Misshapen Identity

Genuflecting for Palo Santo Marron

2012-01-29T19:54:00.001+08:00

This isn’t an imperial stout? I kept asking myself that question as I repeatedly ingested this thick, syrupy, lovely brew. Officially, this Dogfish Head brew is classified as a brown ale.

The stout characteristics are all there. The vanilla, caramel and coffee aromas. The chocolatey taste and mouthfeel. The mild, malty sweetness.

There’s minimal carbonation, which makes sipping this beer a true delight. There’s a tightness to the liquid that makes you savor every sip. You smell ethanol right away. That’s the first smell that greets you in fact. The strong alcohol warms the body easily. Quite expected for a beer that has 12% alcohol (or ABV, alcohol by volume in beerspeak).

Dogfish Head’s website describes the beer this way:

An unfiltered, unfettered, unprecedented brown ale aged in handmade wooden brewing vessels. The caramel and vanilla complexity unique to this beer comes from the exotic Paraguayan Palo Santo wood from which these tanks were crafted. Palo Santo means "holy tree," and its wood has been used in South American wine-making communities.
This highly roasty and malty brown ale clocks in at 12% abv. A huge hit at our Rehoboth Beach brewpub when first released in November 2006, Palo went into full production at the end of 2007.
At 10,000 gallons, our Palo tank is the largest wooden brewing vessel built in America since before Prohibition (and we have two same-sized oak tanks right next to it).

There may be something saintly in this beer’s name, but everything about this beer is diabolical. You get your chocolates and your otherworldly alcohol at the same time. What else is there to desire if you have both in prodigious, satisfying quantities? I don’t want the drinking to end. Palo Santo Marron produces fireworks and tickles my senses silly.

I’m developing a true respect for Dogfish Head Brewery. Their brews may not all be up my alley, but they grab my attention for each beer’s passion and excellence.

You thus conclude that life is unfair because you just cannot have enough Palo Santo Marron. In my case, I have to make do with a 12 ounce bottle.

Con-Con Rating System: F=forgettable; G=good and will drink if available; D=desirable, will opt for seconds or more; and W=wow, would go places just to seek out this beer

W. Can’t have it any other way

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A Day at the Museum

2012-01-29T12:15:00.001+08:00

It was a joy to see busloads of students stopping by the National Museum building to learn and relearn about our Filipino heritage. It’s been ages since I last visited the Museum, and yesterday’s quick, unplanned visit revealed that: one, admission is thankfully free; two, the building has been turned into the National Art Gallery, housing only heritage paintings and mostly art media; and three, most of the relics and other national treasures are housed in a separate building, at the nearby Museum of the Filipino People or something, and that one charges an entrance fee.

The Museum’s centerpiece is easily Juan Luna’s Spolarium. It’s huge, powerful, inspiring. I wish there were informed guides who could explain Luna, his life and his works to the guests. Our young people need to foster pride in our heroes.

Other rooms displayed Amorsolos, Manansalas, Ang Kiukos, some sculptures and cultural relics and pieces.

Many rooms were closed for renovations. There’s a sense of disrepair and neglect in many areas, which I hope is just temporary.

The building housed the original Senate Session Hall of pre World War II, and that area was presently undergoing repairs. Will go back to see the final restoration. Whenever that is finished.

Seeing pieces of our history and heritage was energizing. I need to visit the nearby relic museum sometime.

View from the Dashboard 7

2012-01-26T18:46:00.001+08:00

Errors in the use of apostrophes are one the most common in the English language, so these jeepney “signs” can be forgiven.

Something Vaguely French

2012-01-21T22:13:00.001+08:00

I saved the liver from the other day’s duck and beer meal. Foie gras it surely wasn’t, but I humored myself a bit, sautéed the leftovers using butter and chopped onions, sprinkled some salt, black pepper and dried rosemary, then poured a little red wine.

The French cuisine inspiration needed a French-sounding beer, by way of Canada this time – Dieu de Ciel’s Routes des epices (Spice Route).

Dieu de Ciel is ranked among the top 20 brewers in the world, its Aprodisiaque brew 89th in Ratebeer’s top 100. The French-Canadian brewery’s bottle label drawings are the most beautiful in beerdom, true works of inspired and inspiring art.

The Routes belongs to the rye beer family. These brews substitute the traditional malted barley with the malted rye grain. Barley and grains in general produce the sweetish taste in beer – that is, among the four core ingredients of beer which include water, grains, hops and yeast. I’d suppose the rye grain works the same way in this substitution.

The beer pours with a dark, copperish, rusty color. Dieu de Ciel’s website boasts of supposed hints of “chocolate, caramel and fruit,” but I didn’t sense any. The vague sweetness at initial sip vanishes immediately. After a few seconds, the peppers take over. The taste is very spicy. The peppercorns stay on the palate like a relaxed house guest, practically staying on until the lights are put out.

Indeed, the rye grain’s and the other ingredients’ slight sweetness make a valiant attempt to come through, but the peppers just encircle and shackle the liquid.

I’m pleasantly surprised with how the pairing turned out. The beer’s persistent peppers complemented the duck liver’s mineral-y flavor well. The onion bits provided the snippets of sweetness that were missing and drowned out in the brew. Lesson learned: I should’ve put more onions to balance out the spiciness. The rosemary meanwhile added an earthy herbal flavor that lightened the heavy sensations of the liver, the beer, and the peppers.

Overall, this is a difficult beer to pair with. I can’t imagine this as a standalone brew, taken without food. I would have preferred less peppers and more of the rye flavor. Maybe the beer would have been easier to drink and more interesting that way.

Con-Con Rating System: F=forgettable; G=good and will drink if available; D=desirable, will opt for seconds or more; and W=wow, would go places just to seek out this beer

G, alcohol 5.3%

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No Love for Manang’s

2012-01-20T19:48:00.001+08:00

I may have been looking elsewhere when the fried chicken tidal wave hit some months back. This current fried chicken and buffalo wing thing is not as big as the lechong manok phenom that made a splash more than a decade ago. Not yet anyway. Bon Chon, Manangs and Charlie’s restaurants are sprouting all over.

I’m a chicken fanatic. I’ve been eating fried chicken all my life, in various cooking permutations in many places I’ve visited. I season and turbo-broil my own chicken wings at home at least once a week. Feed me KFC, Sr. Pedro’s, Max’s or Popeye’s and I’d have a hard time wiping the smile off my face. But I’ve been avoiding the current crop of fried chicken shops because I think they’re just a passing fad.

Until today.

I saw the Manang’s at AIC Gold Tower along Garnet Road in Ortigas the other day, and curiosity got the better of me today. The Chicken Wings called to me. I ordered the “4 pcs. Wing meal” which, at P129, included a serving of rice and a regular-sized drink. I opted for the regular sauce. The two other sauces were spicier.

If Manang’s is quite representative of the new batch of fried chicken shops, I’d wish them much luck. Bites from my wings exposed some areas to be too salty. I like my food salty and savory, but Manang’s “secret soy garlic sauce” didn’t hit the right notes for me.

Such a concern may crop up when you use soy sauce, a concentrated condiment, as a base. You need to tame the almost-arrogant saltiness, especially if it’s not top-quality soy sauce you’re using. Which I suspect is the case with Manang’s. The soy sauce also affects the color. My wings didn’t look anything like the wings in the store flyer. Matter of personal taste, but the too-dark color was off-putting.

There was some sesame oil essence, on top of the sprinkled sesame seeds, which both added nothing positive to the overall flavor. It seems the meat isn’t marinated, because the seasoning doesn’t go beyond, well, skin deep. The rice serving was too puny.

I’d reserve full judgment on this fried chicken fad when I get to try Bon Chon and Charlie’s. I can’t help asking myself, why don’t people just improve the fried, roasted or inasal chicken formula – make theirs infinitisimally better than Chickenjoy’s or Max’s or whatever one’s favorite is. No need for this double deep fried, sesame seed-laden baloney.

