SARSA Kitchen + Bar (SM Mall of Asia)

The day we stayed at Microtel at Wyndham, we decided to have late lunch at SARSA Kitchen + Bar. Our objective that time was to eat simple, but as we walked around, I thought about this restaurant because I have heard so many raves, and knowing Chef Jayps is one of the popular celebrity chefs in the country, I thought it was just right that we try what the restaurant has to offer.


Entering the restaurant, one would think it was small, but it was more spacious past the bar area...and it had more natural light, too. The overall look of the place was very pleasant to the eyes, and we just loved the paintings and hand-lettered menu on the walls.

It was difficult to think of what dishes to order, but in the end we chose -


Pancit Molo
This is after all, a Negrense restaurant, might as well try one of the well known dishes from the region. The soup was a little salty for our liking, but it was very tasty. Very light way to start the meal.


Chicken Inasal Sisig
It was so unfortunate that I decided to leave the camera in our room, and that this image was of inferior quality, but believe me when I say that it was indeed sizzling (the heat of the plate was able to cook the egg well) and that this tasted really, really, good! Everything I wanted in a chicken inasal was there, and the addition of egg, onions, and garlic added more to the flavor.


Isaw (Chicken Intestines)
The raves given by my friend Gie for this dish was the biggest reason why I wanted to eat here. For someone like me who frequently buy chicken intestines at 5 pesos per stick, it was a big risk ordering this. With a whopping price tag of 185 pesos, I had this thinking that it better be good, or I will be totally disappointed. It was sad that it only had three sticks (a blog post I saw had 5 sticks), but my oh my... the raves were real - it was effing delicious! It was crispy yet chewy, and because the intestines were cut lengthwise and cleaned really well, it didn't have that bitter taste ever present in the isaw sold in sidewalks. For a while we were trying to dissect it and think how it was cooked, but we all said we'd rather buy it here than do all the steps in recreating it. This is quite an exaggeration, but not really - if I could marry a food, I would marry this one. Yep, it was that awesome...at least for my liking.

Every dish was great. It was filled with umami goodness, and we liked that we didn't go wrong in choosing to eat here. However, as common people who don't earn too much, we thought that the price was a little expensive given the amount of food per serving. Personally, the girls and I still highly recommend this place, but please prepare your wallet should you decide to eat here. Worry not, their food will truly satisfy your hungry tummies.

Miscellaneous January Food Pics

This week was quite a blah for me, because I had to endure a whole lot of sneezing every day. Worst day was last Thursday, but since yesterday, the sneezing lessened, though I am now experiencing itchiness around my eyes and forehead. I really should be taking anti-histamine, but I don't really like taking meds.

Anyway, I haven't tried any new recipes and we haven't been to any food trips lately, so in an effort to update this blog, I decided to just share some food pictures I have on my phone. Now, most of these weren't plated or composed well; I took these pictures mainly to remember the day by, or to share to my sister who is usually not eating dinner with mom and I.


>>> On the second day of 2016, my sister and I went to Quiapo Church, then to SM Manila after, where had snacks at Starbucks so she could finally claim her 2016 Starbucks Planner. It was my first time to try their Corned Beef Pandesal, and though it tasted like any ordinary pandesal filled with corned beef, but I liked the idea of these three pandesal joined together.

>>> My sister and I bought chicken and requested mom to cook Arroz Caldo for dinner. However, when we got home, mom already cooked something for dinner, but the next day, she surprised us by cooking it for our breakfast. Thank you mommy.

Recipe | Garlic Parmesan Wings

It is true, planning what to cook for a few people. For Noche Buena, my sister and I decided we will go for finger food, and among the different dishes we lined up, we both voted for Nachos and Chicken Wings. She allowed me to choose the flavor for the wings, and because I am not (now) into spicy food (heartburn), I searched thru YouTube for different wings recipes.



I came across CopyKat Recipes by Stephanie Manley, who posted a video tutorial for Wingstop's Garlic Parmesan Chicken Wings. I still haven't dined at Wingstop, but this sounded good, so I jot down the recipe and made it on Christmas Eve.

