Yoji and the Foodies

When the Hap Chan Las Pinas branch was opened to the public a couple years back, it was always packed with diners for a good 2 months.  Back then, the only restaurants worth visiting are those that have long been established, like Pancake House and Max’s Fried Chicken. People waited in anticipation for Hap Chan because it was far better than Chowking and Joe Kuan. The 2 fast food chains are not in the same league.

Every month, we’d go on Chinese food eating spree and Hap Chan is almost always the choice because of proximity to our place. Of course, if we have time to spare, we would go straight to Luk Yuen in Alabang.

After watching Harrison Ford eat noodles in the movie Blade Runner, I suddenly wanted a bowl of wanton noodles. This went on for 2 days. The craving just won’t go away. One cool Saturday afternoon, we decided to give in and eat noodles. So off to Hap Chan we went.

The noodles that haunted my days and nights:

We were kidding ourselves when we said we’d eat noodles only.

Sweet and sour fish fillet. Separate sauce  (I know it’s weird, but I really don’t like mixing in the sauce).

The appetizer came in late, not because of poor service, but because the fish fillet was gone too soon and we still have rice *lol*

Spareribs. Soo good.

Tea and Pepsi to end the glutton fest.

The Don has always been on the lookout for best tasting Bulalo down south of Metro Manila. Unfortunately, he has not found one and as a result, completely stopped searching…at least in the south area.  I seriously believe that a good bulalo is the one made by grandpa and nothing can beat it. So unless it’s from a family recipe, it wouldn’t taste right.

However, I also think that he’s looking at the wrong places! In my first attempt at finding that elusive bulalo, I think I had far greater success.

I went to this place: Manoy & Cucuz Panciteria

It’s primarily a panciteria but as you can see from the picture, they offer Filipino all time favorites and more. I ordered my bulalo and waited for 30 minutes or so. I don’t understand why it had to take that long but I figured it had to do with their ordering queue system. During that long wait, the orders for delivery come and go; mostly pancit in bilao and crispy pata. There were also walk-in diners and they ordered pancit and barbecue. People in fancy cars also came to buy crispy pig heads. Business is brisk. Good for them.

I was convinced that the food is more than decent. I wish I could say the same thing about the sanitation. Perhaps the owners could make more efforts to keep things clean. You need to be there to gauge if the sanitation practices would be to your satisfaction.

Anyway, the bulalo was a big hit.  The Don was thrilled and swore to leave the bulalo hunting to my capable hands. The soup was good but I was happy with the bone marrow. When we were kids, the elders call it “utak”. So for 10 years or so, I believed it was brain. I don’t know why they called it “utak” back then. Even the brain wouldn’t have this kind of texture.

Looking at it makes my artery clog. Of course, you need to eat this when it’s very hot and with plenty of rice and some greens from the bulalo. Eric Ripert and Anthony Bourdain eat them roasted and with bread.

When funds are low, I go to convenience stores to buy snacks. This afternoon, I found myself inside Finds Convenience Store in Starmall Las Pinas. The store is adjacent to Figaro, which is my favorite “hangout” if I want to be alone (or if there’s no wifi at home). Instead of Figaro’s 125-peso Cappucino Frost, I held in my hand a 28-peso Nescafe “slurpee”. It was not bad. It was just too sweet for my liking. And instead of the 80-peso pudding with vanilla sauce, I had this:

I am not certain if this is from the Ilustrado restaurant in Intramuros. This site seems to confirm the affiliation. For only 35 pesos, this tiny cake could beat the dry and mostly uninspired desserts in some posh coffee shops. I wonder how much this cake costs if I were to order from the restaurant.

I don’t exactly know the name of the cake. It could be caramel or toffee nut, or both. All I remember is that it’s moist, it’s nutty, and I just love the crunchy bits. Most importantly, it is not too sweet.

I hope the good people of Pasteleria Ilustrado don’t increase the price. And I really hope this wasn’t just a dream.. or a fluke…

Steaks Unlimited is the newest food establishment to open in SM Center Las Pinas. Naturally, the curious bunch would flock to the place like a moth to a flame.  Fortunately, we did not get burnt.  This means the food is not bad. It’s just very uninspired.

