~*El Rancho de Lalo & Lutong Pinoy in London!*~

One of the things I love most about London is the amount of choice there is of places to eat. London is a melting pot full of incredible restaurants, cafes and eateries, and there is always somewhere for everyone.








When I went to visit J in London last weekend, we visited a couple of amazing restaurants, which I will be telling you about in this post.










The first place we went to was a fantastic little Colombian eatery called El Rancho de Lalo. Situated in Brixton Village Market, it is a small, simple looking restaurant that is always jam-packed with people because the food is just too damn good! Reasonably priced, fresh and with VERY generous portions, it is the perfect place to get your fill on high quality grub. It was the second time J and I visited El Rancho de Lalo - we loved it the first time and we loved it even more the second time around!!
 

J with his Club Colombia beer!

On this visit, J ordered a Cazuela de Mariscos, which is a seafood soup with mussels, squid, octopus and shrimp. This was served with a portion of rice, salad, a couple of croquettes and cornbread. I was grateful for J sharing some of the seafood soup, because it was quite possibly one of the best dishes I have ever tasted!

Cazuela de Mariscos

Yes, I'd be happy with that dish too!

I ended up ordering the same dish as I had done on my first visit - the Bandeja Paisa, which is Colombia's national dish. The Bandeja Paisa is an absolute man meal (as you can see in the photo!) made up of different meats (grilled beef steak, fried pork belly and Colombian sausage), grilled plantain, rice, fried egg, beans and corn bread. I didn't finish everything as the portion was so huge (I shared most of it with J), but it all tasted amazing - the plantain, especially, was a nice way to break up such a protein-heavy meal!









La Bandeja Paisa!

The second restaurant we visited over the weekend was Lutong Pinoy, a cosy little Filipino restaurant on Kenway Road, about a 2-3 minute walk from Earl's Court tube station.

Upon walking into the restaurant, the whiff of cooked white rice made me feel very much at home - it smelt like a typical Filipino house, which made me feel super hungry!! I absolutely love the smell of Filipino food in the air, as it reminds me of being at home with my family.

The menu was full of amazing Filipino dishes at decent prices. We opted for Filipino Longanisa sausages with garlic rice (me) and Dinuguan with egg rice (J). Dinuguan is a Filipino savory stew of pork offal (typically lungs, kidneys, intestines, ears, heart and snout) and/or meat simmered in a rich, spicy dark gravy of pig blood, garlic, chilli, and vinegar. Needless to say, I was impressed with J choosing this as I thought he'd be put off by the ingredients, but he's very open-minded about food and he ended up loving it!

For drinks, I ordered a fresh Mango juice (my favourite!) and J enjoyed a bottle of Red Horse beer, which, along with San Miguel, is the Philippines national beer.

And for dessert...Halo Halo for both of us!! And it was delicious!!

Overall, I think we had a pretty awesome weekend of brilliant food and getting fat...I look forward to visiting both places again in future!

~*Merry Christmas - 2014!!*~

Hello peeps! First of all, a very MERRY XMAS to you and all of your loved ones! I hope you enjoyed your day as much as I did :)

For the past couple of years, I have blogged about my family's Christmas eats and decided to continue this tradition by doing it again this year. As mentioned in previous years, I feel very lucky to be from a multi-cultural background and to have grown up with such amazing food from the Philippines, Japan and England, and from other countries too.

This Christmas, my mum did the usual and laid on an amazing spread of foods from our cultures. We had the traditional English Christmas dinner (Turkey, vegetables, Yorkshire Puddings, etc), Japanese Sushi, as well as a wide selection of typical Filipino Xmas foods, such as Jamonado (sweet ham) and Morcon (beef role). We also had a few buffet-style nibbles on the table, such as breaded scallops and mozarella sticks - yum!!

Here are a few photos of the amazing food we had on Christmas day, plus some personal favourites of my family. 

"Pigs in Blankets" (chipolata sausages wrapped in bacon) - a favourite during Xmas eaten with traditional Turkey dinner.

Breaded scallops and prawns.

The Christmas spread :)

One half of the food table.

The other half of the food table.

Spread xx

Me and my mum before dinner xx

Mum, my sister-in-law and I with our "Jungle" cocktails.

My mum, sister-in-law and I :)

MERRY CHRISTMAS & ALL THE BEST!! XXX

~*My BALUT Experience*~

Hi all! I hope all is well today :)

Yesterday, I attended the Filipino Barrio Fiesta in Newcastle, which is an annual festival for Filipinos living in the UK. These fiestas are very popular and many attend to mingle with other Filipinos, watch the entertainment (which usually consists of local Pinoy talent) and of course, to take advantage of the food stalls serving amazing Filipino "ulam" (which is accompanied with rice) and desserts (hello, Halo Halo!).

