Felina Personal Lubricant at Watson's

For the doctors out there - here's a better product than KY Jelly - another product of mine...Felina Personal Lubricant is available at all Watson's branches nationwide (Manila).

For inquiries about Felina you can call us at (+632) 376-2222 or email me.

P.S. Felina is also available at Mercury Drug outlets.

Alpha MINTS is now available!

I love blogs! Free announcements! After almost a year in R&D, my newest baby has come out and ready to take on the world of regular minty mints.

Presenting...

Alpha Mints, The Mint with a Purpose

What is it?
It's more than something you pop in your mouth to freshen your breath. We gave more reason to our mints existence.

Freshen your breath before that kiss and make the experience – even more pleasurable. ALPHA MINTS LOVE (P25.00) contains Red Korean Ginseng that is a proven aphrodisiac that enhances libido and sensual strength. Just munch on a couple, warm up to your partner and see sparks fly.

These mints are also quite useful for draining all-nighters, pop in an ALPHA MINTS ENERGY (P25.00) and get an instant pick-me-up. Pop in a couple more and jolt the hell out of you. No bottle. No mixing needed.

Each ALPHA MINT is sold in blister packs and available at 7-11 and soon Ministop. Visit our website at www.alphamints.com and apply to get some free mints!

Homey at Cookbook Kitchen

Ate at Cookbook Kitchen during the weekend and here are 10 things I would like to say about this hole in the wall resto:

1. I like the streamlined and minimalist menu. Having too much looses focus. If their menu changes given the seasonality of the items that would be a plus.
2. Whole place smells woodsy with garlic and tomatoes permeating the air.
3. Though you might need reservations during Fridays, plenty of seats during our dinner.
4. Pasta is not just pasta. Spaghetti is not corkscrew nor is it farfalle. Pasta shapes is different from what we ordered (i.e. we ordered Farfalle, but got Corkscrew).
5. Pasta sauce with bacon and cucumber was creamy yet refreshing.
6. Porkchops were tender, but the smaller cut pieces were a bit tough.
7. Tomato sauce is how I make them at home! I feel that Nora Daza inspired some of their dishes.
8. Parmesan Crusted White Fish is a winner. Crusty and cheesy top and moist fillets below. I just wish I knew what kind of fish it was.
9. Kittin's Scarlet cake is overrated. The menu says original and a cake you haven't tasted before. But I say, better order a classic that you do know.
10. Overall price - 300 per person isn't bad and good place to bring your family.

Cookbook Kitchen
8 Socorro Fernandez St., corner Luna Mencias St. (near Shaw Blvd),
Mandaluyong City
Tel. 724 3595
Mobile: 916-2765257

In Love with Som Tam

I would say that my 1 week business trip to Bangkok, Thailand, was also a culinary sojourn as well. But amidst the most delicious dishes I have tried, only one fare has kept me craving for more. This is the Som Tam.

Som Tam is a spicy papaya salad that originated from Laos, Issan, and the northern portion of Thailand. When translated Som Tam, means a pounded sour dish. Salad was the most delicious? This simple salad bursts with tones of flavors. Every bite transports you to another time and place. The citrus fresh green papaya felt like summer. Then another bite leads me to the ocean where salted shrimp or crab lends its aquatic juices. Then comes the heat from the chilies, evoking passion and fire. It is also a cornucopia of tones. Though simple to make, the salad mixes sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami ("the fifth taste").

Som Tam isn't Som Tam without the green papaya. Use green papaya that doesn't contain any bitterness. The ones I had in Thailand somewhat had a cantaloupe taste, lending its sweetness to the lime-fish sauce dressing. Also, in the Philippines, we normally use fish sauce or patis that is too much concentrated and has an extreme pungency. Thai fish sauce has a mellow salty taste, thus, it does not overpower the rest of the ingredients. You can do this by diluting water with your Filipino fish sauce. Your goal in the end is the balance with all the flavors and tones from the ingredients.

