Yoji and the Foodies

I’ve lost count of how many attempts I’ve made to make that light and fluffy pancakes. I always end up with flat and rubbery, which might as well be used as a doorstop (I exaggerate, of course). While they always taste good, the texture is just oh so wrong. This has caused me a bit of anxiety, short of panic attacks, since I have to come up with light and fluffy pancakes by the end of this month. This is in relation to the big project scheduled to be launched on the 2nd week of February (more on that later).

Cramming has always provided me with enough adrenaline to get some work done and up to this day, it has never failed me. With a day to spare, my light and fluffy baby pancakes were born. I am so proud of them, I think I cried a little.

I have watched Nigella Lawson, Gordon Ramsay, and Jamie Oliver do their versions of  “pancake from scratch” and  I did what they all told me to do, but the results were ugly and uninspired pancakes. I have come to the conclusion that they were holding back some important information. I understand them omitting some info, after all, trade secrets are, well.. secrets. I realized I am just wasting my time following recipes from celebrity chefs so I did what I should have done in the first place…. Research!

After days of research and comparative analysis of several pancake recipes and techniques, I came to the conclusion that it’s not in the ingredients, it’s in the technique. Hint: it involves an electric mixer. Sadly, I don’t have any of those fancy mixers. But I do have arm horsepower! And that, my friends, is the secret to my light and fluffy pancakes.

The good thing about Pancake House is that they are more than just a fancy pancake place, they also offer delectable meals at affordable prices. I hate to sound like a fanboi but I’m pretty sure that many foodies share my sentiments.

Pancake House does not have a lot of offerings in their menu so it would be very possible to try them all out in a span of two weeks. But since I cannot dine in the same place for consecutive weeks (exception: McDonald’s and Burger King), I’ve only tried about half of the menu, the latest of which is the Adobo Sulipan.

Adobo is such a common meal served in households any day of the week so I was in no hurry to order one (or any of its variations). As fate would have it, I have this foodie friend who persuaded me to try the Adobo Sulipan. I could tell that she was willing to bet her life (or her HP DV3) just to prove that the food is as good as she described it. I could have lied and told her I didn’t like it and run off with her HP DV3, but really, the Adobo was so good that I would probably bump it up to number 10 in my Top 10 favorite food list.

Adobo Sulipan is a meal of chicken and pork adobo with pickled kangkong (water spinach), tomatoes, sliced hardboiled eggs and rice. It has large chunks of garlic so you might want to remove them (as I did).  I was not too crazy about the pickled kangkong but it cuts the richness of the adobo. It gives the right amount of sweetness to the salty and garlicky taste of the adobo.

(Apologies, I already took a few bites before I took the pic. I blame hunger.)