Go Dark

2012-01-18T21:28:00.001+08:00

It’s a privilege to be reacquainted with Old World beers, especially after the in-your-face sensations of the American brews I’ve had of late. The Yanks, true to their innately revolutionary and subversive character, tend to amp up their brews, always experimenting and tinkering.

European brews, on the other hand, cling to tradition and balance. They may be less prone to push the envelope, but Euro breweries don’t need to. When you’ve been successfully making beer the same way for hundreds of years, there’s little incentive to deviate from a tried and tested formula.

The Sam Smith porter is a traditional English porter that very much characterizes this type of brew that originated in England. The head is rich, then stabilizes to a steady froth that carpets the liquid. The taste is pure coffee. Chilled mild coffee. This will easily sweep aside any iced Starbucks concoction you throw at it. I love how it soothes and relaxes. Even at room temperature, the liquid lulls and eases you into comfort.

I wanted a kontrapelo counterpoint to the stiff-lipped English porter, so I got myself “Pekeng Duck” (no, that’s not a typo) from a small store near the house. Somehow, the pritong itik’s dark meat worked well with the Sam Smity. I was initially apprehensive about this pairing, but my doubts were easily dispelled. Not the freshest or the most tender duck I had, but the just-right saltiness didn’t clash with the beer’s slight bitter. Truly a surprise.

I’m still reminded of the sublime Anchor porter I had in the West Coast last November. Gad, that was something. My top porter at the moment. The Taddy is excellent, but not up to the Anchor’s level of excellence. Score one again for the Yanks. Still, this British brew solidifies the lofty position of dark brews in my beer pantheon.

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Mmm…Bop…Bibimbap

2012-01-12T14:48:00.001+08:00

A tragically corny entry title, I concede.

I don’t know what Korean bibimbap is, but just saying the word makes me giggle and want to sway and strut.

Mr. Kimbob is one of those hole-in-the-wall eateries that dot Ortigas Center. In this case, St. Francis Square. I just needed a hole-in-the-wall lunch that wasn’t Pinoy. The food offerings looked like a spread of Korean and Japanese staples. There was a tiny dining area upstairs from the counter. To lend a Korean feel, there were the perfunctory posters of Korean crush-ables.

I ordered the “bulgogi bibimbap,” not talking too loud or I might let out an unintended snicker. The dish looked good for something that cost Php 105. I ordered the “kimchi” rice to substitute for the plain rice.

There was a paltry serving of marinated beef, but the small portion was tasty enough. Lots of oily veggies and kimchi, made more interesting by pouring the “gochujang” hot sauce. The meal was served on a hot plate, the rice was spicy, and the veggies were made hotter by adding the sauce. I enjoyed the meal. I was surprised myself by this good lunch, not caring if this was indeed authentic Korean.

Interesting Pairings

2012-01-11T22:31:00.001+08:00

This night provided a very educational taste, texture and pairing experiment.

Right off, I’d say that this Rogue is a luscious, enjoyable beer. The best Rogue I’ve had so far. I’ve written before that I’m not a fan of the brewery, but this one is a commendable, memorable effort. Taken chilled from the ref, not having the chance to warm down to room temperature, the liquid is extremely drinkable. It goes down too easily that I practically gulped at first. Couldn’t help it.

Even at a gentle pour, the microbubbles on this brown ale are fleeting, vanishing right away. But that aside, what suddenly greets the senses is a distinct earthiness and nuttiness in both smell and taste There’s a faint, welcoming caramel aroma. The caramel’s sweetness, plus the natural sugary base of the hazelnut, are heightened by the pairing cheeses.

The Dejeuner was the weakest of the cheeses, adding nothing to the beer. The two other cheeses, meanwhile, were eye-opening. The strong funk and pungent characteristics of the blue cheese somewhat brought out the sweetness of the caramel and the hazelnut. Back-to-back tastings with the Camembert meanwhile exposed the brew’s nutty flavor. Of the three, I got to savor the hazelnut essences best with the Camembert. Easily, however, the stingy blue cheese provided the most interesting flavor contrast – a strong piquant taste that met the beer’s lingering sweetness head on. Simply. Magic.

Con-Con Rating System: F=forgettable; G=good and will drink if available; D=desirable, will opt for seconds or more; and W=wow, would go places just to seek out this beer

W, alcohol 6.2%

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Not Just A Cock-A-Mammie Entry

2012-01-09T16:57:00.001+08:00

Somewhere in Mendez, Cavite. Cockfight training. First time to witness such a thing. Never been to a real cockfight, haven’t been inside a sabungan.

On top of the fence on this cockfight thing. On one hand you witness the primordial grace and ferocity of two creatures trying to dominate the other. On the other, you see animal cruelty first hand. Whichever it is, seeing pairs and pairs of these fighting (angry?) birds was a good chance to test shooting skills using a non-DSLR camera, specifically fast focusing and mixing ISO and shutter speeds.

There were more than 300 of these fighting cocks in the sparwling farm. Plus a few spiders.

Updates on Money Burners

2012-01-06T20:47:00.001+08:00

I haven’t watched the Freezing anime, but I have two of the pvc figure releases from the series – Satellizer Bridget and Ingrid Bernstein. Ingrid arrived just recently.

They’re my type of female anime collectibles. Big, at 1/4 scale, and scorchingly hot. Makes me want to sit atop a large rock and make a screaming wolf call.

I’ve slowed down my anime figure collecting last year, and expect the rate of purchases to get slower still this year. I’ve long run out of cabinet space.

The only other recent addition to the collection is the Superman and Doomsday set given by my brother-in-law Dennis last November. I followed this Death of Superman story in the Nineties, but lost my precious original comic book in a flood at our provincial home. So this gift was like rediscovering an old lost item, only better. Was always a Superman fan, starting from the 1978 Christopher Reeve movie, the 3 other Reeve starrers that followed (including the alternate Richard Donner cut of Superman 2), up to the more recent Brandon Routh vehicle. Very excited about the movie reboot next year.

Just What I Need

2012-01-05T23:20:00.001+08:00

Young’s Double Chocolate Stout

Ale with Natural Chocolate Flavor Added

Chocolate Malt and Real Dark Chocolate Are

Combined with Young’s Award-Winning Rich

Dark Ale To Craft A Satisfyingly Indulgent,

But Never Overly Sweet Experience

When some annoying thing threatens to spoil an otherwise awesome start to the new year, like what happened today, a feel-good beer should always be ready.

I love stouts. They’re my favorite beer style. Sipping a good stout gives me a warm, homey, relaxing feeling that I don’t get in other kinds of beer. The chocolate undertones produce a tingle that goes dangerously deep into my bones. I’m not a coffee drinker (the last cup of the substance I drank was, I think, way back in high school, and that was a long time ago), but the coffee tastes and aromas in many stouts transport me to my instant coffee-suffused childhood. It’s like what the food critic felt in that Ratatouille movie when he was served the namesake dish at the end of the film. He was stumped, his childhood flashed before him.

Young’s doesn’t rush to the top of my stout list, yet it’s a less than perfect beer that fits perfectly into my present craving and predicament. Quite typical of British stouts, I’d suppose. Not as intense as American counterparts. The alcohol is mellow. The liquid is on the thin side, but very drinkable. The bitterness not at all slappy. I was expecting a creamier, richer mouthfeel, because the smell hinted at excitement with the cocoa and toffee smells. The “double chocolate” character comes up short, in truth. I feel shortchanged with the “pure luxury” promise printed on the label.

But all that don’t matter. This beer’s perfect for tonight. It relaxes me. It rides and plays on my vulnerabilities, complementing them, not overpowering my need to relax with overly-high alcohol. Best of all, ideal with real chocolates. For a moment there, I forgot what I was totally annoyed about.