The Bulalo Steak (pictured above) tastes pretty much the same as the T-Bone steak pictured below.

For 98 pesos (the Bulalo at 108), they seem to think that shoddy presentation would suffice. The food is good for its price and we’d probably come back to try other dishes. I’m looking forward to eating the grilled squid. It’s the next best thing to eating Paul the Octopus.

Burger King is 30 minutes away from the house  and I just don’t feel like driving all the way to Alabang to satisfy a craving. Fortunately, there was a newly opened Crave Burger in BF Resort Las Pinas. I like the simplicity of the signage and the overall look and feel of the place. Unfortunately, my camera battery decided to die when I was about to take a shot of the place. So I used my archaic phone. I had ordered burgers to go because I had to run back home for work so the photo shoot started in the car and ended at my workspace.

Take away!

With Fries

Red = Iced Tea

Blue = Lemonade

I am a huge Burger King fan so I measure burgers against BK’s standards. I know the standard is not too high, but you’d be surprised at how many burgers are not up to par with BK . If you are into “pinoy-tasting burgers” , best bet is you will like Crave Burger. It’s tasty but in a sort of salty kind of way. This is not bad, I just have low threshold when it comes to salty food.

One nice thing I can say about the burger is that it reminded of the huge burgers served in Dayrit’s Buendia in the early 90s.  Takes me back…

The Crave Burger website is currently under construction, but you can read franchise information here.

Oh, I like the blue lemonade.

I had expressed my disappointment with Razon’s food in my previous entry, but I raved about the exquisite taste of the halo-halo. It is the only reason we keep coming back to the place despite the ridiculously high price. For the 2nd appearance at the SM Center Las Pinas branch, the only intent was to eat halo-halo. Of course, that’s even more ridiculous than the exorbitant pricing. No one can resist the “foodie call”, not in my circle, at least.

The table was lonely with only the halo-halos acting as the centerpiece, so we decided to act according to the foodie code (imagine there’s one!) and ordered:

Pork and Chicken Asado

Tapsilog

Tocilog

Despite the shoddy presentation, the Asado was the clear winner — tender pork & chicken meat, nice texture, and generous portion (this is good for 2, if you’re not very hungry).

The Tocilog was forgettable (what Tocino?). You’re better off buying Pampanga’s Best tocino.

There was nothing spectacular with the Tapsilog. I guess if you’re into adobo-ish flavor, you might enjoy it.

Divas Kaffe is a little coffee shop inside SM Center Las Pinas. I keep postponing my review of the place for the simple reason that there’s really nothing extraordinary about the pricey coffee they serve. In fact, the experience is so disappointing that I have nothing good to say. And we all know that if you don’t have anything good to say, then shut up. So I’ll try to be as brief as possible.

I wanted this:

However, the barista said that their machine is not powerful enough to crush ice. (Pls. file this one under WTF). So, I was forced to order the “bestseller” – iced mocha Irish creme. This is what I got:

This is 93 pesos. I could have bought a 3-in-1 coffee and shove it in the freezer for a few hours and I would have the same effect, or even better.

(If a beverage meant to be consumed while window shopping reaches home almost untouched, it’s an indication of how bad it tastes).

We were thrilled to see more restaurants opening in SM Center Las Pinas. As I have mentioned in previous entries, Las Pinas foodies have to travel further south to go on food binging exercise.

The newest kid in the SM Center food block is Razon’s from Guagua.  The restaurant’s history is painted on the wall, if you care to read. Razon’s specialty is the pancit luglog and the 3-ingredient halu-halo. I am no fan of pancit but their version is really tasty; and the halu-halo is creamy and just has the right sweetness (no sugar added). Some would say that it’s a poor man’s halu halo since it lacks at least 5 other ingredients that would normally make up an honest to goodness halu halo. On the contrary, it is perhaps one of the most expensive (if not the most) halu halos around at 85 pesos.

The friendly neighborhood halu halo is 25 pesos and has 10 “sahogs”. They use the cheapest evaporated milk and the tindera has to to shave the ice manually using this contraption. Razon’s halu halo is different. It has an exquisite taste and it’s all because of the shaved ice. It’s so fine that it gives a really wonderful texture when mixed with the 3 sahogs (leche flan, macapuno, banana) and the creamy carabao’s milk. Smooth!

