Vacation is never about healthy food!

When on vacation, forget your diet and just dig in.

The best way to experience the culture is to do as the locals do. Eat what they eat is the best advice I have ever received and I have never refused it... to an extent.

My favorite places to eat are not high-end restaurants but hole-in-the-wall eateries and street carts that line the main road and the small sois in the CBD.

One such place is Hai Som Tam restaurant on soi Convent. The locals simply refer to it as Som Tam Convent. This is where I had my first (and so far, the best) som tam. I loved it so much that I repeatedly mentioned it in many of my posts.

I arrived the night before Songkran so the Pinoys were on holiday and had a couple of days of get-togethers involving mostly Pinoy food. Not bad, except I was here to escape all that! Durnit.

Babawi ako, shempre! So yesterday, I had a feast with Momsie and Popsie on the last holiday this week. Thank heavens Hai was open.

Thai-philes, drool away!

 

Tilapia roasted while encased in salt - juicy and not salty at all!

In Thai, fish is pla. So you can say this dish was salt-encrusted tilapla. Ay, corny... Uhurm! Moving on:

Thubwan (sp?) - barely-cooked pork liver. Those are mint leaves.

Kha moo yang - roasted pork neck.
Sinfully delicious. That green dip is AWESOME!

Squid and shrimp with ramen-like noodles. I don't like this one, but Mom and Pop scarfed it down.

som tam kai-kem - papaya salad with salted duck eggs.
This is LOVE!

khao niew - sticky rice. On the background is that insanely delicious dip I will most certainly be copying!

Heaven on earth: Roll some khao niew into a ball, dip in som tam dressing, LAFANG!
 

Tonight, I'm going out in search of Khun Chao and his lovely roti - with camera in hand - on soi Phiphat 2. Wish me luck!

Pinoy Fiesta in foreign soil

When Pinoys get together, there are three things that are consistent in those gatherings - regardless of location. This is true even in foreign soil: karaoke, inuman (imbibing alcohol), and food.

Lots and lots of food.

To wit:

pansit bihon chock-full of sahog

 

sweet pork barbecue

 

calderobo - the bastard (and yummy) child of adobo and caldereta

  

lumpiang Shanghai - na wala naman sa Shanghai

There was also sinigang na ulo ng salmon at hipon. Or maybe I should have written HIPON. Do you agree?

 

Major major hipon! The orange thing, not the girl in white =P

There were also not-so-Pinoy stuff but I have no complaints. Everything was awesome!

apple and raisin crumble - so good!

 

grape tomato, basil, mozarella, and prosciutto bites - I had five of these. Not sorry!

 I also stuffed my face with five servings of my favorite Thai dessert: khao niew ma muang!

mango with sticky rice: sweet, salty, sticky, juicy, and extremely satisfying

I am SO glad I have six more days here in Bangkok. I will attack street food next... if only going out didn't mean getting wet and having to wash out chalk from my hair!

Blast From The Past: The Kimchi-fication of Kasseopeia (part 2)

So I went through my blog archives and happened upon a treasure trove of pictures from my Seoul trip that I never posted about. It also came as no surprise that more than 70% of the pictures were of food/drinks.

I like Korean food, though not as much as I like other Asian cuisine such as Japanese, Thai, Filipino, Chinese, or Vietnamese. Suffice to say that it is always in my top ten list of things to eat when I am hungry. Korean will be one of the choices, always.

I like how Korean food is characterized by their ban chan/pan chan - a small assortment of dishes that go with your rice and main viand (my absolute favorite was the zucchini dipped in egg then fried, second is the marinated whole mushroom). This was how we had our food served in our Seoul office: personal ban chan on a silver tray. Most of my favorite meals, I had in our office cafeteria. If our Philippine office did this, I'd be ten times happier come mealtime.

It was the tail end of autumn when we arrived in Seoul and the temperature swung from a "balmy" 4C to a chilling -11C with wind. As such, we did not expect a lot of fresh produce to be available, as NOTHING grows in winter (except my waistline from all the ice cream, but I'll get to that later). So imagine my surprise when I found that out office cafeteria served - along with soup, rice and the various trappings of a traditional Korean meal - fresh greens mixed in with... whatever it was that made kimchi hot and spicy and nasal-passage-clearing good!