Stephanie's original recipe -

Wingstop Garlic Parmesan Chicken Wings
Serves - 4


Ingredients

• 2 pounds chicken wings
• 2 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons seasoned salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup butter
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese
• Parsley for garnish - if desired

How to Cook

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 
• Blend together flour, seasoned salt, cayenne pepper and ground black pepper. Cut wings and dredge them in the flour. 
• Heat oil to 350 degrees. Fry wings for about 5 to 7 minutes, and then drain on a wire rack. Depending upon the side of your pot fry 5 or 6 wings at a time. Be sure to stir the wings once during cooking to make sure that the wings cook evening. Cook the wings until they just begin to brown. 
• Bake wings for about 15 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.
• Prepare the sauce by melting the butter and the garlic powder in a small pan. 
• When the wings have finished cooking in the oven place the wings into a large bowl. 
• Stir in half of the Parmesan cheese into the melted butter. 
• Pour the melted garlic butter over the wings and toss until the wings are well coated.
• Serve the wings by sprinkling the remaining Parmesan cheese top of the wings.

I only cooked six pieces (from 3 full wings), so I kinda just eye-balled the amount of ingredients to be used. I cooked this around 11pm on Christmas Eve, and only have an hour to cook, so I went for full frying method, skipping the baking part. For this recipe, I went for the double-fying technique, frying three pieces of chicken on low/medium heat for about 10 minutes, allowing it to rest while I fry the next batch. As soon as the second batch rests, I will re-fry the first batch of chicken in medium/high heat until it becomes golden and crispy. Right after taking this batch off the oil, I then coat it with the sauce and repeat the process with the second batch.

Since this is the first time I cooked such dish, I was a little hesitant in adding garlic powder, so the lack of garlic taste was evident. Even so, the dish tasted good, and the parmesan cheese gave it a new kind of saltiness that we really liked. A fairly easy dish to cook, for sure I will cook this again, but the next time I do, I might marinade the chicken in milk and garlic and I might use real garlic cloves while melting the butter. I didn't make a dipping sauce for this, I just added in some drops of hot sauce for a little kick. I will update this post once I try this recipe again.
 

Christmas 2015

For the last few years, us siblings always try to plan our Christmas and New Year's Day menus, and when my brother still lives with us, my sister and I would take care of Christmas Day menu, while brother takes care of our New Year's Day menu. Now that brother has relocated himself south of the country, it's just my sister and I taking care of what food to be served. This year, it was difficult to choose what to serve because our food preferences changed and that personally, I am not much into food as I was years ago, and with no expected visitors, not only was it hard to think what dish to serve, it was also hard to gauge the amount of food to be cooked.


For the Noche Buena, I suggested sister we just prepare some sort of finger food, as it would be midnight and we would be sleeping after two hours or so. With the help of YouTube (my go to site for all things foodish it seems), I was able to see a simple take on making Garlic Parmesan Wings, which immediately made it on our list as it wasn't spicy, a good alternative to Buffalo Chicken Wings, that might upset our tummies given that time of the day. Recipe for this dish will be shared in the days to come.

Sister prepared Nachos, her favorite finger food / appetizer. We did buy a bottled salsa because it was more convenient to go for instead of mixing different spices. The cheese sauce, she personally cooked, based on my suggestion. A bottle of cheese sauce I found expensive, and the powdered kind sold at a popular nachos snack cart I didn't find appetizing, and even if I was ready to make the cheese sauce using my own muscle power, my sister took over for me as she has made this for school project in college. A simple food to share with the family, but my gosh, we loved it so much!

The Fruity Macaroni Salad was given by our next door neighbor (and very awesome friend), and we were very thankful for it because our mom loves macaroni salad, but we were skeptic to prepare one as it would be tricky to gauge the amount of ingredients needed for a small serving.

For the cake, we first thought about baking Crema de Fruta, but my sister's friend gave us this Choco-Chip Pound Cake from S&R, so this cake saved us energy and time. The Crema de Fruta we will just prepare for New Year's Day.