The Destroyer ordered Arrozcaldo which has what looks like chunks of roasted chicken and hardboiled egg.  One bowl of this comfort food is 75 pesos. It tastes good, but it’s hardly comforting because of the small serving. Tubong lugaw nga.

I know I vowed to eat only fish until Black Saturday, but that’s a fail from the get go (haha!). I will keep trying, but before that, I had to sample this:

This is the sizzling sisig. When this was served to me, it was not sizzling. It was just hot. They should know the difference. Here’s the thing with me and my sisig meter – the standard to which all sisigs are measured against is Gerry’s sisig.  Razon’s sisig registered an “Ok” in taste only because I like the adobo-ish flavor. It is nowhere near Gerry’s sisig’s awesomeness. There are pork parts that were sinewy, hence, “unchewable”. I was thinking maybe they ran out of pork cheek and ear parts so they went to use tough pork scraps lying on the counter. That’s just my luck. For 140 pesos, this is a rip-off.

I feel conflicted.

Living south of Metro Manila means having little to no access to the latest food craze or restaurants. Let’s face it, restaurateurs would rather take their chances in the posh Makati and Ortigas areas rather than set up shop in suburban south.  Although the Las Pinas-Paranaque-Muntinlupa areas are trailing behind Makati-Pasig-Quezon City triumvirate in terms of number of food establishments, it doesn’t mean that there are no efforts to catch up. It’s just that many have closed shop for lack of patronage. However, the Westgate Alabang area looks very promising and I consider it the best place for foodies to hangout; perhaps even better than Alabang Town Center.

What needs to be realised here is that, not everyone can be bothered to travel to Alabang area for just a quick lunch. Hence, residents of Las Pinas end up eating in SM Southmall or SM Center, which has more fast food establishments than restaurants. So, it’s a welcome surprise to see a Taiwanese restaurant just a block away from the Las Pinas City Hall.

I am not really into Chinese food but I’d gladly try a new restaurant especially if it’s only 15 mins away from where I live. The name of the restaurant is Lotte Seafood. If not for the “Taiwanese cuisine” tagline, I would have assumed it’s a Korean place (just because it’s called Lotte — says so much of what I know *lol*).

The place was empty and the lights were off when we got in at 5.30pm. Part of me wants to back out and just eat at McDonald’s, but that would mean going back 2 flights of stairs. Not really something I wanted to do. So, yes, we entered, we were seated, and we were served by an overly friendly waitress, who started to describe every item on the menu like a cheerleader rooting for her team. Goooo Lotte!  In the end, she recommended the bestselling group meal, which is a combination of 3 meals of your choice. We had:

Yang Chow Fried Rice

Crispy Fish Mango

Beef Taiwan Pechay

All for 299 Pesos

We also ordered Fried Seafood Noodles – 150 pesos

In all honesty, I could not distinguish Chinese food cooked in different regions. There are probably subtle differences in the ingredients used or cooking techniques applied. But what I can do is to distinguish them from 2 well-known Chinese restaurants we frequent — Hap Chan and North Park.

• The Yang Chow fried frice tasted as expected. No clear deviation from what we usually eat at other Chinese Restaurants.
• Crispy Fish Mango is basically a sweet and sour fish with mango cubes. It’s a rather odd combination of sweet-sour-sweet. It’s strange but the fish was crispy outside and tender inside. The meal could shine without the mango.
• Beef Taiwan Pechay is my favorite. Beef was tender and the sauce has a buttery taste. From what I’ve been taught in cooking school, butter is rarely (or never) used in Chinese cuisine. It tasted like a French-Spanish-Chinese cuisine fusion, which I enjoyed very much. I just wish they take it easy on the oil next time.
• The Fried Seafood Noodle tastes like chopsuey. I like it because they were generous with shrimps and squid tentacles. For 150 pesos, it’s good for 2 people.

The owner of the place gave us a complimentary fruit desset of cantaloupe, which was so sweet. We loved it.

The ultimate  question that we ask after we eat: “Will you come back?”

My answer: Yes, but I will go with a big group or very hungry friends (because of the huge serving)

Godfather’s answer: <long pause>