Of course, when it came to the food, I wanted to take full advantage of what was on offer at the stalls. I ummed and aaahed at all of the delicious food, such as "Adobo" (chicken in soy sauce and vinegar sauce), "Bistek" (find my version of this in one of my earlier posts :)) and "Pinakbet"(pork pieces with aubergine, okra and other veggies) and then I came across a sign: "BALUT - £1.50 EACH".

Balut. Firstly, some things to know about Balut...

• It is a regular in the top 10 of the most gruesome foods in the world (very often coming in at the #1 spot).
• It is not for the faint-hearted.
• You need to have a strong stomach.

Balut is a very popular street food in the Philippines (and other parts of Asia), and it consists of a developing duck embryo that is boiled alive and eaten in its shell. The young chick inside the shell is nearly fully formed, which means it has the bones, beak and feathers intact when eaten. For those who are wondering - yes, you do eat the entire contents of the egg (apart from the shell).

I hadn't had Balut for very many years, not even when I visited the Philippines earlier on this year, so I forgot if I even liked it or not. Granted, I can see why it wouldn't appeal to many people, but my brother, as well as thousands of Filipinos, absolutely love it, so I thought I'd give it a try.

Here is a photo of what the inside of the Balut looked like:

 

As you can see, it is hasn't got the most appetizing appearance. Here are my reactions (the guy on the right is my Balut-loving brother) when I was cracking the egg open...

 

 

Overall verdict - looks unappealing but it actually tasted OK. I think a lot of people would avoid it mainly because they know what it is and knowing they are eating a nearly-developed chick (beak and feathers and all...) is a put off in itself, but if they blind-tasted this, I don't think they would be so grossed out about it. I certainly wasn't and I would quite happily eat this again.

 

What is the most unusual food that you've ever eaten?





~* Easy Filipino Style Beef Steak (Bistek) Recipe*~

Hi everyone! I hope you are well!

Today I would like to share a very simple recipe for a popular Filipino dish called "Bistek".

Bistek is made up of thinly sliced beef, which has been marinated in soy sauce, citrus juice (lemon, lime or calamansi), pepper and a little bit of water, and is served hot with onions and rice.

I was inspired to make this after watching Benji Travis (of benjimantv on YouTube, the husband of Judy of itsjudyslife) cook this with his Filipino mother-in-law, and since I was really craving Filipino food (as I do every day!) and had bought some good beef from the bargain section of the local supermarket, I thought "why not?" :)
I hope you enjoy this dish as much as I do!

INGREDIENTS

• 1 lb thinly sliced beef
• 1/4 cup Soy Sauce (preferably the light sort)
• Juice of 1 Lemon / 1 Lime / 4 Calamansi (I used lemon for mine)
• Black Pepper
• Water
• 1 onion (red or white), sliced

HOW TO COOK...

1. Take the thinly sliced beef and place into a bowl.

 

2.  Put the soy sauce into the bowl so that it covers the majority of the meat. 3. Take your citrus fruit (in this case, I used lemon), cut in half and squeeze the juice over the meat and soy sauce. You will need the juice of the whole fruit.

 

4. Put a little bit of water into the bowl in order to slightly dilute the soy sauce - I used about a tablespoon and a half of water.

5. Grind some pepper onto the meat, then mix everything together so that all of the beef is covered in the soy/citrus juice marinade.

6. Cover the bowl and allow the meat to marinate for 2-3 hours (the longer the better).

7. Once you are ready to cook the meat, heat a little bit of oil (enough for a shallow fry) in a frying pan.

8. Place the beef and a little bit of the marinade into the pan and allow to cook on medium heat. Leave for 1-2 minutes. Flip the meat and cook the other side, again for 1-2 minutes.

9. Now for the onions! Put the sliced onions on top of the beef and lower the heat, cooking for a further 1 minute. The intention is for the heat from the beef to cook the onions, so they should not go really soft.

10. Switch off the heat, and serve the Bistek with hot rice. Make sure you save the juices from the pan, as it tastes really good with the rice!

ENJOY!!!

 

~*Xmas in the Household! - 2012!!*~

Merry Xmas everyone!! :)  I hope you all had a great one!!

