Mabuhay Palace Chinese Feast at The Maya Kitchen

On July 27, Saturday, 9am-1pm, The Maya Kitchen presents the chefs of Manila Hotel’s Mabuhay Palace who will prepare a sumptuous spread of Chinese cuisine.

Executive Chinese Chef Sun Bing and Chinese Operations Manager/Executive Chinese Sous Chef Josephine Yu Tanganco-Candelaria will demonstrate Vegetarian 'Peking Duck,' Shrimp Laced with Almonds, Anchovies with Water Chestnuts Fried Rice, Stir Fried Chicken Glazed with Soya Sauce, West Lake Fish Soup and Chinese Red Bean Pancake.

Chef Sun Bing graduated from Beijing Culinary School and joined the Beijing Hotel after graduation. He came to the Philippines in 1988 and for over 20 years has been delighting local diners at the Aloha Hotel, Mandarin Oriental Hotel and The Manila Hotel.

Chef Tanganco-Candelaria has been with Manila Hotel since 2009. She was previously with Mandarin Oriental Hotel and intercontinental Manila.

For more information on other courses offerings, log on to www.themayakitchen.com or e-mail contactus@themayakitchen.com or visit The Maya Kitchen Culinary Center every Tuesday to Saturday at 8F Liberty Building, 835 A. Arnaiz Avenue (Pasay Road), Makati City or call 8921185 / 892-5011 local 108 / Mobile No. +63947 835 2290

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Figaro Opens a New Branch at the Patriarch Building

Just a few days ago, a new Figaro branch opened - at the newly erected Patriarch Building in Chino Roces cor. Don Bosco, Makati.


That day, there were simultaneous celebrations - the opening of this branch, and the bank fronting the coffee shop, and the blessing of the Patriarch Building.



Part of the celebration was the ribbon-cutting ceremony, the blessing of the store, and the much-awaited coin and candy toss.


This Figaro branch is smaller than the other branches I have visited and only serves drinks and pastries - no hot meals and pasta dishes. Even so, every drink and pastries available at every Figaro branches are available here, too, so if you're in the area and you fancy some drinks and pastries, please do drop by this branch.



A catered breakfast buffet was served, but Figaro offered pastries and drinks to everyone who attended the event. It was my first time to see their newest cake - Blue Velvet - but for my choice of pastry, I went for My Little Oscar, which is basically their version of Sans Rival. I loved this cake because it was lightly sweet and packed with lots of cashew nuts! It was just a sweet ending to a sweet celebration.

Figaro at the Patriarch Building (Chino Roces cor. Don Bosco) is open from Mondays to Fridays - 8am to 5pm.

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Menu Plan Monday; Week of July 21st, 2013

Hey, how they heck have you all been?  Im back down to regular hours at work (6-12 a week) so I SHOULD be able to keep up with my real life.  Right?  I also recently signed up to be a sub at my daughter's school in the cafeteria and I am so super excited to get that first call to help out!!!  I can't hardly wait for her school to start back!  You know I love being in the kitchen right?  So what's not to love in the cafeteria?

Here is a shocker.  My son starts back to School tomorrow (July 22nd).  Yup, back to school lunches are going to be in full swing here at our house.  He goes to the Kipp School which is a College Prep sort of school and summer school is mandatory.  He is having issues with a few molars growing in so he selected to eat Thai Kitchen Instant Rice Noodle Soup every day in his thermos.  Making it ahead old school and sending it in.  The broth disappears but the noodles do not clump as you would think and turns out to be a nice noodle bowl for him by the time he gets to lunch. Other snacks like Nutrition Wholesome Nut Mix, Nature Valley Roasted Nut Crunch Almond Crunch and Sharkies Fruit Chews will get added along with an apple.  Not sure he will actually eat the nut products but I'll toss them in anyway.

So what's for dinner here at our house?  Slim pickings I'm afraid since I am doing a pantry cleanout! LOL...