Here's a recipe from Realthairecipes.com, with my comments to help you prepare the perfect Som Tam.

What you would need:

• 1 teaspoon whole garlic cloves
• 2-10small thai chilies, to taste (Be careful as this can cause serious heat)
• 1 tablespoon palm sugar (You can substitute brown sugar.. The sugar balances the heat from the chilies)
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce, or 1/2 teaspoon salt (Dilute one part of Filipino fish sauce with one part of water. I don't recommend using salt)
• 1 long bean, broken into 1.5" pieces
• 1 tomato, quartered
  
• 2 teaspoons lime juice (Don't use any extract or Filipino limes. It imparts a different flavor.)
  
• 1 cup shredded green papaya (Your papaya should look like shoestrings)
  
• 3 tablespoons dry roasted peanuts
• 1 tablespoon dried small shrimp
  

How to prepare:

1. First prepare the papaya by peeling the dark green skin. Then, hold the papaya in your hand, and smack the fruit lengthwise with a good sized knife. You want to create 1/2″ or so deep cuts into the fruit. Do this over and over until you’ve created a good amount of cuts. Then, cut the papaya lengthwise to produce long strips. You can also buy tools which can create long shreds, or even use a cheese grater (the big holes).
   
2. In a ceramic mortar & pestle, add the whole garlic cloves and chilies. Pound with the pestle a few times to mash, then add the long beans. (Pounding is what makes all the difference. The release of flavors comes from pounding.)
   
3. Pound a few more times, and add a pinch of papaya. This helps mix the garlic & chilies. Pound some more.
4. Add the palm sugar, fish sauce or salt and pound more. Make sure everything is well mixed.
5. Add the tomato, chopped into large pieces. Pound more, but not as hard. Add the lime juice, dried shrimp and the rest of the papaya. Pound about 10-15 times while mixing with a spoon. You want to evenly coat the papaya with the juices while pounding the flavor into the papaya, but don’t pound so hard that the papaya disintegrates. Add the peanuts, mix and serve.

More of a visual person? You can watch this Som Tam making video from TryThaiFood.

Fastfood-like Service

Juan, our waiter for the evening has properly seated my party of 4. Walk-ins are more than welcome given the spacious dining accommodations. We order a four-course lunch starting with salad, soup, an entree, and dessert. After ordering he casually inquires when we would like the dessert to be served. Our salad came through within minutes and the taste would be what you expected from very fresh greens. Suddenly, our soup and mains were served WHILE we were still mixing the family sized salad. What do you do?

Filipino meals are mostly served at the same time. The main served with rice on the side of vegetables is a prix combo. The mish and mash of flavors and textures is definitely appealing. Also, some Filipino mains are sauce or soup-based, thus this type of service is understandable. Fortified with the love of fast food, this habit-forming "only serve once" food service is predominant even among fairly expensive dining establishments, especially if ain't serving Filipino food. Couldn't they wait for us to finish our French Onion Soup before serving my steak?

Why is this practice not appreciated? First, it the uncomfortable choice of which course to dine on. When salad and soup is served at the same time, it becomes a nuisance in choosing which you would like to have first. Later, your given a decision which should you eat from instead. Is the salad more delicious than the soup or vice versa? What if your main dish arrives when you are halfway through your appetizers? Disaster. In the end you feel you wasted your money on the appetizers as you didn't want your main course to get cold now, did you? Second, you feel hurried. As the food service throws several courses at you at the same time, you get a feeling that staff doesn't want you to hang around. The pleasure from appreciating a course is turned into a terrifying race. Was the meat tender, the flavors balanced, the colors vibrant? Fastfood-like service makes your dining experience forgettable. You dine on each course as fast you as you can before the others come.