Con-Con Rating System: F=forgettable; G=good and will drink if available; D=desirable, will opt for seconds or more; and W=wow, would go places just to seek out this beer

D, alcohol 5.2%

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Liquid Ecstasy on New Year’s Eve

2012-01-01T11:29:00.001+08:00

Pliny the Elder. Beeradvocate’s 4th. Ratebeer’s 8th. In the world. Smells of pristine misty forests and dense, dewy carpets of grass. Gives the sensation of moist open fields before sunrise, inviting one to frolic. Seriously, all that in a beer? Yes!

Immensely drinkable, despite the bitterness. Sugary and fruity elements try to elbow through, but subtly. Carbonation is gracefully masked. It appears in the inevitable belch, but not in the drinking. How’d they achieve that?

My love-hate relationship with intensely bitter beers is still there. It continues. Extreme, end-all be-all bitterness somewhat diminishes the drinking experience for me. But Pliny the Elder, I love. It’s smooth, the flavor is full and refined. It doesn’t slather my taste buds with just one-dimensional, raw ampalaya bitterness.

This Pliny is liquid excellence and liquid courage in one. A world-class treat from Russian River Brewing, among the pioneers of the “Double / Imperial India Pale Ale” style (read: damn bitter beers). Owner and master brewer Vinnie Cilurzo is arguably credited with “inventing” this class of beer.

Best of all, relatively available. “Relatively” of course is relative. You’d find the Elder in the West Coast at Whole Foods Market. Stocks fly off the shelves, but supplies are regularly replenished. Unlike its more illustrious Pliny the Younger brother (Beeradvocate’s # 1, Ratebeer’s #3). That one can be consumed only in limited quantities at the brewery in Santa Rosa, California. On tap. Only once a year. Or unlike Westvleteren 12 (Beeradvocate’s #1, Ratebeer’s #2). Which isn’t even sold commercially. Not legally, anyway. Available only in Belgium at the monastery. From the monks who brew them.

Had the Elder first on tap last November. Very fresh, and loved it. Shared it with local beer friends this December. Loved it. New Year’s eve, had my third and fourth tastings from two bottles just two weeks old. Loving it more. It’s sacrilegious to age this beer. Age your cheese, not your Pliny, the label cloyingly admonishes. Thus, the remaining bottles shall be consumed in a month’s time. As before, lovingly, with utmost passion and intensity. Ultimately, with the sobering though that having so many Elders in such a span may never happen again. Ever.

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Rubbing It In

2011-12-31T12:52:00.001+08:00

Beer and ribs. As inseparable as New Year celebrations and firecrackers.

I joined a pre-New Year beer lunch of young craft beer enthusiasts at Rub Ribs & BBQ at Scout Rallos street in Tomas Morato, Quezon City, the six of us sharing bottles of a Russian River Supplication, Victory Helios Saison, Ballast Point Black Marlin Porter and Rogue Double Mocha Porter.

Rub would have difficulty cramming 25 people comfortably in its two floors. The place may be small, but the size of their rack of ribs is quite sufficient. There’s a subtle difference between tender rib meat that literally falls off the bone, and meat cooked relatively well that separates easily from the bone. The first category is always preferred. Rub’s rack falls into the second, slightly coming short only in the delectable tenderness test.

The Family Brunch set (Good for 4, 2 whole slabs + 3 sides) is a terrific deal. The spinach, mashed potato and corn sides don’t offer anything special, though, and don’t elicit raves. Rub lays its rep on the line for its ribs, and comes up aces.

And oh, the beers.

I contributed the Supplication, the beer having arrived twenty-four hours earlier with my mom’s checked-in luggage from San Francisco. This highly-rated Russian River brew is a love it or hate it affair. Sour ales are acquired tastes, even for hardcore beer and wine lovers. Supplication gets aged for a year in pinot noir barrels to allow the yeasts to do their magic on the brew.

It’s a complex beer that releases an avalanche of sour cherries. Foreign reviewers characterize the nose as smelling like a barnyard. Well, there are no barnyards here in Pinas, so the best way to describe the smell is the strong sweaty funk of people cramped in a small, closed concert area. Not as unappealing as one may think.

The infamous Brettanomyces (“Brett”) yeast that gives this ale one of its defining characteristics is something I need to explore further. A half-filled glass is insufficient to educate the senses on this controversial ingredient. The sourness is light, not heavy like what you get with unripe tamarind. It’s more like a green mango’s, perhaps a balimbing, and indeed, young cherries.

I’ll revisit the Supplication with a more focused drink sometime in the future.

The Victory Saison was somewhat of a disappointment. It had a flimsy backbone of orange and lemon peel on the heavy liquid. I was expecting a light, spritzy, carbonated assault on the throat. For some odd reason, cloudy and spicy wheat beers came to mind. Again, I need to explore the saison style further to determine if the sensations I felt were common to the variety.

Of the two porters, the Rogue was richer and more enjoyable. The Ballast Point Black Marlin had a lingering coffee aroma, but it was more like Dunkin Donuts coffee and not Starbucks. The Rogue was frothier and more substantial, going well with our fried Oreo dessert. The mocha wafted to the nose as the beer got warmer.

Good thing we weren’t charged corkage fees for the beers. We also had the sautéed shrimps and the onion rings, but it’s Rub’s barbecued ribs that will keep me coming back.

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Dining Excellence at Antonio’s

2011-12-27T06:45:00.002+08:00

There are fleeting meals that flash by, unrecalled, easily forgotten. These are often taken just to sustain the body. And there are meals at Antonio’s, which stay in soul and mind long after.

The restaurant is situated in a farmland estate in Tagaytay. The dining area itself is spacious and airy, the staff courteous and attentive (over-eager at times, actually).

I ordered the dalandan juice to wash down my food and cleanse my palate. My sister Nene and and brother-in-law Nat ordered glasses of wine. The hot bread was crusty and substantial. The house salad’s greens came with sweetened walnuts and blue cheese, all encircled by a dressing of pesto and raspberry.

Nene commented that the butter should have been served at room temperature and not frozen, to ease the spreading. The greens were crunchy and fresh, surely recently picked from the gardens inside the estate. The dalandan juice had the right balance of sweetness and fruitiness.

The steak tartare was sublime. It was a tricky dish to execute, but Antonio’s version was perfect. The chopped beef tenderloin’s rawness was excellently masked by the strong peppers and vinegar. Minced onions added complementary crunch to the meat bits. The dish’s heat was strong but not overwhelming. A world-class tartare, unmistakably. Probably the best one can have in the country.

The oysters we felt were suffocated by too much dressing. Their signature burst of saltiness was suppressed by the lightly cheesy sauce. The nutty chestnut soup though had sufficient texture, and still came down agreeably light.

My Duck Leg Confit was immensely enjoyable. Duck meat, being darker than chicken and a bit heavier tasting, can be slightly funky compared to commercial domesticated fowl. But again, Antonio’s confit was excellent. The pink meat was evenly cooked. Though a bit dry and lacking in juices, it was tender nonetheless. The skin retained crunchiness in areas that were not dabbed with the grand marnier beurre blanc sauce. The orange, white whine and butter reduction smartly offered each individual ingredient to the palate, most especially the mellow orange, yet still formed a harmonious whole when married to the duck. The pigeon peas and layers of potato gratin added starchy, grainy complements to the meat.

Nene had the Grilled Beef Fillet and Nat ordered the Trio which included beef fillet and lamb loin, cooked medium to medium well. The lamb in particular had none of the cut’s usual gaminess. Lamb could be erroneously cooked a bit tough, but the our serving was soft and sinewy. The level of cooking precision and artistry in all the meat dishes was truly remarkable.

