat it just at the sight of it.

And then there's flana banana. It looks pretty much lifeless. Like bananas drowned in a tub of milk with a few cubes of leche flan thrown at it to try to save it. Just look:


Pathetic, ain't it? I first had this dessert a few months back when I was perusing a Tapa King menu. I ordered this because 1) It has leche flan. 2) It has saba bananas. I thought it was like the most perfect combination ever. The only thing lacking was sago, seriously.

And you know what, I'm glad I did (it's awesome!) but I was wrecked from that point onward because I became addicted to it! LOLz. It must be the milk, or the flan, or the bananas swishing around in that puddle of milk and ice, but it's just perfect! To quote P, who shared it with me this last time: "Sa'n ba gawa to, sa paradise?" (Where was this made? In paradise?).

A closer inspection looks more promising:


Or maybe not quite. HAHAHA... It's saba bananas the way I like it, leche flan the way I like it, and milk the way I like it. Put three things you like and you're bound to have a great time, folks! And like I said, if they add sago, I'll probably be in heaven already. Or that's overkill? Hmm... Should I write to the Tapa King folks about the sago suggestion?

Try it once and see if you like it. If not, then at least you tried it. If you like it, then what's also nice about this is you could make it at home. Win!

Available at Tapa King outlets everywhere for P68 (but around P75 if you have it delivered because there's a 10% service charge).

Gising-Gising

According to the Yehey! Food Special, gising-gising is: a warm and spicy concoction combining coconut milk, chopped vegetables, and ground pork...

At least that's what the Gising-Gising from Recipes is.

This is the gising-gising that I love:
I know, I know. It doesn't look like much judging from the photos. But you can tell for one thing it doesn't have coconut milk in it.

While I now realize that the gising-gising I regularly get from the neighborhood carinderia (along Zapote St. in Sta. Cruz, Makati) is probably not the original version or might I even say correct version, I love it nonetheless. It was one of my staple foods back in my graveyard shift days, when my roommate would come home around lunch time equipped with a serving big enough for 4 people. At about 85php, we are absolutely loving this.

Believe it or not, this is actually pulutan food in that particular carinderia, along with the ubiquitous inihaw food. I love this version because it has lots of tofu (and P loves tofu to death) and lots of greens (as me and greens go way, way back in the lovin' vegetables category). As for meat content, it really doesn't have much, lest you count the quekiam and the chicharon liberally scattered all over. That place knows how to cook their veggies, too. The gising-gising always comes perfectly cooked, the greens still crunchy, the carrots never soggy, and the tofu even keeping its shape.

By the way, that is a mixing bowl over there. That's a lot of food for the 85php that it is. I often share this with P, but we always have a lot left over (good for 2 people to gorge on). Absolutely great with rice, but can be eaten without it too, for those watching their weight somewhat.

I'm sure the Recipes version is quite good, as attested by one of my friends, but I feel I'll still get back to this version time and again.

In fact, I think I'm getting one for dinner tonight! :-)

Testing the Waters

Since I haven't posted in God knows how long, I shall simply post a picture of one food I really enjoy:


It's 1 bilao of California maki, a staple in Christmas and birthday parties in P's office. Gotta love that. I know they buy it somewhere in Manila, and for about P350 you get one entire bilao of goodies. :-) Beat that.

Leave... for a while

Well, rest assured that Basta Food will be back with a vengeance once we all sort out this icky thing called WORK.

Yes, we still eat. It's just that we've all been too busy.

Watch out for new blogger J (another girl, yay!). She eats a lot too.

So hopefully you'll still be here when we get back from _eek_ working.

Support Your Team With Donuts!

Hey fellas!

KK sent me an email once again, this time heralding the release of their UAAP-themed donuts:


I personally am no FEU Tamaraws fan, but I really think their KK donut looks best. :)

Grab them while they're hot!

A Chicken Bacolod Dud

I grew up eating chicken inasal because there's a great inasal place where I lived as a kid, and my family literally went there every week. When I saw that Glorietta had a Chicken Bacolod outlet, I was all excited about trying the food there and perhaps introduce P to a real inasal experience, or something like that.

The dinner hour crowd

But bleeeeeeeh. I didn't like Chicken Bacolod at all. Sure it was full of people, but for me it was a disappointment. Seating was too cramped and they didn't accept credit cards. Okay, those I can live with. But the service pretty much sucked. I understand that it's the dinner hour and the place was probably understaffed, add to that the fact that it was cramped there, but we felt ignored. You know how it is when you ask for water or you ask for the bill (yes, the part when you're about to hand your money over to them) and they just pass you like you're not there or they look at you or they try to tell other waiters to take your table? Or when they somehow make you feel that pouring your drink or serving your food is such a chore. Yeah, something like that. Service was bad.