Sunday:

Spaghetti, Sauce and Sweet Sausage

Monday

Chicken Breast marinaded in Wicker's BBQ Marinade

Sweetened with Tomato Paste, Honey and Thickened with Arrowroot

Simply Mayo Cole Slaw and Caesar Salad

Tuesday:

Balsamic Roasted Pork Loin

Cauliflower Puree

Broccoli

Wednesday:

Oven Roasted Country Style Ribs

Thursday:

Rib Roast

Brown on both sides on a cast iron skillet 

and bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees

Cauliflower Puree & Green Beans

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Vanilla Ice Cream (paleo, gluten free)

The Elf on the Shelf on facebook told me it was National Ice Cream Day today (July 21st) so I figured I would share my newest creation.

Oh my..... this was the best vanilla ice cream I have ever made (so says my kids). The base was so good, it could have been a rock your socks vanilla pudding, which I may modify to be a pudding in the very near future.  I am having visions of making pudding up ahead of time for back to school snacks.

I am going off the beaten trail with the heavy cream and agave in this recipe. We are a coconut/almond milk using house but we do occasionally use Heavy Cream and have no issues with Dairy. I have tried replacing the heavy cream with Coconut Cream and the result is also a very nice recipe. As I stated before on my blog tho, I do not like all coconut milk in my ice cream!!  I find that all coconut cream ice creams sort of coat the tongue in an odd way that I just don't like.  Cutting it with the Almond Milk does the trick!

While I mainly use honey as my sweetener of choice, I used Agave in this ice cream because I actually ran out of Honey. Agave is what I had.  I just had to post the resulting recipe, tho, because of the raves I received from the children. My son says he prefers this recipe to the one that I use honey in because he does not like the taste of honey in an ice cream. You can't trick him, he notices it every time. Honey (in our opinion) takes on an odd taste once cooked on the stove top in items like marshmallows and ice cream that my children just do not like. We are, however, ok with it in slow low temperature items like baked goods. My recommendation for using honey in ice cream?  Honey burns very easily so the method I would recommend with a custard ice cream dish made with honey is to cook the cream, egg and arrowroot until thickened and then add honey once thickened (off of the heat).

This is the ice cream recipe I would use for special guests and holidays. Try it with the heavy cream and agave and see for yourself.

2 cups Heavy Cream (or coconut milk for paleo)
1 cup Almond Milk (unsweetened)
2 large eggs
3 tablespoons arrowroot powder
6 tablespoon Light Agave Nectar (or honey for paleo)
2 teaspoons Pure Vanilla Extract
tiny pinch of salt

• Combine the coconut cream, milk, egg, arrowroot powder, agave, vanilla and salt in a saucepan and slowly bring the mixture to a light boil.  You will just start to see bubbles erupt through the thickened mixture.
• Let mixture cool for 5 minutes, and refrigerate until cooled.
• Add to your ice cream maker and follow instructions according to your machine.

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Modern Shanghai - Glorietta 2, p3

Last part of my post about Modern Shanghai.


Steamed Shrimp Dumplings
If my mom loves siomai, the Hakaw has got to be my favorite dimsum. This one looks like tortellini, no? Anyway, I loved that the wrapper was strong enough to hold the filling, and I appreciated that the base wasn't soggy - something I usually encounter whenever I order this dimsum. It tasted like how Hakaw taste like. It was good, but just fine.


Fried Shanghai Noodles with Seafood
I am not sure if this was served like this or one of my companions mixed it already before I had a chance to photograph it, but I just want to say that this tasted way much better than it looked.


Wok Fried Sliced Beef with Broccoli
Beef and broccoli is a common food combination in almost all Chinese restaurants... but the difference is that this wasn't saucy. The beef slices were seasoned well and very tender, and obviously, the broccoli were cooked just right - giving the right crunch.


Eight Treasures in Hot Bean Sauce
This tasted a little like Mapo Doufu / Mapo Tofu, without the very fiery spice. I loved the combinations of all the ingredients... but my favorite was whenever I added the cashew nut.


Deep Fried Squid with Spicy Salt and Pepper
Oh I love fried squid! It would have to be my favorite way of cooking squid... and I also love salt and pepper spareribs. Combining both, I was very excited to try this one, but I was a little sad that the squid pieces were tough. Although it was difficult to bite, it was packed with flavor, and chewing more and more of it allowed me to savor more of its taste. This was served as is, but if ever you order this, do ask for a saucer of vinegar. It would an oomph into the dish. The taste made up for the texture, that my brother considered this his favorite dish among the eleven dishes.