If there was a weakness, if it could be called a weakness at all, it was in the dessert lineup. Good offerings all, but after partaking the heavenly entrees, a mind-blowing finish would have been preferred. I felt that the dark chocolate soufflé didn’t have enough dark chocolate kick to it, though the flourless chocolate cake was creamily good. The panna cotta sampler was hands down the best among the sweets served to us. In short, good, solid desserts, but a tad short of being excellent.

Antonio’s epitomizes the fine in fine dining. It makes you brave traffic and spend substantially more than your usual dining budget, yet you still leave the place happy, with a lasting smile on your face. This out-of-the-way restaurant is just about the best there is in our shores.

What Happened To You, My Manila?

2011-12-25T19:51:00.001+08:00

The real Metro Manila cannot be found in the Eastwoods, Ayala Centers, Bonifacio Global Cities and gigantic malls that dot the metropolis, just as Manila, the capital city, cannot be compressed along Roxas Boulevard and its fancy hotels and restaurants.

I’ve always harbored a fondness for the Manila of old. Papang, our maternal grandpa, brought me as a kid to the heart of the city to visit his sister’s botica just across Quiapo Church. I would tag along as he heard mass at Sta. Cruz church and dropped by Manila Pet Center in Ongpin afterwards to ogle at the colorful guppies and goldfish. I still vividly recall the stench of parrot poo and the persistent pop and crackle of aerated water in the aquarium displays.

And yes, there was eating in the area. Papang always reminded me to remove the thin paper at the base of the siopao before taking a bite. Of course, our siopao paired perfectly with piping hot chicken mami, preferably sprinkled with lots of pepper.

I remember summer commutes from Bulacan to Divisoria, where the entire family would hop on a bus to Antipolo church. Mommy would shop for Christmas wares along the maze of pasilios during December. The innards of Divisoria were cramped, labyrinthine, claustrophobic.

As a preschooler, I’d buy toys at Good Earth Emporium along Avenida. As a college nerd, I’d do regular book hunting trips along the long strip of secondhand stalls in the area. Back when mp3s and CDs were unheard of, I’d trek to Raon and buy tape collections of my favorite New Wave songs.

I guess these are all memories now. On the eve of Christmas 2011, I visited the area and was appalled by the squalor. The Avenida / Sta. Cruz / Escolta / Divisoria area was always chaotic, but never this dirty and disorderly. And surely not just because of the Christmas rush.

I saw a gradually crumbling, decaying capital. There’s a sense that everything is worsening and not improving. I got the sinking and sickening feeling that apathy, selfishness and lack discipline would only make thing worse for this part of the city. It broke my heart. Yes, this is the heart of Manila now, but I’m screaming inside as I tell myself this is not the Manila of my fondest memories.

East and West Pre-Xmas Dining

2011-12-25T00:41:00.001+08:00

A diner needs to throw his or her Chowking or modern Chinese restaurant (North Park and the like) biases out the window to fully appreciate Manila Chinatown “Chinese” food. Most eateries in the Ongpin area are real tea and coffee houses where patrons go regularly for breakfast, lunch or dinner. They’re not occasional “dine out” haunts. The food they offer is simple sustenance, far from fancy.

Sa Lido is one of those places. The menu is basic, pedestrian even. Perhaps little modified since 1945. This place is the classic “pansitan” of old.

The eponymous Salido Rice Topping was an obvious choice for my December 24 lunch. I didn’t know what to expect. The menu didn’t contain any descriptions. My 7-Up was served first. I asked for extra ice and when my glass came back it was filled to the top with it. The humor was I’m sure unintended (okay, give that demanding customer tons of ice till his breath freezes!), but I liked the irreverent attitude of the people at the restaurant.

Speaking of people, apart from myself, every other patron was Filipino-Chinese. They were reading Chinese-language newspapers. If this place wasn’t authentic, I wouldn’t know what was.

My lunch arrived. The fried egg threw me off a bit, but the dish as a whole was a hearty mix of asado pork, Chinese sausage, chicken, shrimp, squid and sea cucumber, made complete by cabbage, bell pepper, onions and celery stalk bits. The ubiquitous Chinese starchy brown sauce melded the entire mishmash of ingredients together.

An Old World dish. What you pay for here is heritage and history, a meal people ordered and ate with no fuss nor fanfare generations ago. Nothing’s pushing the taste envelope here. It’s all about familiar flavors with familiar ingredients. Everyday dishes you regularly go to your nearest eatery or pansitan for. There’s a more modern “Lido Restaurant” chain that has a branch that’s not too far from where I live in Quezon City. I need to visit that place, if only to compare Sa Lido and find out if the two restaurants are related, and what kind of Chinese food the newer Lido offers.

***

Dinner was a 180-degree turn, a nod to party chow. In truth, all were leftovers except for two first-time treats.

I just cobbled together a platter of sliced baguette, prosciutto, dry salami, dry coppa, a variant of the salami with black pepper, and extra virgin olive oil for dipping the bread. I took a chunk of the camembert cheese from the California cheese selection and opened the container of salmon caviar. All washed down with leftover table wine.

The coppa and prosciutto were reassuringly mild and chewy. The funky smell of the camembert was something to contend with, but get past that and you get a silky creaminess that’s only present in quality artisinal product.

The salmon caviar, my first ever stab at caviar, was a separate experience in itself. The roe explodes inside the mouth with a strong saltiness that makes you taste the sea. There are few flavors in the world as distinctive as this, and this is just relatively low-rung salmon egg. Makes me salivate over the prospect of eating beluga or ossetra sometime in the future.

Satisfying the Japanophile

2011-12-23T23:53:00.003+08:00

I finished a court-related chore early in Mandaluyong and decided to pass by the Konbini Japanese store along Connecticut street in Greenhills for some lunch food to pair with the two Hitachino beers at home.

Konbini stocks up on Japanese grocery items ranging from sake, chips, instant noodles, curry mixes, coffee in cans (the Japanese are crazy over these as far as I know), to all sorts of condiments. Sadly, no beer. No trace of Kirin, Asahi, Sapporo or Yebisu.

Prices are on the high side. And I’ve read a blog entry about the staff prohibiting customers from taking pictures. I didn’t encounter anything of that sort, though. I liberally took pictures using a phone camera, none too discreetly.

The Japanese have this fascination with KitKats. Konbini carried the green tea, strawberry, white and dark choco varieties.

The store has a small dining area where you can order ramen, sushi and some grilled and fried items like gyoza and chicken. I ordered the Super California Roll and the pork gyoza to go.

***

The red rice ale had a distinctly grainy, bean-y taste, with a mild hoppiness thrown in. There were hints of sweet fruits that I can’t quite pin down. The white ale meanwhile was the more interesting brew smell- and taste-wise. The liquid poured a hazy and cloudy dark yellow, as opposed to the red rice ale’s clear rusty amber. The nose was a bit citrusy, which was typical of wheat beers. I wouldn’t exactly call the way the white ale rolls down as “smooth.” The more apt word is, oddly, “soft,” as properly described on the back label. The spices layer well on the sip. Hitachino doesn’t joke when it proclaims that this beer is infused with coriander and nutmeg. The nutmeg aroma is pleasantly distinctive. You really smell and taste the spices here.

These two beers are Asian interpretations of the pale ale and witbier, with a truly Asian sensibility – subtle and not too grabby with any one ingredient. Like many Asian beers, they are best taken with appropriate food.

The “California sauce” and “Gyoza sauce” were nothing but Ajinomoto or Kikkoman fermented soy. I tried dipping the gyoza in a teriyaki marinade that’s been residing in my ref for quite some time. The gyoza wasn’t the best I’ve had, to begin with. The California roll was good, each piece a heavy, almost complete meal. The eel topping was a masterful addition to an otherwise garden-variety sushi.

The two ales stood up both to the soy sauce and the teriyaki marinade, complementing rather than overpowering the food. The white ale was a particularly pleasing partner to the California roll, going well with the mildness of the unagi and mayo, and the sweetness of the mango and the crabstick. The beer and food combo typify the Japanese predisposition for harmony. Not unexpectedly, these Hitachino ales came alive with the food, and vice versa.

