Samyang Cheese Ramyun and Samyang Mozzarella Cheese

Probably one of the amusing things I know so far (yes I like to say so far because I am so interested to learn more about Korean culture) is that cheese is something you put on spicy Korean ramyun to make it even better. 

Bulalo and Egg Pudding (July 2, 2014)

Hooray for a yummy breakfast! 

One of the things I love about eating out is that I get to have the leftovers for breakfast the next morning. We went to Leslie's the day before I took this photo which is why there's bulalo in my breakfast. I just love their bulalo, or in general, I love bulalo. 

 I also love how breakfast is an excuse to have dessert without a full blown meal. Or wait, I have dessert whenever I want, regardless of the circumstance hahaha. 

And the perks of breakfast include eggs, regardless of how they're done. Even these dessert pudding eggs count, if you ask me. 

Milk and Butter Dumplings

I once dined at the restaurant at the basement of Sogo Hong Kong, and I was amused that this ramen restaurant had a ramen called the Hokkaido 3.6 ramen. It was apparently one of their bestsellers, and to my surprise, it's not something you see everyday. 

Because Hokkaido 3.6 is a brand of milk, and they have a ramen with milk as its soup base. I tried it, and it was amusing because it was creamy, but at the same time the taste was light as it was only salt and butter that were with the milk. It's definitely far from the usual tonkotsu, or the usual lard based broth you see in ramen. 

I was so lazy one night that I decided to have milk based soup for dinner. 

Hogalbi Late Night Dinner

We went to the annual Crocs sale last night expecting that we'd probably just check out the items, and bring home at most one pair for my mom. We were soooo wrong as the items were so cheaply priced that it was impossible to walk out of the sale withut getting anything, especially for someone like me who has really big feet that stores rarely stock up on my size. 

We were so exhausted from the sale that despite having a light dinner, we were super hungry after we paid for our shoes. Initially my mom thought that this place must be a shady bar as it was still open at 9PM, but thankfully, it's actually quite a family friendly place. 

This is formerly Buma restaurant, and I'm not sure if someone else bought the property and made another restaurant or the owners of Buma repackaged their business and turned it into Korean food instead of Japanese seafood, but meh, whatever. I care about the kimchi more. 

Mama's Munggo Stew and Beef Soup

Munggo stew is something that our family has loved for a very very long time, and very recently mama decided to give it a try. All these years we've been eating munggo stews from restaurants and turo-turo stores that it was about time we made it ourselves. 

So this is a hearty bowl of mama's stew, filled with munggo, okra, and love. 

And usually we're also very excited whenever we see this crock pot because it just means that mama is about to prepare her beloved beef soup. She gets a big bag of giniling and puts it into a crock pot with herbs and spices and leaves it to cook for like 6 hours. The end result is a really tasty broth and tender beef bits. 

My Beloved Choto Stop

Today we paid a visit to one of my most favorite places in the world-- Choto Stop. 

Honestly, had I not gone to Japanese language school I would've never known that such a place existed. I remember it vividly this one summer day five years ago when my foodie prof brought the whole class to a "field trip" as this was just about 6 minutes walking distance from our school. My teacher had been raving and raving about this place to the class as a wonderland with all sorts of fresh and dried/storage friendly Japanese foods at 80 per item that there just had to be a field trip. 

That time, it had been about two days since delivery date (they have deliveries monday, thursday and saturday, not sure now though) so the fresh items were already running low, and I feel guilty up to this day that I took my classmate's (the one who originally kept on bugging our prof to bring us there) Meiji original pudding that she had to settle for Meiji milk pudding. Thankfully, we became good friends after that, and as far as I know, I think (I think???) she took no offense about it hahaha. And I think she also realized that milk pudding tastes better than original custard pudding... 

Right now, there's no more stocks of Meiji pudding coming in, and there's Morinaga brand here. I miss Meiji because they had the largest tubs of pudding, as in you were paying the same price for a tub of pudding about 1.5 times larger than the others. But I do understand that nothing lasts forever and that the luxuries of five years ago cannot be enjoyed today due to inflation. If they brought in Meiji pudding now it'd probably cost Php100-120 and probably turn newbie customers off given that there are Topvalu brand and other budget food brands that sell 3 small tubs of pudding in a pack for Php80. 

Going back to my first field trip, I even remember that I had to borrow money from another classmate as I was soooo unprepared to spend money that day (I don't bring large amounts of money when I am just expecting to go to school then go home, and that I never knew back then that such a wonderland existed). With all of the store's contents, I just came back home with a tub of Meiji pudding and a pack of dango (it was mitarashi flavor). 

More photos after the jump!

Aquabest Bloggers' Night (+Review of Grills and Sizzles)

Hi everyone! It's event time! So these are some of the photos I took during Aquabest's bloggers night. Initially, I actually thought that this was super sketchy because I mean it's so unusual for a water company to host a blogger's event. It's normal for restos to do it, or for makeup brands and clothing brands, but not really for water not unless the company is making vitamin water or flavored water. 

It was even sketchier that they were teamed up with a skincare and spa. I was actually quite reluctant to go at first until I found out that it was going to be held at Grills and Sizzles. The place is so near where we live that I was thinking that should this be a sketchy event for real it'd be easy for me to call for help and get picked up. 

Thankfully, when I got here, it was a legit event hahaha. 

And aside from the event being legit, I was fed very well... 

Lazy Man's Mussel Chowder Recipe

This is the kind of mussel chowder for the lazy person. I was so lazy doing this that I didn't take a photo of the chowder. Anyway, here's the recipe: 

Lazy Man's Mussel Chowder:

Cook Time: About 10 minutes

Ingredients:

Serves about 5

10 blast frozen-blast cooked mussels (or whatever number you have) 

1 can Campbell's condensed cream of mushroom soup

Enough milk to fit Campbell's Soup Can

1 250-mL tetra pak of all purpose cream

1 can mushrooms, sliced 

1L water 

Leftover cheese

Dried Basil leaves (to taste) 

Directions: 

1.) Empty the condensed soup onto a pot and dilute it with a can-ful of milk. Stir well. 

2.) Add the water in. 

3.) Turn on the stove, keep it on low to medium heat. Add in cream and mushrooms.

4.) Once the stew is boiling, add the mussels

5.) Add in leftover cheese to taste.

6.) Add dried basil leaves, to taste, too.

7.) Boil for a few more minutes then serve while hot. 

Perfect for a rainy day when everybody's lazy... 

Pork Sinigang sa Strawberry (Trial and Recipe)

I've been craving for some sinigang all week long for no apparent reason. I was browsing Overseas Pinoy Cooking for a good sinigang recipe, and I was unexpectedly shocked after seeing a recipe that had strawberries in it! STRAWBERRIES! At that moment I was just mind blown. How could I have not enocuntered something all my life? The richness of tamarind mix and the fruity tangyness of strawberry in one stew?! GAH. 

Okay so let's get it on with the recipes and the photos. This recipe is adapted from the peach kitchen. This serves about 10-12 people.