The vegetables there were spectacular, as one would expect from a colder climate. The broccoli was bright green, the asparagus was tender and sweet, and the cabbage was bigger than my hand. It is SO easy to go vegetarian/vegan with such a plethora of options. This is winter picking, imagine how much wider the variety would be come spring/summer! (Kikeun did tell me that most of their produce is imported. Apparently, there's not much flat land in South Korea for agricultural endeavors).

The fruits are a-ma-zing too! Where in the Philippines can you get ten huge pieces of sweet, luscious kiwi for only KRW5,000 (about $5 = Php 250)?!? You can bet your pwet I gorged on these things. Usually 8 to a KRW5,000 pack - I horded four packs at the grocery section of Shinsegae mall and ate it all in less than a week. Those strawberries are said to be imported from Japan. They cost a pretty penny too... about KRW8,000 (about $8 = Php 400) for 250 grams. But considering how sweet, juicy and downright sinful they were - it was worth it!

Korean-style tonkatsu, spiral-cut potato chips, a HUGE Zinger from KFC, fish-shaped griddle cakes filled with red bean paste

The savories are NOTHING to scoff at either. While the paeans to commercialism and globalization are here in the most wired city - Starbucks, KFC, McDonald's, Dunkin' Donuts - there still are some traditional savories to be had. KFC was a very strange experience for me. I loved how HUGE and spicy their Zinger was, but my one-piece hot and crispy thigh (the size of my open hand) felt dry and lonely without gravy. They'd offer ketchup and hot sauce but still... =( However, these spiral potato chips were a revelation. I had them from a street vendor in the night market over at Myeong Dong. This was way before all of the similar carts popped up here in Manila. Sliced, skewered, dunked in hot oil and liberally doused with fine salt - this was a finger-licking salty hot snack on a cold day (-4C with wind! Brrrr....)

To wash everything down, here are my top three favorite things to drink in Seoul:

Despite being lactose intolerant (or a degree thereof), I thoroughly enjoyed each sip, glug and chug I had of strawberry milk. I think this one is made by Seoul Milk, whose plain full fat milk was a dream to sip on - ice cold and LBM-inducing.

Next up is Chilsung Cider. For those familiar with Sprite and Mountain Dew, it's like a combination of both. The clear lime-ness of the the Sprite with the kick of Mountain Dew... except this one is caffeine free (Mountain Dew has a LOT of caffeine). For me, it's just a refreshing bubbly drink to sip on straight from the fridge, despite the chilly weather. Oh, our office cafeteria offers it for free as an alternative to water. (In fact, in most places here, soda is refillable)

The third is rice tea. I like tea - in all forms and from all sources. I like the Japanese mugicha made of toasted barley. This one from toasted rice is similar - there is an unmistakeably nutty flavor that screams "toasted grain" while the mellow tea-ness of it all is pleasant to the tongue. Some venues offer this warm (think of a fridge that keeps things warm rather than cold) probably due to the season, but I prefer it ice-cold.

In general, I like eating cold food despite the cold weather. That meant ice cream!!!

This is but a small fraction of my ice cream horde, since 90% of my consumption went unphotographed. Ice cream was up to 40% off since it was winter, but hot damn if that was going to stop me (the weather, not the price slash). Mr Jong, the friendly owner of the grocery/cafeteria in our apartment complex, had a HUGE stash of them in his freezer. He must have thought me crazy to be dashing out in -8C weather in pajamas and a sweater... in socks and slippers! That may have been reinforced by the fact that I bought at least 8 bars in one go. No surprises... I stayed in Seoul for 49 days. I must have eaten 49 servings of ice cream.

Last but not least: sweets. I blame Momsie for passing on her passion for sugar to me, but I am NOT complaining since there is a lot to stuff my mouth with when it comes to these coma-inducing confections. My favorite has got to be the Ghana mild cacao... 60% (I think) chocolate, mildly sweetened. Another favorite are these Sugus-like things that come in plain yoghurt (my favorite), strawberry (next favorite), grape, apple and orange. They cost KRW1,000 (about $2 = Php 100) for a pack of three. Tooth decay in a tube!

I guess that pretty much sums up my Korea food posts. There's a lot I didn't put up and that's because I'm hoping to take another trip to South Korea next year. Hopefully this time, I will be able to document everything with a proper camera... not a 1.2MP camera phone!

Happy Eating!