The two Hitachino ales had me mightily buzzed and full before two in the afternoon. A very filling and fulfilling lunch treat for a self-confessed Japanophile.

*click on the label "beer philippines" below to see other reviews

Worlds Apart

2011-12-18T22:37:00.001+08:00

As a Pinoy, it’s sometimes hard, nay painful, to drag a Filipino institution down. No, I’m not referring to Congress or the Supreme Court, nor the Chief Justice impeachment and dirty politics. I’m targeting San Miguel Brewery and their insultingly mediocre pilsner.

You never really realize how watery and bland Pale Pilsen is until you taste it side by side with a quality beer of the same style. For tonight, I tried comparing it with a Victory Prima Pils.

The two beers share the same golden yellow color, but that’s where the similarities end. The Victory is pleasingly grainy in smell and very crisp on first and repeated sips. The San Miguel, quite simply, greets the nose with a combination of laundry detergent and corn. At least San Miguel Brewery is being honest here – their bestselling beer truly is a “pale” pilsner in every sense of the word, though the marketing people may not have intended the tag line in a negative way. Pale Pilsen is an awful beer and anyone who says otherwise should be fed intravenously for days with good German or Czech style pilsners to realize what he or she is missing.

The Prima’s hops tickle you at the backend, providing a persistent but mild bitterness. However, it’s the malts that provide steadiness here. The Prima is dangerously drinkable, the carbonation totally unobtrusive. The beer’s so crisp I expect something to crack, snap and pop inside my head.

Considering our drinking culture and the preference of Pinoys for light beer and multiple bottle drinking, the Prima Pils may be a good introductory brew to educate and wean the beer multitudes off what beer aficionados call “fizzy” brews. Which incidentally make up practically the entire San Miguel lineup (with the possible exception, barely, of Cerveza Negra).

After partaking the Prima, the Pale Pilsen is actually quite a chore to finish.

I’ve only but the highest of praises for Global Beer Exchange for embarking on the difficult task of enlightening the beer drinking public in the country by bringing in quality brews from Victory Brewing and other American craft brewers. I recently got an assortment of brews from their head office in Makati and got to meet and chat with owner Jim Araneta. Jim’s doing me a big favor by selling quality US brews here, because otherwise I would spend much more importing the stuff inside balikbayan boxes to satisfy my constant beer craving.

Con-Con Rating System: F=forgettable; G=good and will drink if available; D=desirable, will opt for seconds or more; and W=wow, would go places just to seek out this beer

A solid D, alcohol 5.3%

*click on the label "beer philippines" below to see other reviews

Showcases of Pinoy Creativity

2011-12-18T01:02:00.001+08:00

Two lantern events in two days.

Too bad I didn’t get to see much of the floats at this year’s UP Diliman Lantern Parade. I saw the tail end of the College of Fine Arts masterpieces (which are traditionally the last in the parade order), and as I was about to replace my camera’s drained AA batteries one got stuck in the compartment and I couldn’t get it out. So the pictures below are just about the only ones I was able to take. The UP Lantern Parade is the best local Christmastime parade there is.

Meanwhile, San Fernando Pampanga’s Giant Lantern Festival wasn’t what I imagined it to be. I expected huge floats being moved along local streets, a la UP Lantern Parade. Instead, the plus-sized lanterns were parked as stationary displays at a mall lot. There was a cordoned-off pay area with seats for those willing to shell money to get closer to the dazzling light displays. The rest of the non-paying crowd had to jostle for good viewing space from a considerable distance.

The overly-commercial setup and venue robbed the event somewhat of the essential Christmas spirit. The blinking, seemingly-dancing, eye-poppingly colorful lanterns made me forget the many hassles of the event for a while. But craning one’s neck and stretching one’s arms to get good views and half-decent camera shots was definitely not a good way to savor the delightful light displays.

The Giant Lantern Fest is something I’d think many times over before visiting again in the coming years, considering the distance, and especially if it’s held in a mall again next time around. But the UP Lantern Parade is an event I’d keep returning to with eager regularity and anticipation till my hair turns gray.

Great Beer Begets Great People

2011-12-11T22:03:00.005+08:00

I messaged local beer blogger Eli two weeks ago about the possibility of sharing the one bottle of Pliny the Elder I got from the recent trip. I guess the invite came across as a Godfather-like bargain. An offer any self-respecting beer nut cannot refuse. After the memorable experience with the Elder last November, it seemed perfectly logical to share my next Pliny with people who’d best appreciate it.

The meet-up happened last Thursday, at the house of his friend, Ateneo Humanities prof Nicole. I brought the Elder, a Baltika Russian porter, and a bottle of La Chouffe Belgian golden ale. My two new beer friends prepared pairing food and a bottle of Sculpin Imperial Pale Ale (IPA) to compare with the centerpiece brew for the night.

Maybe the initial awkwardness of having beer conversation with people you’ve just met was mitigated by the joy of alcohol. We worked our way up, starting with the golden ale (lingering aromas of pepper, but flat tasting), then the porter (medium-bodied, with slight hints of coffee and chocolate), then the Sculpin (their favorite IPA up until the Elder, a bitter beer for novices and enthusiasts alike). When time came to pour the Pliny, we had already loosened up.

The Pliny was like a thunderbolt on that rainy evening. Eli has better words to describe both the experience and the singular beer we had in his blog entry. The bitter, hoppy sting was more intense when I had the Pliny on tap at the Toronado, but the brew’s trademark potency was still very much there that night, from a bottle just a little more than a month old. Undeniably, the amber liquid was like a knockout punch delivered with a genteel smile. In no time, the bottle’s contents were exhausted and we only had a common, shared memory to cling to.

We agreed to meet again for some more beer tasting adventures. Eternally grateful to have new beer friends to share bottles of brews with. And thanks to future UP lawyer Eli for sending the group photo.

*click on the label "beer philippines" below to see other reviews

Results Are In

2011-12-09T19:50:00.006+08:00

Bad, but not too terrible. There’s a lot to learn here. Foremost is, you can’t make training shortcuts and expect to breeze through a full marathon. I hit the wall at about the 30-31K mark, and started to walk and run alternatively from that point on.

A day after the race, my chest and lung area was aching – a clear sign I didn’t breathe properly while I ran. My belt bag was too heavy (it contained a chunky 2003-era point and shoot and sun block, both useless in the pouring rain), but the Camelbak was a real hydration savior. Slight downhills at La Mesa Dam were painful on the toes as they hit the shoe fabric up front.

I’m at the slower half of the pack. Finished 548th among the 703 who actually finished and didn’t quit. Much, much room for improvement. More than ever, I’m aware of my body and its limits. So I popped my 42K cherry. And like any first-time experience at, um, that, it’s painful, eye-opening, exhilarating.

Junk Food Junkie

2011-12-09T18:21:00.002+08:00

I confess, my need to have a salt fix may have tempered with age, but it’s a constant craving that’s hardwired into my system. Normally, I grab a bag of BBQ Chippy or BBQ Granny Goose Tortillas or Cheese Clover Chips instinctively, almost zombie-like from the rack once or twice a month during grocery runs.

A while ago though, I went out of my tried-and-tested zone and picked a Chumbos Balls, a High Rock Potato Crisps and a G-Mix 5-in-1 “Snacks.” All untried before.

The Chumbos is basically Jack and Jill’s take on Planters Cheese Balls, while the High Rock is Granny Goose’s blatant knockoff of Jack and Jill’s Piattos. In this era of 12-in-1 pirated DVDs and “sulit tipid” combo meals, relatively new, Cebu-based Prifood manages to cram corn ships, cheese curls, cheese rings, what looks like tortilla chips, and Oishi shrimp stick-like things in a package that costs just a tad more than two minimum fare jeepney rides. Which is to say, the G-Mix is a confused and confusing snack.

