Sakae Sushi at the Mall of Asia

Last month, I dragged the boyfriend to Dapitan to look at household things, vases, plates and other knick knacks. I promised I wouldn't take more than an hour, and I didn't. After browsing through the stalls there, the boyfriend said he was hungry. We drove around but couldn't decide on where to eat. I suggested the Mall of Asia since I wanted to go to S&R with him. When we reached MoA, we still couldn't decide on where to eat, since nothing seemed to appeal, and ended up at our usual spot, Sakae Sushi.

Steamed Tilapia with Garlic Ginger Tausi Sauce

This is probably the best steamed fish dish I have ever made.

Find yourself a nice, live tilapia. Buy it live and have the fishmonger gut and clean it for you, or buy it live and gut it and clean it yourself at home. Believe me, fresh tilapia tastes cleaner, fresher, the meat sweet and firm. Why tilapia? It's more widely available and more affordable than live lapu-lapu. Most city public markets should have some vendor selling live tilapia. Besides, reading about cyanide and/or dynamite fishing of lapu-lapu does not make me want to support any more of those practices. I am hoping that less demand for the lapu-lapus will eventually lead to less overfishing. I was quite saddened seeing some small red lapu-lapu for sale in Farmer's Market in Cubao. They weren't even given a chance to grow bigger. And almost all of the lapu-lapu I saw sold there had mushy stomach areas. Which I read somewhere were caused by dynamite fishing. But that is a post for another day. For now, I'm sticking to Tilapia.

Rediscovering Dangwa

A few weeks ago, I was reading some of Marketman's posts on flowers which inspired me to have some vases of flowers at home. Having heard of Dangwa, but only having been there once on our way to the cemetery, I had never seen Dangwa at night. So that night, around 10pm, I dragged the boyfriend to accompany me to Dangwa.

As usual, the boyfriend was very irritable (sinusumpong). He gets like that when he knows we'll be going to crowded, not so pleasant places. But, also as usual, I am able to cheer him up. He says I'm too cute. In his defense, I am able to make him cave under a barrage of cuteness, to cater to my every whim :) Haha, well, for the most part.

Chicken Pandan and Maid Frustrations

I bought 10 pieces of Chicken Pandan from SM Supermarket last week at Php11 each. It's normally Php12 otherwise. I try to keep something simple to cook on hand just in case. To wit - when I have plans for the day and have to leave the maid to cook lunch/dinner for the rest of the family, for something easy the maid can cook for my sister's baon, or for midnight cravings. Just deep fry on medium heat until done, about 5 minutes.

Birthday Lunch at Lolo Dad's

It was my birthday last month and my dad treated us to lunch at Lolo Dad's! It was quite pricey, but I had been wanting to try Lolo Dad's since I heard about it years ago as the restaurant with the best food in Manila. I showed him the Degustacion Menu before we left and he said okay.

We were the only guests there that fine Saturday noon. Knowing the restaurant's reputation, I would have expected more people. We actually started to wonder if the restaurant actually made any money.

Watching CATS

Early this year, my sister nagged me about going to watch CATS, with Lea Salonga. My sister is a fan of Miss Saigon and wanted to watch Cats, but didn't know anybody else who might have wanted to go with her. Our circle of society doesn't really have many of the theatre-going set, so I agreed. Hey, watching theatre might actually be fun! I was imagining the characters and dialogue from my favorite Judith McNaught books, dowager duchesses peering through their monocles high up in their boxes and such.

Easy Tausi Pork Ribs

Last week, I started to have a craving for Lo Mai Fan (Glutinous Rice with Chinese Sausage) and found a blog of recipes of homemade Chinese food. While browsing, I found a recipe for Steamed Black Bean Pork Short Ribs here, and I suddenly felt myself salilvating for some good old Tausi Spareribs. Looking at the recipe, it didn't seem so difficult. I always thought that it was a difficult dish to make, having eaten Tausi Spareribs only in dimsum places.