For Christmas Day lunch, it became a minced meat themed one, something I never really planned initially. I did want to cook Cabbage Rolls as I wanted to try if I can recreate the dish served to us by dad's aunt one Christmas season long ago. I was happy to have created something I was happy about. The sauce I found a wee bit sour, but my mom and my sister both loved it, so I guess I did good with it.  Recipe for this, like the one for the Garlic-Parm Wings will be shared in the next days.

The pasta. We knew we wanted to serve pasta, but the thing was, we forgot to set a decision! Come Christmas morning, sister just asked me to cook the typical Pinoy Spaghetti, but while cooking the Cabbage Rolls, I realized both would use minced meat and tomato sauce, so I decided to just go for carbonara-ish like sauce, but like I said, we never had a concrete decision for this, so we didn't have bacon or ham, only minced meat! Well, in the end, we did enjoy the lunch, and adding the leftover cheese sauce from last night's Nachos, it made our Creamy Cheesy Spaghetti a lot more satisfying.

For our dessert / pastry, we just served a box of brownies given to mom by one of her friends.



Happy holidays from us!

Café Yagam (Baguio City)

The day we arrived in Baguio City for the After Summer Group Getaway organized by Azalea Residences, the afternoon was actually a little humid despite the rainshowers. I didn't actually pack any jackets and sweatshirts, and it felt okay that way... but when we were called for dinner, spending time at Azalea Residences Baguio's lobby made me feel the very cold Baguio weather. It made me crave for something warm.




Thankfully, the Azalea Baguio team took us to Café Yagam. By the time we disembarked the vans, the rain was pouring hard so I wasn't able to capture some needed images, but entering the café, I instantly fell in love. I don't have the pictures to back it up, but it felt homey inside, and I just love the overall aesthetics and of course, the books! Oh man, the books!

For this dinner, we were served traditional Cordilleran dishes:


Rice
If I am correct, this is called pirurutong rice; I remember a family friend once gave us this kind of rice and we would mix a handful of this to our usual rice upon cooking. Anyway, this rice is soft and a pleasure to eat; cooked just right.


Binungor
A mix of different vegetables such as string beans, eggplants, legumes, mushrooms, shellfish, and banana blossoms, this dish is delicious but very... and I mean very spicy! Unlike other vegetable dishes that are usually half-cooked, the veggies in this dish are very soft and tender, and it felt like eating "Laing." I actually liked this dish, but I just couldn't take its heat. I'd either eat more rice or drink more water if I eat this.


Pinikpikan
Of all the Cordilleran dishes, this should be the most popular dish, and yes, this is a soup dish - kinda like the tinola, but for this dinner, they served the broth separately - we just had to get a bowl and fill it with broth, chicken, and vegetables.

Pinikpikan is chicken prepared by beating a live chicken with stick before properly dressing it for cooking. This process bruises the chicken meat, hence the blackish tones on its skin, and such process makes the meat more flavorful.

It tasted like Tinola, but this one is richer, and more flavorful. The broth calms the body, but I suggest you add tapuy (rice wine) on the broth for additional flavor.


Kini-ing
The Pinikpikan in Café Yagam is served with "Etag," which is how they called their cured meat. Although Kini-ing is also a form of cured meat, this is definitely different from Etag. Preparing this dish is quite complicated, and the process gave the meat its very distinct flavor and smell.

This has been the richest (flavor-wise) dish I ate that night. It paired well with tomatoes and onions, but even if I am a big fatty pork lover (I love pork fat, I won't deny it), each meat piece was so flavorful and so strong that I could only take a few pieces.


Pinuneg
Pinuneg is the Cordilleran Blood Sausage, but this is not made entirely of blood - it also has minced meat. Dinuguan is my top most favorite Filipino dish, so of all the dishes for this dinner, this was my favorite. I loved it with the spicy vinegar dip, but as is, it is still delicious!


Kiniwar
Our dessert. "Kiniwar" in Ilocano dialect means "stir," which was the main process in making the sticky rice dessert. Not too sweet, but it provided a much needed change of feel in the mouth after eating the very spicy Binungor.