All three are supposed to be cheese flavored, but for sheer “cheesiness” the Chumbos wins hands-down. The G-Mix is more sweet than cheddar-y. I'm not sure if that was what's intended.

My current top addiction is kettle fried potato chips. I relish how their crunch and crackle reverberate into the innermost recesses of my brain. And I happen to have the manliest, baddest bag of kettle frieds I’ve seen. For reference purposes, the picture below reveals how the 2-pound Kirkland bag dwarfs a Pale Pilsen bottle and the biggest baby powder container. If that isn’t love, what is?

Something's Amiss

2011-12-08T16:39:00.005+08:00

I almost forgot about this snapshot of a newspaper photo taken a week or so back. It was about winning the "basketble" silver at the recent Southeast Asian Games. Maybe everyone was too excited about the win that they didn't notice anything wrong about the spelling.

Relaxed Korean Dining

2011-12-08T09:40:00.002+08:00

It was one of those “You doin’ anything else after this? Let’s have dinner!” things. Three long-time friends finished a project-related meeting and proceeded to Choice Buffet at the Hobbies of Asia complex along Macapagal Avenue. I couldn’t refuse a dinner treat.

I’m a newbie to Korean food. I think the only other time I ate at a Korean or Korean-themed restaurant was at Kaya in Megamall eons ago. Choice Buffet I assumed covered the basics of Korean barbeque and salads. You select your marinated pieces of beef, pork, chicken and squid and grill them right on your table. The tasty meat pieces were marinated just right -- sweetish or salty when need be, the heat very tempered even in the bits that were meant to be spicy. I dipped the grilled goodies alternatively in sesame oil and in some thick, mildly spicy, reddish sauce that came down well with the lettuce wrapping.

The sushi didn’t taste and look fresh. And I didn’t bother much with the other things on offer. The buffet spread wasn’t that extensive anyway. There were some some soup, rice and noodles. The desserts were your basic fruits, cake slices, small cupcakes, ice cream. The centerpiece attraction was obviously the barbeque, and it was delicious enough. The thing about eating meat and veggies and not much carbs in a buffet is you don’t feel so bloated afterwards.

The price is in the 500 or so peso range per head. I saw a Korean chef and there were a handful of Korean patrons, making me believe this place is true to its Korean packaging. It’s a good re-introduction to Korean barbeque in a place that happened to be accessible at the time we decided to have dinner. Perhaps I wouldn’t go out of my way to dine there if I’m in my Quezon City base, but for the price the unlimited servings of meat was very reasonable. There was a Yakimix a few doors away and we saw a long line to enter. Choice Buffet offered a quieter atmosphere because of fewer patrons. Maybe not too ideal for the owners, but good for the diners who enjoyed a relaxed, unstressed and unhurried dining experience.

Comforting Fallback

2011-12-06T02:56:00.015+08:00

I passed by Mall of Asia yesterday searching for a restaurant which apparently had already shut down. It was lunch time. I wanted to try something loosely "authentic."

It's then you realize that MOA, humongous as it is, is just full of eateries largely catering to the undiscriminating, chow-anything "mall crowd." Fully expected, but a place that prides itself as a world-class mall should offer world-class restaurants as well. You need to be knocked off your stool once in a while, and not by those faux-Vietnamese, faux-American, faux-Italian, faux-Japanese, faux-Thai and whatever else aspirational restaurants that litter the mall.

Lesson learned: if you want an "authentic" dining experience in a local mall, the safest bets are Chinese and Filipino cuisine. Not that they are a bad fallback. Better yet, don't go at all to the mall when you want to ba assured of an exquisite dining experience.

Ted's Oldtimer La Paz Batchoy looked like a misplaced carenderia, but the sensation of sipping piping hot broth lured me in. I ordered the "Extra Super." Now that's a superlative noodle dish, I was thinking -- Extra na, Super pa. What could go wrong?

The dish contained chicken and pork bits, pig's liver and intestines, and a good sprinkling of fried pork rinds (chicharon) thrown in for good measure. A cholesterol nightmare if there was one. The broth was hearty but lacked depth of flavor. I'm sure there were shortcuts employed here, that the hot liquid was not boiling for several hours to mine the various oils and taste profiles of the ingredients. Yes, it was assuringly salty and heavy, but wasn't deep with flavor. These types of dishes, at least for me, are all about the broth.

Comforting, but not complete. Makes me curious to try real batchoy again, after a long time, in Negros or Iloilo.

Sunday Punishment

2011-12-04T17:09:00.010+08:00

I discovered first-hand this morning that running a full 42 kilometer marathon is just about the most punishing thing you can do to your body. There are more demanding physical activities, for sure, but running and walking for five hours and forty minutes straight (4am to close to 10am) is one extreme gig. And half of it done in the rain.

The pathetic time needs to improve. The first 21K’s pace was acceptable, but what needs much improvement is sustaining it all for the second half and maxing out the body’s limits.

I’m not too eager to repeat the experience anytime soon, though. At least there’s another check mark to the bucket list.

Okay, this is indeed the last

2011-12-02T06:02:00.007+08:00

Last US food and drink post, despite my claims in the previous entry. I was supposed to integrate this with the other food rant, but I couldn’t find the pics in the usual file folder so I assumed I accidentally deleted them. Turns out I just saved them somewhere else in the maze-like directories of the laptop.

San Franciso’s Dynamo Donuts lies in the Mission District where it’s surrounded by taquerias and Mexican-owned establishments. It’s fairly small and nondescript from the front and we actually missed it the first time we drove through 24th St. The lines gave a hint to this place’s popularity.

The Choco Spice donut was once listed as one of the top desserts you need to eat before you die, but they ran out before noon, and we came mid-afternoon. My sister relied on the staff recommendations (which were basically the flavors still left that day) and we took home samples of the apricot cardamon, quince crumb, candied orange blossom and the ginger orange.

The tangible difference in these donuts is you can actually smell and taste the ingredients. They’re not like cheaper pastries where there’s a jelly filling or topping that is advertised as something but doesn’t taste remotely like it. Texture wise, they have a somewhat fuller bite that breaks from the usual donut airy hollowness. But they're still enjoyably chewy. The hardened frostings have a minute crunch. Good donuts indeed. For the price, they should be. They’re at least twice the price of ordinary ones.

It felt weird tasting ginger in a donut. I would have preferred ordering the chocolate varieties, but they were all sold out when we dropped by.

The failed Choco Spice purchase has given me an OC-like obsession to try it the next time I’m back. Which is not soon. But definitely something to look forward to.

***

Ben and Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk and Chocolate Fudge Brownie are placed way, way up in my all-time fave list (thankfully, both available at the local S&R chain but insanely overpriced). I’ve never been a fan of Haagen Dazs, though, which, despite the Euro-sounding name, is as Yankee as baseball and Paris Hilton.

Safeway Supermarket had small-cup sized portions of B&J’s Americone Dream (vanilla ice cream with fudge covered waffle cone pieces and caramel swirl) and and HD’s Rum Raisin (vanilla ice cream with rum-soaked raisins), which I had to try.

I don’t like vanilla ice cream, even vanilla ice cream with all sorts of additions, or any white/cream colored cold concoction for that matter. And these two did not convince me otherwise. The only semi-exciting thing about the B&J’s were the crunchy cone bits, but they didn’t distract from the dullness of the vanilla base. Neither did the rum raisins elevate the H’s flavor profile. And they were both too sweet for me. I’d have my chocolate-based ice cream over them any day.

Last of the Food Adventures

2011-11-28T07:42:00.003+08:00

SF Creamery created media buzz when Man vs. Food’s Adam Richman took the Kitchen Sink challenge and finished the humongous tub of ice cream in one sitting in half an hour.