B is for Baon (part deux)

I had written about baon in my short-lived blog. In truth, I had PLENTY more baon posts to come... had I not forgotten my password. ANYhoo, here's what may have made it to the posts but in a more condensed form. After all, I'm sure nobody would want to hear (read?) me wax poetic about the wonders of Spam and warm Japanese short-grained rice, yes?

The photo up top is salted eggs, slices tomatoes, and steamed okra (lady fingers). In a separate container I had the steamed Japanese short-grain rice (which is LOVE on a bowl, methinks).

Below are two versions of the same breakfast/snack fare: Japanese short-grain rice molded into shapes and cut-out Spam.

Jeni and I love Spam, sodium and nitrates be damned! The left version is mine, as I love nori (seasoned dried seaweed sheets) and miso (fermented soy bean paste) soup. On the right is Jeni's "naked" breakfast - she is not a fan of seaweed in any form. Her loss, my gain, yes?

I sometimes get VERY lazy and opt for instant baon, like below.

There is a shop called Amber and it sells primarily Pansit Malabon (a type of noodle dish), pork barbeque, and pichi-pichi (sort of like mochi but sweeter, and is cassava flour-based). That's on the left. On the right are some Japanese rice wafer snacks, half of a gigantic siopao, and some home-made chicken nuggets with Bulldog tonkatsu sauce.

I do full meals too! Just like my pork adobo (a cooking method based on the Spanish adobado) with garlic-butter mushrooms (out of a can, sadly) on the left. On the right is some beef steak with onion rings.

Baon need not be an elaborate affair. It's sometimes just a way to extend the pleasure of one delish dish from home to work (or wherever you're taking your baon). Most of the time, though, it's to make sure I like what I will be having for lunch on my office desk. We do have a cafeteria but the food gets repeated and recycled ad nausem so... that would be an epic culinary fail, yes?

More baon to come! Happy eating!

Blast From The Past: The Kimchi-fication of Kasseopeia (part 1)

A flashback from my Seoul trip in late 2008. I realized I never really posted a food-oriented entry on my Seoul trip so I think I'll start doing that now while I still have no new food-ventures (*sigh*) to blab about.

So on on one chilly Friday night (it was the start of winter), we had some pork sizzling on a metal grill fired up by glowing coals. It was beautiful! The smokiness of the pork, the sweet-spicy tang of the dipping sauce, the bite of the Korean shiso (an acquired taste, I admit) and the crunch of the oh-so-fresh lettuce (hydroponic?).

To accompany that, we were served this salad. It was frisee-like leaves tossed with what I suppose is the stuff that makes kimchi HOT. Regardless, I loved it and was quite happy none of the other Pinoys fancied it. More for me to shove into my gaping maw!

Here's the pork, sizzling away on a hot bed of coals...

The next day, we went on a touristy jaunt and ended up in a tradional Korean dumpling and noodle shop. JinSoo ordered for us and what we had was a soup of knife-cut buckwheat noodles with oysters.

Good Lord in heaven... the brininess of the tiny oysters as they popped in my mouth... the pillowy chewiness of the noodles... the thickness of the almost-bland broth. It was soooooo good! I ate three HUGE bowls of it. It is as good as my photo of it is bad (1.2MP phone cam in bad lighting). This got me ready to walk around Seoul in -4C weather. Hoo yeah!

The serving "scoop" is actually a hollowed out dried gourd. Beautiful, eh?

More Korean food adventures in another post. This one just about made my mouth water enough to warrant a flash-flood alert.

The Porcine Party

This was a very long time coming but it was finally realized: Jeni and I were able to roll off the bed and make it to the wet market in time. In time for what? In time to get liempo for grilling!

Jeni has been craving inihaw na liempo (she loves pork) for the uber-longest time and I was always too busy (or too tamad) to hit the market for the said meat cut. I usually wake up too late and end up seeing only pork chops (too dry for charcoal broiling) or kasim (would make good adobo though).

So one weekend (a long time ago...), Jeni and I found ourselves awake at 5:30pm... giving us the chance to snag the coveted piece of meat.

So after firing up the grill, we grilled the...eggplants. Actually, the eggplants came later.

Mainit na mainit na talong...

This was the star of the show:

Ang baboy naman nito!

I made ensaladang inihaw na talong with minced onion, diced tomatoes, a splash of kalamansi and Tita F's (Jeni's mom) home-cooked bagoong with HUGE pieces of pork meat and fat. Jeni's family enjoyed it and wiped it off as soon as it hit the dining table. I didn't get any pictures of the finished products... hahaha!