Café Yagam takes pride of their coffee. In partnership with the CGN or the Cordillera Green Network, a non-profit organization, they source their coffee from the highlands of the Cordillera region. To ensure freshness of coffee, they only grind beans upon order and is available in different variations:

Brew - Paper drip or French press
Roast - Light, Medium, or Dark
Strength - Light, Medium, or Strong


Coffee in French Press
I wasn't able to ask the components of this coffee, but I kinda liked it as is - black. One thing we noticed, coffee served in this French press tend to retain its heat longer.


Tapuy (Rice Wine)
Made from fermented rice, this alcoholic drink is often served at many Cordilleran celebrations. I first learned about this wine through my late father, who used to stock this wine when I was younger, but it was my first time to taste Tapuy here in Café Yagam (I am not really wine drinker actually). At first I was a little hesitant, but... I am in Baguio, I am served authentic Cordilleran drink, would I still decline?

The taste? It was a little sour, but it was smooth. It instantly warmed my throat and tummy, but despite the sour flavor, there is something in this wine that would make you want to take another shot.

The traditional Cordilleran dishes are good, but I admit it was an acquired taste. Still, I highly recommend this place if you are in Baguio City. Like they say, "When in Rome, do or eat as they eat," in the same principle, when in Baguio, might as well try their traditional dishes. It's not only a about having a food trip, each dish and drink has history and culture to offer.

Café Yagam
25 J. Felipe Street, corner Gibraltar Road, Baguio City
+63 948 958 5157, +63 921 256 5677, +63 946 455 0364
Business hours: 11 a.m. – 11 p.m. (Monday – Sunday)
Facebook Page


*** Jenn ***

The Jollibee Glazed Chickenjoy - #Extraordinarilicious!

Whenever there is something new at Jollibee, we here in the family seemed to want to try it as soon as possible. The glazed fried chicken seemed to be the trend, and I have tasted a few of those, so when Jollibee came up with their own version - the Glazed Chickenjoy, I knew I just have to try it out.

chicken for dinner, book for dessert

My first taste of it wasn't as good as I hoped - it was too sweet for my liking, kinda like eating Chicken Tocino, but there's something in it that I liked, so while the first taste didn't send me to the moon, it was something I am still looking forward to eat in the future. My sister loved it a lot, and told me maybe the one I ate was already cold that's why I didn't appreciate it much. She knows I prefer my soy chicken / glazed fried chicken piping hot.

the book is mine, by the way.

Last Valentine's Day, friends at Jollibee sent me this bucket of Glazed Chickenjoy, and it was great timing because it was lunch time, and my mom and I haven't cooked yet (we just spent VDay at home). It was still very hot, so thinking of what my sister told me about my last Glazed Chickenjoy experience, I said to myself that if I still didn't quite like it while it was still hot, then probably this food and I aren't on the same page.

Well, I loved it the second time around. The sauce wasn't so sweet like it was the first time, it had a good mix of sweet and savory (the classic Chickenjoy flavor is very much present), and it was simply Extraordinarylicious! When I told my sister about it, all she could say was "Now you know you have to eat it as soon as possible." What I loved - the chicken cuts are big, the chicken are juicy and very flavorful on the inside, and that they didn't skimp on the glaze.

I can see my reflection... hahaha.

The gift I received contained these cute IOU Coupons... some already have prints, some were blank, which I could fill out using the red pen. This coupon made me laugh - told my mom "Can I just give you a bear hug instead?" Hahahaha, I am so lazy to clean my room, that's why.

The Jollibee Glazed Chickenjoy is now available in all Jollibee stores nationwide, the Jollibee Glazed Chickenjoy meal with rice and a regular drink is at 90 pesos, while their Super Value Meal with a side dish of buttered corn is for 102 pesos. If you want to go for sharing, you may go for the bucket meals - 6-piece bucket with 3 rice and drinks is at 378 pesos while the 8-piece bucket with 4 rice and drinks is at 499 pesos. If you want the best of both Chickenjoy worlds, go for the mix of classic Chickenjoy and the Glazed Chicken, so everybody will be happy.

*** Jenn ***