JulieLabitag.com » Food

Shabu-shabu meal

Julie Labitag — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 02:36:03 +0000

Shabu-shabu is a healthy Japanese food with soup, vegetables, and seafood or meat. It’s a complete food, less the oil. The experience is nice as you will have to cook it yourself. Therefore, if you don’t know how to cook, going to a shabu-shabu restaurant would be a nice start.

In making the shabu-shabu meal, I put in the tubers root first because they need to be boiled very well, corn and other hard ingredients, meat (if you are having meat shabu-shabu, but if it’s a seafood shabu-shabu, I would put in the seafood together with the vegetables), the leafy vegetables and the egg white. The staff are friendly enough to help you cook it. One order of shabu-shabu is good for two persons and it costs around Php700 only ($18).

The shabu shabu ingredients

Seafood shabu-shabu

vegetables

the sauce that completes it

now is the cooking time!

Filled and satisfied at Healthy Shabu-shabu @ SM The Block

Got the best Leche Flan in town!

Julie Labitag — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 03:34:43 +0000

Who has sweet tooth? Who knows what leche flan is? It is a dessert made of mostly egg yolk and milk. It’s rich, creamy and sweet. I was so fortunate to discover where I can get the best leche flan in town. I found it at Shopwise. I went there to buy some stuff but ended up buying leche flan. This one is something special, creamy, perfect sweetness and best to be described as the leche flan that melts in your mouth (just like M&M’s huh?). Try it to believe it

This is the leche flan that I bought from Shopwise. I guess I can make one of this kind too

Santol

Julie Labitag — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 09:29:48 +0000

Santol is one of Philippine fruits which is is abundant during the months of July to August. Its seeds are covered with juicy mucilage. Depending on its variety, some have delicious mucilage and some have sour mucilage. Its seeds should never be swallowed as it could cause intestinal obstruction and one needs to be operated so they can be removed. If seeds are not removed immediately, it could lead to death.

Chicken-all-you-can, anyone?

Julie Labitag — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 01:08:35 +0000

Max’s Fried Chicken, the oldest Filipino-owned restaurant chain in the country serving the best friend chicken in town. It’s true to its tagline, “sarap to the bones”, which means even the bones of the chicken is yummy.

Max’s has an ongoing promotion of “Chicken-all-you can”, for Php200 (USD4.60) you can eat all chicken that your tummy can contain. The promo is available from 6PM-10PM everyday.

When my friends and I went at Max’s Restaurant Alabang Town Center, this was what we saw. A looooooooong queue. Seems like people would wait to eat all the chicken that they can, despite the long queue that they had to go through.

People waiting outside of Max’s Restaurant

My friends and I went to another restaurant and enjoyed ourselves with a variety of food instead.

Would you fall in line for a long time to satisfy you craving for a “sarap to the bones” chicken?

Durian

Julie Labitag — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 07:10:25 +0000

Davao City is the home of Durian fruit in the Philippines. If you’ve been to Davao and you haven’t tasted fresh Durian, then you haven’t been there at all. In Davao, Durian is incorporated to majority of foods. There is the heavenly yummy durian ice cream, durian coffee, durian frapuccino, durian halu-halo, durian smoothies, durian tarts, durian sweets, etc.

Some would say that Durian stinks, but for me, Durian smells fine and tastes really yummy. Durian is mushy, soft, smooth and creamy. In Davao, there are two types of Durian (according to the seller) – Native Durian and hybrid durian. The differences are native durian has white and thinner flesh while the hybrid one has yellow and thicker flesh, when it comes to taste, Native Durian is better compared to hybrid one. Durian is highly nutritious fruit as it is rich in Vitamin C, protein, potassiu, tryptophan, carbohydrates and fats; so to persons with hypertension, you cannot eat Durian as much as you want as it will surely increase your blood pressure. Some recommend drinking Coke (or any soda) with Durian to counter the effect of increasing the blood pressure but, i’m not sure if that really works. According to my new two Malay friends, Durian in the Philippines has the highest grade compared to durian varieties in Malaysia.

Durian appears like a jackfruit but it has stronger and longer thorns, smaller in size and has a lighter weight, one fruit weighs about 2kg. Price of Durian in Davao ranges from Php30-70/kg depending on its season.

Durian for sale at Php60/kg

see how small Durian is? Smaller than my head! I’m holding approx 1.5kg of Durian

wanna catch it?

Native Durian – white flesh

one Durian fruit has 8-10 seeds

mushy and yummy Durian

heavenly Durian ice cream

Durian ice cream topping on Durian halo-halo sold at Php100 at Aling Fopings store

half-filled glass of Durian coffee sold at Php145 at Blugre Coffee at Matina Town Square

halo-halo, perfect for the hot season

Durian frapuccino at Blugre Coffee at Php165 for grande size

Durian Deli

NOT to donut!