I’m not sure how many gallons of ice cream were placed in the giant receptacle, which dwarfed every other ice cream preparation I’ve had before. You choose 8 flavors, and they add bananas, whipped cream and assorted toppings. We occupied a long table of more than 10 people, and we still had difficulty consuming the entire dessert. The ice cream was rich, creamy and flavorful, but there’s a point when eating already becomes a chore because there’s just so much of these frozen delights.

The Kitchen Sink challenge is a good conversation piece but I’d enjoy SF Creamery’s yummy treats better with a more manageable serving.

***

The US trip was not all about eat-till-you-drop indulgence. It was also about refining and educating the palate. One of my sisters took wine tasting lessons in California and she told me they did extensive blindfold tests to determine how well they could taste and smell ingredients that were mixed with red and white wines.

I’ve seen many so-called enthusiasts back home who rave about wine being “dry” or “sweet” or “rich” or “cleansing” or whatever else adjective they use. But it made me wonder. How do we ordinary Pinoys get to know if something tastes of blueberries, raspberries or blackberries, or if a concoction has hints of various spices like white pepper, cumin, chipotle or cayenne, when our typical gastronomic experience excludes these ingredients? You’d be hard-pressed to find berries other than strawberries in Pinoy supermarkets. Many of us cannot even pronounce chipotle properly.

So in an effort to educate my ignorant tongue I tried three popular berry varieties. My only regret was not having tasted cranberries during Thanksgiving.

The raspberries had a distinct tart sourness (maybe more pronounced than usual because berries are summer fruits and they’re not in season in autumn). Of the three, the raspberries had a very slight roughness in texture that made the molars work more. The blackberries were soft and sweeter. There’s a fullness to the bite. My favorite were the blueberries. Pinoys are familiar with blueberries but only with the preserved kind that are mixed with cheesecakes. The blueberries have a crunchy bite that leads to a fruity, sugary explosion once you pop the skin open. Taste and texture wise, I like them best.

I love nuts. I boil raw peanuts regularly and snack on them during evenings. For this trip, I’ve had the chance to try more “exotic” varieties that are way too expensive and usually uncommon back home. These are (clockwise from top to bottom) – walnut, hazelnut, pecan, brazilnut and almond.

Easily, the brazilnut and hazelnut are tops. The brazilnut is more chewy but the hazelnut has a natural sugar-y taste that is more pronounced. The pecans (at least those that came with the pack) were dry and a bit bitter. The walnuts and almonds are bland and well, nutty. Which may explain why almonds in particular are a good mix to milk chocolate. The processed cacao’s creaminess is a good balance to the almond’s crunchiness.

The nut education may be useful in my continuing beer appreciation. Next time a particular brew is described as nutty, with hints of hazelnut for instance, I’d have a taste databank in my brain to access and compare to.

An Expanding Galaxy

2011-11-22T12:12:00.015+08:00

The brief glimpse of the American beer market has brought me a Marianas Trench-level appreciation of the phrase "spoiled for choice." Here, small and medium-sized breweries proudly raise a stiff middle finger to the global brewery conglomerates because they know they can produce good product, and because they know that there is a critical mass of intelligent beer drinkers who can discriminate not only between good beers, but between beer styles. The result: an ever-expanding galaxy of pilsners, lagers, all types of ales, all types of stouts, American crafts, imports, cheap six-packs, pricey jumbo bottles, witches' brews, chemists' concoctions, all elbowing for market and mind share.

One night last week I was grappling with watery lagers from Mexico and Argentina. True to cliche, I sliced some lime and dunked them over a glass of San Lucas Cerveza. It was followed by an introduction to Quilmes - "Argentina's Favorite Beer." Both painfully mediocre brews, but there's space for them here.

This morning I was inside one of the biggest liquor stores I've been in. Total Wine in Reno, Nevada is a multi-state mega-chain retailer of wine and beer. Comparable to BevMo, maybe bigger.

The beers here take a backseat to the wines, but the selection is wide nonetheless. The number of winter seasonals is notable.

Definitely my last purchases for the stash that's going home: Samuel Adams The Vixen, Brew Dog Tokio, Dogfish Head Palo Santo Marron and Rogue Hazelnut Brown Nectar (muchos gracias to fellow beer nut Vincent for the heads up on this one).

Seafood “Diet”

2011-11-22T11:19:00.002+08:00

It seems no force on earth can stop us from eating at San Francisco Japantown’s Isobune. We needed to redeem ourselves after a failed first attempt.

Isobune offered rotating sushi plate-style dining where you pay based on what type of plates you get from the moving small boats in the oblong-shaped dining area. Prices ranged from $1.95 blue plate dishes like scrambled egg sushi (tamago) to $8.95 for the more exotic and pricey stuff like king crab.

It was an all-out chowfest with my three brothers-in-law who all sang hosannas about this sushi place. The toro (the fatty part of a tuna, supposedly the most valued sushi ingredient) is particularly memorable, they chorused. We tried spicy tuna, mackerel, yellow tail, baby octopus, shrimp, eel, shark’s fin and seaweed, fish roe. Seafood at this level of quality and preparation transforms the dining experience altogether into a sublime one.

The toro lived up to its hype. It’s no exaggeration to say that it was melt-in-your-mouth tender. You don’t need to chew to break it down. Tongue action would do the job. It had a very mild natural saltiness and was bereft of any unwelcome “fishiness.” I separated the piece of toro from the rice and took it straight without dipping in soy sauce to fully savor the sensation of eating this premium ingredient. If there are true indulgences in the sushi world, this would be it. And it did not disappoint.

I consumed ten platesful oh sushi in all. The record among the four of us was fifteen. Maybe if I hadn’t ordered the big bottle of filling Sapporo I would’ve had more. Just the same, this has to rank as of one of my top sushi dining experiences so far.

***

The Maine lobster buffet is what people flock to in Reno, Nevada’s Boomtown Hotel (apart from the gambling, perhaps). Twenty-five bucks for eat-all-you-can whole lobster and a full buffet spread with bottomless drinks is a steal any which way you look at it. There was a lean Sunday crowd. The manager said they had been packing the restaurant less and less because of the economy, but at their peak years ago they served 10,000 lobsters to customers on any given Friday to Monday weekend period.

Aside from the plate of Greek salad and corn, it was all lobsters for me. I didn’t bother much with the rest of the food offerings.

I had four of these bad boys. The back and tail area meat was thick and had the distinctive lobstery-chewiness. The claw meat was more muscle-y and less resistant to the bite. Dip them all in melted butter and you’ll get a peek of the culinary equivalent of heaven. Even the big lobster heads were not spared. The mushy brain area was a particular delight. My last lobster even had roe in it.

After a few hours of non-stop messy eating and loud chatter our table looked liked the aftermath of a merciless hurricane.

Face Rearrangement at 13,000 feet

2011-11-18T21:22:00.003+08:00

A picture is worth a thousand words, as they say. Terror, glee, jubilation, desperation, all shown in a rearranged face. Fifteen minutes or so to reach 13,000 feet, thirty seconds of free fall, can’t recall how many minutes of open parachute glide back to earth. It felt so sudden yet seemed like an eternity at the same time.

One in a long bucket list down. Many, many more to go.

San Francico Nightscapes

2011-11-17T03:12:00.008+08:00

The Union Square / Powell area is lively yet crowd-wise, very manageable. No jostling or elbowing along the sidewalks. You can't call San Francisco "intimate" but it also isn't sprawling and overly impersonal. Its look is typical and generic modern metropolis, moreso at night. I'd classify San Fran as a "day" city. Its allures and attractions may be best experienced before dusk. At least that's what I felt.

Japan Transplanted

2011-11-16T13:09:00.017+08:00

A sudden craving for authentic sushi made us drive 45 minutes to San Francisco’s Japantown for a quick food fix. The Japan Center complex housed restaurants and shops offering anything and everything Japanese -- toys, collectibles, books, antiques, foodstuffs. The surrounding area was dotted with more shops and restaurants and had a relaxed, vaguely Japanese small town feel to it. No Tokyo glitz and glitter for sure.

