Category Archives: Food & Travel

Rock the Kasbah

31 Friday Mar 2017

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What a wonderful surprise to find the only spot in Boracay that serves Moroccan cuisine! The Kasbah.

And delicious Moroccan cuisine at that! Surprising because the owners are not Moroccan at all. The Kasbah is owned by Chef Felipe de la Cruz from Bacolod, together with his British wife. A graduate of the International Culinary School in Los Angeles, Chef Felipe and his wife set up the restaurant at Station 1 — a charming and colorful bohemian spot that looked as if a genie would pop out to welcome you in.

The dishes are delicious, especially the tagines, and the flavors taste authentic, rich with aromatic spices and balanced flavors. We tried 3 different tagines — Seafood Saffron Tagine, classic Lamb Tagine (cooked with prunes and honey and drizzled with almond slivers), and Berber Lamb Tagine (full-flavored and zesty, cooked with oranges and prunes). They were all superb! A tagine is a traditional way of slow-cooking meats in a stew in a special cone-shaped earthenware dish of the same name. The long, slow cooking makes the meat so delectable and tender and the flavors of the stew are all the more enhanced with fruits, olives, preserved lemons, and distinctive spices, which usually include saffron, paprika, cumin, cinnamon, and Ras El Hanout, which is a mixture of various spices ground together.

In fact, everything we ordered was superb! The refreshing Watermelon and Feta Salad was just the perfect starter to a lunch on a hot day by the sea. The mezze plates were excellent. And everything else that followed was a flavorful feast in the mouth. If you ever go to Boracay, you definitely have to rock the Kasbah… because the Kasbah rocks!

The Kasbah is at Station 1 in Boracay Island, beside Discovery Shores resort. But Chef Felipe has also opened a branch called Kasbah the Fort at the BGC — more modern-Moorish than Moroccan-homey and bohemian — at 7th Avenue corner Katipunan Circle. With a live band in the evenings. For reservations, call 553-4499.

Taste your way around Asia

30 Friday Sep 2016

Posted by in Asian Cuisine, Food & Travel

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If you’ve been to Singapore, you may have heard of Makansutra — that outdoor dining area in what is called Glutton’s Bay by the Esplanade Mall of the Marina, overlooking part of the F1 “racetrack” on Raffles Avenue. It was put together and put up by Singapore’s “Guru of Grub”, K.F. Seetoh, and named after his Singapore hawker food guide book of the same name. You may have heard of him? He had a TV food show on TLC called “The Food Surprise” where he’d raid and ambush restaurants all over Asia, including the Philippines, to find the best food that these offer. At the Makansutra hawker food center, you’ll find stalls which feature both classic and new street food by select purveyors. Even Gerry’s Grill is there! But you don’t have to fly to Singapore to give it a try.

Makansutra is now in the Philippines! This famed hawker center was set up in partnership with a group of young Filipino investors, foremost of whom are our own local gurus of grub, the inimitable and affable JJ Yulo (Pinoy Eats World, Supermanly Eats) and Chef Him Uy de Baron (East Cafe in Rustan’s Makati, Nomama). It opened just this September at the 2nd floor of SM Megamall’s Building A, with about a dozen food stalls and a beverage/snack station, all in a large space that can seat as many as 500 people.

There are at least over 60 dishes to choose from. (Which is the reason why I must go back — My tummy could handle only 5 dishes at a time, haha.) Simply too many delicious hawker/street food dishes from all over Asia to sample — from Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Hong Kong and China, Thailand, and the Philippines. One visit is simply not enough. Ah Tee’s famous Oyster Omelet, Geylang’s Chicken Claypot Rice, Hong Kong Street Old Chun Kee’s delicious Salted Egg Pork, Donald & Lily’s Crispy Tofu and their Mee Siam with Prawns. And, of course, there has to be the classic Singaporean Chicken Rice, Chili Crabs, Braised Duck, Satay, Bak Kut Teh, Laksa… and so on. And I like that none of the dishes have been “Filipinized” or tweaked to suit Filipino tastes. From what I gather, they are true to their culinary roots and are as authentic as can be. All pretty reasonably priced, too!

What I know for sure? This is just the first leg of my food trip. I’m going back to Makansutra for another “tour”!

 

p.s. Thank you to RJ Celdran for sharing his Salted Egg Pork and Shiok photos.

 

Dim sum Diving in Hong Kong

13 Thursday Sep 2012

Posted by in Flashback, Food & Travel

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The “ber” months have arrived. And the slightly cooler temperatures get me dreaming about going over to Hong Kong soon for a food trip.

There is no dining destination in Southeast Asia quite as full-on satisfying and culinarily comprehensive as Hong Kong. Last August (appropriately the month of the Chinese Hungry Ghost festival), my friends and I joined the Pinoy Eats World food tour to eat our way through Hong Kong. Although the Philippines and Singapore are great foodie ports of call, they cannot match the wide-ranging diversity and deliciously extensive range and depth of both Chinese and Western cuisines that Hong Kong serves up. From the dingy dai pai dong stalls in Wanchai and yum cha restaurants in Causeway that serve steaming-hot bowls of hand-pulled noodles swimming in broth made from rich mother soup stock that may have been stewing continuously for years to the excellent seafood palaces near the waterfront and the most exciting and even innovative Western restaurants this side of the world.

The term dim sum literally means “point of the heart” because these tasty nibbles were originally intended to be snacks, not main meals, and thus only meant to “touch the heart”. According to Wikipedia, “the unique culinary art of dim sum originated with the Cantonese in Southern China, who over the centuries transformed yum cha from a relaxing respite to a loud and happy dining experience.” And, indeed, our Pinoy Eats World group definitely enjoyed a loud and happy dining experience throughout the length and breadth of that tummy-and-soul-satisfying morning.

Our first foray into our food trip was at the small hilly streets and back alleys of Central. There, among the noodle and dim sum houses along Stanley and Wellington Streets, we went “dim sum diving” — sampling roast goose here, spicy beef brisket there, some Beijing-style mutton xiao long bao here and other specialities there. Yat Lok, Nam Kee, Wang Fu, and Maks — we visited all 4 restaurants, with a walk or a hike in between each restaurant to keep our appetites sharp and at the ready for the next nosh. And yet, we had barely skimmed the surface of the dim sum treasures that this fine city has to offer. That is why I want to go back. Perhaps the next time, I will dive a lot deeper and spend 2 or 3 days exploring the hidden dim sum gems of Hong Kong.

If you are interested in joining a food tour organized by the Pinoy Eats World group headed by JJ Yulo, just click on the link, which should take you to their Facebook page. Aside from Hong Kong, they also do Pampanga, Bangkok, and Turkey.