Julie Labitag — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 19:49:41 +0000

After the super sweet donut that I bought yesterday, I think I will not eat donut for a long time. Here’s what I experienced, after I ate the donut, I felt as if was dehydrated, my esophagus was so dry and I felt as if I’m going to be sick. The food did not fill my hunger, it actually worsen it and gave me a bad feeling. So after that experience, I’ll not eat donut again.

Restaurant delivery

Julie Labitag — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 20:23:55 +0000

Last week, I decided I wouldn’t use one of my credit cards anymore because the customer representative who I spoke with told me that it automatically charges penalty fee for late payment even for 1 day past the due date, which my other credit cards don’t do. But then, one can request one-time waive for it after 2-3 banking days, once the whole amount is paid . Penalty fee for late payment for credit cards hurt pockets because usually the minimum charge is Php500 (USD11-12). Since I was expecting that a penalty fee will be charged to me, I called yesterday to request t hat it be waived, only to find out that there is none, so I was happy and I think I’m going to use it again… LOL

The representative also informed me of the credit card’s other features and one of it is – it can be enrolled in their system to be used to pay restaurants and fast food chains for food delivery. Here is how it works, the customer just needs to give the cellphone number to the merchant, s/he does not need to give the details of the card, and the amount will be debited and the food will be delivered to the customer’s address. Isn’t it cool? It seems that restaurant delivery and fast food chain delivery is so easy using the credit card that I have. It’s what the technology and marketing can do. They make things so easy so that consumers will be attracted to buy more without going through much hassle and trouble.

Discovering my cooking talent

Julie Labitag — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 01:19:00 +0000

Lately, I’ve been practicing to cook again, and I discovered that in cooking, imagination is the only limit. Last week, I cooked spicy adobo with radish, chicken curry, and chicken with broccoli in oyster sauce. I thought the dishes that I prepared were cooked perfectly, even my officemates who tasted them would agree . I liked the adobo with radish very much, radish tasted so good in pork adobo. In cooking adobo, mix pork, garlic, onion, ground pepper and soy sauce and cook it over a slow fire. Once pork is tender, add radish, and lastly add vinegar to taste. Make sure that there is a balance between soy sauce and vinegar, otherwise, your adobo would taste funny.

this is not adobo this is Chicken with broccoli in oyster sauce, it was perfect!

Filipino style Thanksgiving celebration

Julie Labitag — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 01:00:49 +0000

This post may be a little late but let me still share it.

In the US, Americans always celebrate thanksgiving and normally it goes with turkey, baked potatoes, bread and other American food. If Philippines were to celebrate Thanksgiving Day and it would serve Filipino Food, it would have lechon (roast whole pork) – the Filipinos’ favorite, rice, and Filipino delicacies such as puto (rice cake) kutsinta, halaya (sweetend purple yam) and the likes. If you are to experience Filipino style Thanksgiving Day, your plate will look like this

food for Filipino style Thanksgiving

sorbetes cone

and sorbetes (Filipino style ice cream)

Experiencing authentic Indian Food

Julie Labitag — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 20:31:47 +0000

My friend, Cris, and I went to an indian restaurant in Makati, Legend of India, to get a taste of authentic indian cuisine. We had fun, the place is nice, the staff are friendly and accomodating and the food was great. We were served with an Indian snack, which is made of assorted nuts, grains, etc while choosing which food to order. To experience authentic Indian foood, we ordered spicy chicken tikka masala and vegetarian jalfrezi, chaapati (unleavened bread), tandoori roti, and mango lassi (yoghurt drink). Since we we’re not familiar with food combination, we went by the best seller non-vegetarian and vegetarian main dishes as told by the waiter, only to find out that the two dishes do not complement each other, which when eaten together, gave us odd feeling. In general, however, we enjoyed the experience of eating indian food. Legend of India is located at 112 Jupiter St. Makati City.

Legend if India at 112 Jupiter St. Makati City

inside Legend of India

plate presentation

would you like some?

my friend, Cris

indian snacks

Chaapati, great with chicken tikka masala

Chicken Tikka masala

Vegetarian Jalfrezi

Tandoori Roti, great with Chicken tikka masala too

mango lassi

The reason why we tried indian food is that I found a great promotion online from ensogo, selling a cuopon for Php200 for a value of Php500, which is 60% discount and the coupon can be used until January 2011. It’s quite a great deal. Ensogo offers promotion online for a certain service which is available to public for about a couple of hours only and one can avail of the promo by paying through paypal, ATM account, or bank deposit. Once payment is received, the buyer automatically receives coupon in the email. It’s hassle free.