What is the significance to the way the restaurant is managed? Exponential. Having poor food service correlates that the chefs don't care about the quality of the dish. They don't care if you appreciate it or not, they just want your money and leave. It also means that their staff isn't managed properly and doesn't know the difference between courses. OR worse, their evaluation is on the number of customers they seat in a single day. On the other hand, the cooks and staff aren't coordinated to the degree where they only care about is the practice of first come, first served. In the restaurant industry, if your staff and service seems to fall short on personalizing the dining experience and focuses on getting the order and collecting payment, it won't last long (except if you're running a fast food joint).

My suggestion? Make sure your cooking time, cooks and waiters are closely coordinated that each dish comes out at the time the diner would want it. Also, the staff should be able to tell if the customer is finished with that specific course, before serving the next. Waiters should fall in love with their tables. They should watch like a hawk and terrify the cooks if they are too fast or too slow in serving their dishes. New restaurants might not be able to get it at first, but the oldies have no excuse. They should have perfected their service to a T. As for the diner, if the waiters serve the food too soon, request them to serve it later, when you are finished with your current course. If it comes out cold when they serve it to you, return it and request for another one. Don't forget to tell the manager before you leave though. Overall, a hurried service doesn't mean efficiency, it's actually quite the opposite.

Getting Down With The First Post: Evoking Culinary Quality

Have you ever experienced a time when you were about to dine out and be swayed by the stingy person in the group? I have. Almost every weekend. I also do not understand why these people either control the expenses of the group or simply have a knack to influence. Though according to Mac's dictionary widget, the synonym of cheap is frugal, which is not the case.

Frugal is someone who knows how to handle and optimize his/her expenses. A cheap person is an individual who simply purchases a product or service without looking at the price. Thus, a frugal person might buy an expensive digital camera if s/he thinks that it offers the best value at that price. On the other hand, a cheap person settles for a lower-priced camera and could end up with less than what he paid for.

My point exactly? QUALITY. As a starting point for this blog, I will continually emphasize on getting value for your money everytime. Quality is at the core of great culinary wonders and negotiating on your standards greatly affects the outcome. Thus, an amateur home cook or a professional chef must know where he gets his ingredients (Is it fresh or not? Is it organic or not? Is it humanely raised or not?), what properly complements or empowers these ingredients, how these dishes are arranged, and how they are served. See this video, titled Ripe for Change of Alice Waters, food activist and owner of world-renowned Chez Panisse, as she discusses how one chooses great food.



Let me illustrate: I visited Terry's Selection during the weekend and I think this restaurant serves some value for one's money. 400 pesos for Lamb Confit and White Beans or Ox Tongue served Spanish style. Chunks of lamb stewed in rich white beans that act like mashed potatoes served in a cast iron cassoulet. As for the Lengua, it has rich and melt-in-your-mouth qualities, delicious and evocative. The best deal would be the wines, where you can shop in the store and pay it at retail price. No corkage! Normal wines that you normally purchase 180 pesos per glass in other restaurants, you can get a bottle in this restaurant for 350 pesos. You can also create a meat and cheese platter by ordering from the deli adjacent to the restaurant. We chose Brie (soft French cheese) and Spanish hard Manchego. This was served with choices of Serrano ham (aged and subtle with salty sweet hues), spicy and temptingly red Chorizo, meaty Canadian ham and Green olive specked Mortadella. Service was prompt, though could have improved on plating, contrast (such as acidity) to cut through the richness, and coordination of the dishes. Overall, one might think of it as a splurge, but overall ingredients are chosen from their origin, while prices remain competitive to the diner.

What about quantity? Though this facet is important, it should go secondary to quality. Also, my recommendation in dining, the best way to experience what a restaurant has to offer is by tasting smaller dishes. By just tasting one overly portioned course, we come to terms with satiating your palate and that reduces your pleasure. You won't be able to eat anything else.

This mindset changes everything. You CHOOSE not to eat everything in sight! By being a responsible and learned diner, it is ultimately your decision if you are going to indulge in mediocre French fries or tough and dry seafood. It is by exploring one's palate, delving into the unknown and challenging the standards that one gets their due reward. Let's go on this culinary voyage together!