How about the food?

Believe me, I didn't want the Chicken Bacolod experience to be bad, but I was just really disappointed with it. Here's what P and I had:

Lipa Fresh Buko Juice - P60
Believe me when I say that the buko juice that Manong Magbubuko sells tastes much better.

Crabfat Rice - P65
P says it's quite good but a bit on the bitin side. Well, for a guy, that serving's quite small.

Pecho - P92
Initial reaction was: This is it? And it didn't taste like the inasal I remember so fondly! :-(

Sizzling Chicken Sisig - P165
It does taste like sisig but not quite. I'm undecided if I like this or not, but hey, we finished it.

I love to eat but it's quite rare that I find a place that I don't like. To quote my sister, "busog but not satisfied."

Should you want to try Chicken Bacolod yourselves, here's the link to pics of the menu:

Menu 1
Menu 2
Menu 3
Menu 4
Branches

Pacific Sun Pandan Iced Tea

Pandan has the reputation of making everything taste better in a quaint little way. It's at the same time sweet, fragrant, grassy, and because it's used to make rice fragrant, it brings back fond memories of meals gone by.

I remember having some sort of pandan drink at one of my visits to Oody's and it was quite interesting. Now, if you go to any of your friendly convenience stores, you may also find a pandan-flavored drink that will tickle your fancy. It's from Pacific Sun and it's called Pandan Iced Tea.

I wouldn't vouch for it being tea, though I suppose it really is tea. The taste is one I love because it reminds me of my childhood where I go to the plaza and drink samalamig. When drunk ice cold, Pandan Iced Tea tastes EXACTLY like sago gulaman. I have this notion in my head that I'd take two or three bottles of Pandan Iced Tea, plop them in the freezer, hurry to the market to buy ready-made sago, and then pour all of it in a pitcher for me to enjoy. :-) I've tried semi-frozen Pandan Iced Tea, but haven't had the time to buy the sago yet. Or better yet, buy those chewy "pearls" and have a go with it. It'd be great on a Sunday afternoon, dontcha think?

Now going to the nutrition facts at the back of the bottle, we see that this particular drink has no fat and no sodium. I know a few people who would certainly welcome that. Carb content, however, is something that people may bristle over. We know of people who are hell bent on erasing carbohydrates from their diets forever.

But for the sake of enjoying this unique drink, forget about crazy diets for a while and just savor the goodness of the pandan leaf in every bottle.

Krispy Kreme Addicts, This is for YOU!!!

I recently got this in the mail:

Hi Friend of Krispy Kreme!

We'd like to invite you to come on the opening of our 8th store - Krispy Kreme Mall Of Asia (factory & drive-thru store), beside SM Science Discovery Center. Opening day at a Krispy Kreme store is a fun event and we'd love to have you come by, join in the festivities and experience a Hot Original Glazed fresh off the line. Plus, here are more reasons why you should line up before the doors open on September 5, Friday at 10 a.m.;


You read it here first. ;-)

A Sick Girl's Breakfast

I've been out of commission from this blog because of work, and I thought I will not be decommissioned because of sickness. This morning I woke up with an aching throat and the case of the sniffles. My workload is the only thing that pulled me out of bed today.

So I hauled myself to work and still felt under the weather. I thought to myself I needed all the vitamin C I could get. So after my customary cup of coffee, I went down to buy myself breakfast:


From 7-11 I got two bottles of Tampico Citrus Drink. I wish they sold the bigger bottles, because I simply can't get enough of this drink. Parts of my childhood were spent in the States, and we always had a gallons of Tampico on hand. The combination of orange, tangerine, and lemon juices never fails to soothe my throat.

That odd-looking piece of a sandwich I got from Starbucks, using the PHP100 gift certificate a friend gave me. It's a (according to the barista) TMB sandwich. TMB is short for tomato, mozzarella, and basil. Tomatoes have vitamin C, basil has vitamin C, and so I think I've reached my vitamin C quota for today. This sandwich appealed to me because my friend J used to make tomato-cheese-basil sandwiches and we used to gobble them up. This reminded me of my friend, plus I seriously have a love for basil. This sandwich is not typical Filipino fare, and will probably not appeal to a great number of Pinoys, but it is worth a try if only to expand your tasting horizons.

And that's what a sick girl had for breakfast. I hope you had great breakfasts too! :-)