Foodtrip Flashback | Bulalo Fiesta (Regalado)

The day cousin Joyce graduated from college, we had a family gathering to celebrate a big moment of her life at the Regalado branch of Bulalo Fiesta.

Lunch with Momskie and Sisterette

My mother recently filed for permanent membership for PhilHealth and because my sister and I are quite paranoid with mom traveling alone (she worked near our place until she retired last July), so I went with her and sister met us at PhilHealth after her shift. Mom's business was done at 11am, and since we were all out, we decided to do a side trip at SSS where mom submitted documents for her retirement benefits. Everything was done before noon time, and for lunch, we just went to KFC, which is just walking distance from the building.


For lunch, we went for the lunch set - 6 pieces chicken, 3 cups of rice, 3 regular sized fixins, and three cups of drink. Sister and I went for the hot & crispy and original recipe chicken combo while mom went for 2 pieces of original recipe chicken and for the fixins, sister and I both went for the coleslaw while mom opted to go for macaroni salad. Drinks.. all of us had a cup of 7-Up.

I have always loved their hot & crispy chicken because it was really, really, spicy... and it tasted so good with the coleslaw. The original recipe chicken on the other hand was something I am not really fond of because I find it salty, but the one thing that turned me off (slightly) was their gravy. KFC's gravy was the best until they decided to let diners go for unlimited gravy, where everyone used the gravy as sauce for their rice (imagine rice swimming in a pool of gravy), even slurping it like a thick soup. Now, regardless of which branch I visit, the gravy tasted a little burnt and very far from how it tasted back then.

Still, KFC is one of the places my sister and I crave for every now and then. Whenever we are craving for fried chicken, it's either KFC or McDonald's for us.


Lately, KFC launched a new food "innovation" called Cheezy Bacon Fest. Choices included Rice Meal, Pasta Bowl, Zinger, Twister, Chick'n Fillet, Mashed Potatoes, and what my sister ordered - a Bucket of Fries... all with cheese sauce and chopped bacon.

My thoughts? I think this one's a little too salty for my liking. KFC's French Fries are good enough as is... actually, I think theirs is one of the tastiest fries out there and smothering it with cheese sauce and bacon is a little too much. My sister enjoyed it because she loves fries and cheese, but as for me, I will just stick with the regular fries and will just try the other cheesified and baconized products... the mashed potato and Zinger sounded good, I might go for that next time.

Farm to Table: Organic Gourmet Cuisine by Chef Robby Goco at The Maya Kitchen

Busy lives made us go for quick fix meals, often going for the instant kind. Likewise, the need to produce a bountiful harvest has allowed many farmers to use fertilizers and pesticides, which... whether we admit or not, has an effect on our bodies. Nowadays, there are just so many kinds of illnesses, and the way we eat has always had a contribution to it.

Clean eating is still something I haven't totally embraced, honestly. I love eating fast food and junk food... and I am still having problems jumping on the Organic way of cooking and eating because we all know that organic ingredients are very expensive and our location is way too far from the few stores that sell organic products.

Organic eating and cooking is now slowly gaining spotlight, maybe because of the many illnesses people are suffering now. As they say, prevention is always better than cure.



Last Saturday, The Maya Kitchen featured Chef Robby Goco of Green Pastures Original Local Organic restaurant. Opening the restaurant took him many years because he wanted everything on the restaurant to be organic and locally sourced as much as possible. He is very firm about the ingredients used in the dishes served in the restaurant, that they make their own ketchup, mustard... and that Chef Robby personally know the farmers and where he sourced his ingredients. He even knows the person who planted the Olive trees where the olive oil used in the restaurant came from as well as the person who makes the salt for the restaurant. Same goes for the meat.

The event was the longest one I attended at The Maya Kitchen because everything was made from scratch. We were taught how to make our own tomato sauce without the aid of food processor and blender as well as making homemade ricotta cheese. Aside from these, we were also taught some tips about transitioning to organic eating and where to buy organic produce.

For this class, we were taught seven dishes:


Cheesy Kale
A very simple salad that used Kale, Pecorino Romano cheese, Olive Oil, and Sherry Vinegar. I love salads, but I am not big on cheese because I feel it's the cheese and the dressing that makes the salad packed with calories somewhat "unhealthy," but this one was good. I loved the contrast between the tangy vinegar and the salty cheese. By the way, if you want to know where to buy Organic Kale, you may purchase it at any Sugarleaf branches.


Arugula and Apples Salad
This salad was something Chef Robby came up with when he ran out of this certain vinegar for the salad. Using Granny Smith Apples, which we all know is known of its sour flavor, it provided a fruity twist to cut the bitterness of the arugula. I love, love, love Arugula leaves, and I just loved the flavors of this salad!


Ricotta on Toast, Onion Jam, and Roasted Garlic
Thankful for this event, I now know how to make our own Ricotta Cheese. We were also taught how to make the Onion Jam, which was very easy to do despite its long cooking time.


Pumpkin Toast
This had the same concept as the other appetizer, only that this used mashed baked pumpkins and maple onions together with the homemade ricotta cheese. Between the two appetizers, I preferred this one because I loved the natural sweetness of the pumpkins. This might be an appetizer, but it can also be a meal on its own.


Young Goat Bolognese Pasta
Chef Robby told us that one of the best meat we could feed ourselves and our family is goat meat because not only is it leaner, goats also eat grass mainly. The only problem with using goat meat is the "anggo" factor, but for this dish, certain ingredients were used to counter that negative flavor to the goat meat. This one was a very unique pasta for me as this was the first time I got to taste goat meat with spaghetti.


Seafood Cioppino
One of the best soups I have tasted because it was packed with a lot (and I mean a lot) of seafood - crab, prawn, squid, fish, clams, and mussels. A lot of seafood had the tendency to fight each other flavor-wise, but because not all of the seafood were cooked in the same pot, it allowed each ingredient to have its own shine. I also loved the smooth yet chunky homemade tomato sauce.


Honey Comb Dessert with Greek Yogurt and Lemon Curd
You read it right... this dessert had real honey comb. This white honey comb was sourced in Batangas, where the bees feasting on nectar from rambutan flowers produced white honey comb. The lemon curd was the actual star of this dessert as it provided the most flavor in the dish, and it was really good!

Organic eating and cooking is still a working progress for me. It will be very difficult for me to go with it because most of the meat at the market were from animals that were fed with factory produced feeds, but I guess vegetable would be easier to source because we can always plant our own and it would be cheaper than buying organic vegetables.

If you're looking for a restaurant that serve Organic dishes, you can visit Green Pastures at the Shangri-La Mall.