If you wanna know my favorites that day... it would have to be the very first one - the Shandong Style Shredded Chicken and the Crispy Noodles.

Modern Shanghai is located at the third floor of Glorietta 2.

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Modern Shanghai - Glorietta 2, p2

I wasn't able to blog yesterday because I was out, but as promised, here's the second of the three-part post about my dining experience at Modern Shanghai located at Glorietta 2. For this post, I will share five of the new dishes you can try at Modern Shanghai.


Steamed Shrimp and Pork Siumai
My mom's favorite food is the Siomai, and because she always choose this whenever we eat at any Chinese Restaurant, she somehow influenced me to love the dish, too. I won't say this is the best I have tasted, but it was really good... and tasted delicious even without the dipping sauce, but of course, dipping siumai in chili toyomansi made it more delicious.


Deep Fried Fish with Spicy Fish Sauce
I love breaded cream dory fish, and this was no exception. The breading is unlike the typical "fish" in Fish and Chips - it was light and airy-fluffy, which reminded me of my favorite fish dish in King Bee. The sauce is indeed spicy, but just right. Personally though, I prefer to have the sauce on the side and not poured over the fish because I just loved the crispiness of the fish and the sauce softened the breading. It's just my personal preference, though.


Crispy Yellow Noodle with Seafood
On my last post about Modern Shanghai, I showed a picture of the staff making hand pulled noodles. I learned that this is one of the dishes that uses freshly made noodles. At first I was a little apprehensive with this one because the first time I ate crispy noodles (at a Chinese Fast Food), it was so difficult to eat. This one had smaller noodles, and even without the sauce, the noodles were a joy to eat. The sauce was great. It was thick, flavorful... and the seafood were cooked just right.


Sliced Marinated Pork Knuckle
I love pork pata! When I saw this on the menu, it was the dish I most looked forward to tasting, and when I did, I was a little disappointed. The pork was cooked good - it was firm but tender, and it was a good thing that the fat wasn't that much (at least one could still eat a good serving of meat if one isn't into fatty part of the pork), but it just lacked taste. I actually dipped my pork into the dipping sauce provided when the Shandong Style Shredded Chicken was served.


Native Hong Kong Crispy Chicken
The word "native" is the same when we used it for native Pinoy chicken, so I expected this to be a bit on the tough side. People from Modern Shanghai told us these free-range chickens were imported from Hong Kong, and can be a little tougher from the local kind, but to my surprise it was cooked really good! True to what we all know about native chickens, the flavors just seeped through and through, and the toasted garlic bits provided more goodness to the dish. It was different from the usual Chinese fried chicken I've tasted, and this was one of my top 3 dishes from that food trip.

Next five dishes will be shared tomorrow.

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Perfect Coffee Every Time

Crafting the perfect cup of coffee each and every time is both an art and a science; a lot has to do with the right ingredients used in the proper proportions. It can get complicated – one way to eliminate the guesswork is with a Keurig® Mini-Plus on demand coffee maker. Single serve or on demand brewing systems have changed the way we make and drink coffee and demystified much of what surrounds the crafting of a consistently good cup of coffee.

On demand brewers do not have coffee pots and warming plates or use thermal carafes – instead they brew the coffee directly into a cup, glass or mug. This means there is less to clean and less waste since you brew only what you need and not a drop more. Because the coffee brews directly into the cup it is always fresh, hot and flavorful. Since there is no warming plate you need never again endure a scorched, stale or bitter cup of coffee plus there’s no nagging fear about whether or not you remembered to unplug the coffee maker.

There is no need to scoop or measure coffee because the machines use single serve sealed coffee pods - Nespresso® brand capsules are one example that I found at bedbathandbeyond.com; there are many different formats of coffee pods and not each kind is compatible with each make and model of single serve brewing system. When selecting an on demand brewer it’s best to go with one which accepts a readily available coffee pod format so you are assured of a consistent supply. It’s also important to make sure you like the coffee options available in the pods which are compatible with your machine.

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