Now that everything surrounding the festive season is starting to slow down, I finally have time to blog and share with you all how we celebrated Christmas in our household and most importantly, what we ate!
I'm a big believer in the STRICTLY NO DIETING rule during the Xmas & New Year season, and I definately stuck to this!!


Every year, we spend Xmas day at my parents' house, and they set out a lovely buffet-style spread for dinner. As we have a mix of east (Japanese and Filipino) and west (English) in our family, they try and cater for everyone by having a mixed menu - this usually consists of a traditional English Xmas Dinner, Sushi and also Filipino foods. Instead of everyone sitting around the table with identical meals, we just pick what we want from the buffet of food before gathering together to eat.

This year, Kris and I were put in charge of the veg to serve with the traditional English Xmas Dinner. For those unfamiliar with a typical English Xmas Dinner, this consists of turkey (or any type of meat!) and "all the trimmings" - vegetables, stuffing, roast potatoes, "pigs in blankets"(chipolata sausages wrapped in bacon) and Yorkshire puddings, doused in gravy.


Preparation of the Xmas veg!


 

We chose to cook boiled carrots, sprouts, cabbage, broccoli, roasted parsnips and mashed potato (which I put Kris in charge of, and he now reckons he is the "Mash King" :-o!)

As a little addition to the table, we also cooked asparagus wrapped in Parma ham (seasoned with butter, salt and pepper) - delicious!! 



Asparagus and Parma ham
 

When we got to my parents' house on Xmas morning (at about 10:30am), the buffet was already laid out.

As always, there was a mix of Japanese/Filipino/English foods to choose from.Some dishes which we had for Xmas included:

•  Sushi
• Turkey (with veg and of course, Kris's mashed potato!)
• Spring rolls (Filipino Lumpia)
• Jamonado (a sweet Filipino ham)
• Lucban Hardinera (a type of meatloaf that originated in the Quezon Province in the Philippines)
• Chicken drumsticks
• Calamari 

Sushi!



Sushi!



Lucban Hardinera
 

We also had a selection of sweets to choose from to have as dessert, which mainly consisted of popular Filipino treats, such as:

 

•  Leche Flan (a very sweet milk flan)
• Polvoron (a powdered sweet which is individually wrapped)
• Yema (individually wrapped sweets made from egg yolk and condensed milk)
• Buko Pandan (a very popular Filipino dessert which consists of green gelatin, pandan leaves,tapioca pearls and "nata de coco", which is a chewy, translucent, jelly-like food product produced by the fermentation of coconut water)

 


Polvoron and Yema

Buko Pandan

Leche Flan

 

Needless to say, we all took advantage of such a wide selection of food and, especially with the STRICTLY NO DIETING rule, we went back for seconds (and thirds, fourths and even fifths!!)

I hope you all enjoyed your Xmas dinners too - I am sure that all families have their own Xmas traditions which they follow regarding food - what's yours?

*~ MERRY XMAS!!~*

 
 
 



~~**Beef Caldereta (Kalderetang Baka)**~~

Ooops, I have been really rubbish and not updated this blog for over 2 months now :( It's been a very busy couple of months, and now things have started to calm down, there's no excuse for me not to update on a much more regular basis!

Anyway, I have just come home from my parents' house, where I had a really delicious dinner cooked by my mum. I was watching her cook it, which spurred me on to get back on here and blog about it.



Beef Caldereta cooking in the pan!

She cooked a dish called Beef Caldereta (or Kalderetang Baka in Tagalog), which is a popular Filipino stew most commonly served either at home or during festivities and gatherings. It is a Spanish-influenced dish (which is more commonly referred to as "Caldereta" in Spain), and is made up of beef (though chicken, pork, goat or even fish can be used), potatoes, carrots, tomato sauce and liver spread/pate. It has a canny resemblence to a typical English Beef Casserole, only in my opinion, Caldereta is richer and miles tastier.

I believe this was the second or third time my mum had attempted this dish after getting a recipe from a website, but already she has somehow become a pro in making it! Her first attempt was for a house-gathering she had with friends (Filipinos love to socialise and eat!), and they seemed to be very impressed!!

Unlike English Beef Casserole, which would typically be served with boiled or mashed (or any type of!)potatoes and vegetables, we did it the Asian way and of course, served it with rice. My mum also boiled some broccoli to serve as a healthy side.

And here is how is looked on the plate! It went down very well, and I am looking forward to trying to cook this myself, though I doubt it will be as good as this (coz mothers do it the best, right?)

Amen!
 

P.s. For the Japanese speakers out there, no this is not "Idiot Stew", "baka" (or "vaca" in Spanish) is cow (or beef in this case!) xxx