Misfortune of misfortunes, Isobune, with its sushi boat, conveyor-belt style dining was closed for the day because of renovations. We thus had to make do with sister-restaurant Kushi Tsuru a few feet away.

I ordered items not usually offered in Japanese restaurants back home – tako (cooked octopus) sashimi and one of the signature rolls (curiously called the Pink Lady) with soft shell crab tempura, tuna, snapper, flying fish roe and dabbed with Kushi Tsuru’s own sauce.

Good, filling food. And having been prepared by a real Japanese chef was a big plus. The octopus wasn’t tough, it was cooked with an appropriate amount of bite to it. Nothing wrong with the roll, but it was already an Americanized interpretation of what a sushi roll was. I don’t recall avocado as a staple Japanese ingredient (neither is mango in what has evolved to be the Pinoy version of the California maki). Likewise typically American was the generous serving.

I guess the Japanese food clichés from back home, with the pork tonkatsus, chicken teriyakis and yakisobas, are just replaced by the equally clichéd fancy sushi rolls here. Again, nothing wrong with that, especially when the meal is tasty and prepared with fresh ingredients.

Japantown is proof of America's multiculturalism and its ability to assimilate different cultures, distill them and come up with an eventually-American version of the original.

Napa Valley and the Good Things in Life

2011-11-16T08:32:00.009+08:00

California’s wine country has the requisite postcard-perfect vistas and vast stretches of grape plantations. Our favorite destination here is the V. Sattui Winery because of their quality selection of wines that are not sold anywhere else except on premises.

Apart from the wines, Sattui sells gourmet cheeses and dips. The dips they let customers sample. I liked the honey mustard most, with its sweet base followed by a sharp stab of mustard, with the olive oil with balsamic vinegar coming in second. The vinegar was mildly tangy and had a mellow mix of sour and sweet.

I don’t flatter myself as a wine enthusiast, but of the Sattui wines I’ve had before, the rose variety Gamay Rouge and the dessert wine Muscat are favorites.

Like most Napa wineries that are open to the public, Sattui has a wine tasting bar which lets patrons, for $10, sample six wines on their list. An additional $5 entitles one to the reserve list, but the regular list was fine enough for me. The server gave you a wine menu with detailed descriptions of both vintage year and tasting notes, plus a checklist where you marked your choices. She advised me to start with the whites, going down and to the next page where the reds are listed.

The tasting gave me the chance to get familiarized with Sattui’s whites and reds. My choices, from left to right going down: Chardonnay, Dry Reisling, Pinot Noir, Sangiovese, Syrah and Angelica. Most memorable were the Reisling and the Angelica. The Dry had the crispness of a classic reisling, patting the palate with just-right sweetness that was not overpowering. The Angelica was a dessert wine infused with brandy, and had a higher alcohol content in the 20s. The smell was pure brandy, and the liquid pinches the tongue and throat with a substantial alcohol rush. I was expecting more from the Syrah, but it didn’t present me with that almost-slappy spice heaviness that often characterized this variety. I prefer the Australian shirazes to the Sattui interpretation.

The Sattui visit was too short but savored well.

***

Domaine Chandon specialized in whites and bubblies. Not my preferred varieties, so no tasting for me. The grounds were larger than Sattui’s, the halls and rooms more laden with art. The vineyards were easily accessible for picture-taking.

***

Lunch was at Taylor’s Refresher / Gott’s, a popular burger-and-fries joint along the main Sta. Helena road. Dining was al fresco at the yard. Service and turnover were brisk. The burgers were quite pricey, starting at $7.99 for the basic cheeseburger (which I ordered), going up to $10.99 for the fancier sandwich with onion rings, blue cheese, bacon and barbeque sauce. I washed the burger down with a glass (from a bottle) of Deschutes’ Black Butte Porter. My companions chose other burger and fries varieties. They all agreed the milkshakes were good.

The condiment that separates a true American burger from a pretender is good mustard. We don’t usually add mustard back home in Pinas, though burgers have become almost ingrained in the Pinoy diet. May be a cultural thing, this refusal to add a key condiment, but the mustard somewhat completes the burger.

Whole Foods Beers

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Whole Foods, a leading purveyor of organic produce, stocks up on beers but the choices are expectedly not as extensive as BevMo's or the specialty beer shops I've visited in San Francisco. The trip however, was made memorable by the bottles of Pliny the Elder adorning the cooler displays.

I'm honestly not sure if the buying spree is over. Two or so weeks to go before I go home, and a last visit to BevMo is highly possible. In the meantime, these bottles add on to what's being shipped soon: Russian River Pliny the Elder, Ommegang Hennepin, Mikkeller Big Bad Worse, De Struisse Black Albert.

Ferry Building at the Embarcadero

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(Note: This is not a photo blog, but recent posts have been very photo-heavy. I just want to chronicle and share as much as possible the numerous experiences and sensations of this trip. The pictures, as always, are clickable for larger versions)

The makeshift farmers' market is a twice-a-week event outside Ferry Building. The Sunday version I'd suppose is much bigger, but the Tuesday holding is in itself a veritable showcase of organic and artisanal produce from California growers.

There may be a creeping gloominess with the advent of winter, you see it the the drabness of people's clothes among other things, but the exploding vibrancy of colors in the farmers' market produce make you forget the cold dreariness for a while. The leafy vegetables look so crisp, the fruits seem like they were plucked minutes ago.

I marveled at the raisins that come from different grape varieties, the nuts you don’t see fresh back home, multi-colored potatoes, flowers I’ve only seen before in childhood picture books, and other farm products that all appear to have been produced with the utmost TLC. Pricey, but one always has to pay extra for quality that doesn’t come from a big, impersonal corporate conglomerate.

Inside the building were pricey shops that sold artisanal cheeses, fresh seafood, European cured meats, organic donuts, gourmet chocolates, choice beef and non-traditional meat cuts including buffalo, mushrooms (the Italian white truffles were being sold at $312.50 per ounce), various organic products from juices to ice cream. Again, I’m amazed at the staggering array of choices. I’m imaginging it’s glorious to be a consumer here.

San Fran Chows, Guzzles and Licks

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Memphis Minnie's Barbeque Joint and Smokehouse

Barbeque sandwiches and platters. The beef brisket sandwich's crispy and crusty French-style bread was loaded with juicy, succulent and generous amounts of brisket. The marinated meat literally peels off when you bite. Slaw side's crisp lettuce had the "just-right" amount of vinegar zing. The housemade sauces varied from spicy to sweet to tangy. I liked the spicy Beelzebub's most.

***

Rosamunde Sausage Grill

How best to pair the various beers on tap? Beer sausage! Smoky and spicy beef and pork, taken with fries, washed down with crisp, malty Allagash white wheat beer.

A dog with attitude. The spicy beef chili and grilled onions seal the deal.

***

La Taqueria

One of of San Fran's must-visits. Supposedly the city's best taco.

Eating a real hand-made taco demolishes all the taco stereotypes from back home - particularly the one with the factory-made hard taco shell, the shredded lettuce and cheese, the mashed beef. Partaking the hand-rolled soft taco shell which smells and tastes of real ground corn, filled with thinly-sliced, melt-in-mouth cow's head meat, and topped with chopped onions and cilantro, makes you feel like Neo in The Matrix after taking the red pill. You suddenly feel enlightened.

***

Bi-Rite Creamery

A favorite destination of food bloggers and obviously, ice cream lovers. GQ Magazine named the salted caramel one of the five best desserts in 2009, but I ordered the malted vanilla with peanut brittle.

Made in-house, super creamy. The peanut brittle provides a subtly salty counterpoint to the slightly burnt yet expectedly sweet vanilla flavor. This is several levels ahead of delicious.