Obento Po!

Here's something I almost forgot to write about. A few months ago, just as I was about to leave for work, I found this taped on our front door.


Happy days are back again.


Enter Garandee Bento 2.0
Wrapped exactly the way they do it in Japan, in elementary schools to be exact. I guess now I better be nice to her all the time or else I might find some of that delectable natto in there.


Best of all, it's finally microwave safe. Itadakimasu!

I took those photos this morning, so yes, that obento sign is still plastered on our front door. And apparently Garandee's bento theme for today is "Bora-bora" (Japanized meat balls).


Garando mode:
MEAT!! Read More......

Me & Morinaga

Garandee and I were so happy after finding that our favorite Japanese "P75 Store" was back in business. It was her only source for reasonably priced natto and my only source for...

(insert drum roll here)



Morinaga's Choco Monaka!!
The ice cream that blew my mind.

Now called "Choto Shop", the grocery has a bigger floor area allowing much more variety. But who cares about variety, I just want my Choco Monaka!

Garandee: "They have more vegetables now!!!"

Uhhhh.... right. Anyway, Choco Monaka has been available in Japan for ages. Considered very common among the Japanese as how the infamous Pinipig Crunch is to us, Filipinos. I can't even count my shirts that got stained when a large chunk of chocolate coating fell from my Pinipig Crunch, usually on my second bite!

So what makes me love Choco Monaka so much?



Vanilla ice-cream covered with a crunchy waffle!


And what's that inside?
A layer of chocolate between the ice-cream and the waffle, and another extra crunchy chocolate bar at the core!

Is that BRILLIANT or what?!

Choto Shop is located in Pasong Tamo St., Makati, where Little Tokyo and Shinjuku Ramen are at. If this post makes you wanna go over there pronto to grab some, chances are we already hoarded all the stock.

Kidding! I'm on a diet.


Garandee mode:
Yes, diet onegaishimasu (please)!! Your hand is so debu (fat).
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The Glorious Bento Days

Garando: "sigh..."

Garando: "double sigh..."

I miss the glorious bento days when I still had that "magic bento box" Garandee gave me.

Why magic? Because since then, I always had the best lunch boxes ever in my entire life! Enough to make me very popular around the office. Ok, only 5 people knew about it, but I guess that's popular enough.

Nevertheless, nothing's more authentic than having a Mongolian make my Japanese Bento.

This is a tribute to some of the best the bentos that have come and gone. May their memory live forever in my sophisticated gut.


Exhibit #1
1) Chicken, hard boiled egg and radish boiled in a soy sauce based stew.
2) Baked Greek Kofta with shaved almonds
3) Salad with no dressing (I spilled it all over my desk)



Exhibit #2
1) Sauteed sweet & spicy chicken, Chinese style
2) Fried spring rolls, Japanese style
3) Salad: Greens with tomato and steamed broccoli with no dressing (I misplaced it)


Exhibit #3
1) Nikujaga: Sukiyaki beef, potatoes and konyaku stewed in a sweet soy sauce broth.
2) Rolled chicken breast katsu with mozzarella at the core
3) Steamed broccoli & a deep fried minced chicken ball


Exhibit #4
(this came with Exhibit #3)
1) Lumps of Japanese rice topped with furikake and pickles
2) Steamed broccoli & deep fried minced chicken ball again


Exhibit #5
1) Beef yakiniku
2) Deep fried prawns covered with sliced almonds
3) Rolled tamago
4) Rolled cold cuts with boiled asparagus at the core & the biggest bean I have ever seen in my entire life

If I didn't heat my magic bento box in that blasted microwave in our office pantry I would still be living the dream.

Not much Garandee can do with a warped triangle bento box. Now I have to settle for recycled plastic take-out containers.

Garando: "sigh..."

Garando: "sob..."


Garandee mode:
At least it's microwave safe!

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Trifle Revisited

We couldn't get our minds off the Fresh Fruit Trifle that Garandee made for Christmas so she decided to make it again (lucky me!). There's only one problem: We were out of fruits.

We also overspent during the holidays so it's not likely we were going to splurge on strawberries, mangoes and melons anytime soon (they're pretty expensive around here). Garandee had to improvise.


Enter the Choco Banana Trifle!



A cheaper cousin to the Fresh Fruit Trifle, she used "easy to acquire" ingredients making it more affordable, but maintaining the quality and overall Garando satisfaction. Hee hee.

What's in it:
- Bananas from the nearest palengke (market)
- Chocolate sponge cake
- Custard
- Whipped cream (it's often in stock at home)
- Meiji Milk Chocolate Bar


This time, she made layers of custard, bananas and whipped cream all mixed together, sandwiched between the sponge cake, then topped it off with the same stuff. Instead of choco sprinkles, she showered it with grated Meiji Milk Chocolate. It made it look more... "expensive".

Oh! I forgot one last ingredient. LOVE.

What can I say? It tasted awesome and it didn't last the weekend.


Garando mode:
Listening to The Camerawalls debut album and lovin' it!

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Garando's Kawawang Trip to Batangas City - part 2

read part one

Our drive to Batangas city was like a scene from one of my favorite cartoons. That scene where a little raincloud would persistently follow Wile E. Coyote, dropping rain and lightning wherever he went.

The weather was so wet & gloomy that the only stopovers we made were at restrooms, washrooms, and toilets. We even had to buy a Kit-Kat to cheer us up.

No matter, after about 3 hours and a few wrong turns we finally reached our objective.



Boy, was this NSO office tough to find! After all that searching apparently it was just right between the garbage dump and the two homeless dudes. Who would've thought of that? They should've just given me those landmarks instead of the postal address. It would've been easier to find...


After finishing our business with the NSO, Garandee and I hit the road again. It was getting late, but we were determined to experience an authentic Batangas Bulalo!


We checked out "Grace - Sister of Rose" Restaurant after seeing 3 vehicles parked outside. If these people were eating Bulalo and rice at 4:00PM, then it must be good!

There were about three big families in the restaurant feasting on a humongous bowl of Bulalo: Generous portions of vegetables and beef shanks boiled for hours in a delicious beef broth.

But when we got served, we ended up with this...


Bulalito (Bulalo Jr.)
Garandee and I just sat there, staring at it. Is this a joke or is it because there were only two of us, so we got a bowl half the size of the one the families had? It didn't even have any vegetables in it! I felt like reporting Grace to her sister Rose because I don't remember seeing a "Mini-Bulalo" on the menu. In fact, I don't even remember seeing a menu. I just told them I wanted Bulalo.

Out of sheer greed, I asked the waitress to be fair and serve us THE Bulalo. She took our bulalito away and came back with this...


Yeah! Now that's what I'm talking about! It was Bulalo with the works! We finally felt like we belonged. We felt accepted in the Bulalo eating society of Batangas City.


So how did it score? Well the broth was great, it tasted fresh. The meat was a little tough, I was hoping it would fall off the bone but I ended up struggling to slice the meat off with a tiny bread knife. Garandee on the other hand, was watching me mutilate that bone, realizing that she married a savage Neanderthal.

There was no way I could finish it... Garandee ate mostly vegetables like a good vegetarian. We just had the bone put in a doggie bag and brought it home.

Well that's it folks! That just about sums up our kawawang trip.

Total time on the road: 5.5 hours
Total time in Batangas City: 50 minutes


Garando mode:
My butt's still flat from all that driving...

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Our Last Meal for 2008

How about that, my first post for 2009 is still all about 2008!

Garandee wanted to end 2008 with a bang. Since we're both crazy about Turkish food, she pulled out her favorite cookbook and cooked up these outrageous Turkish dishes for our last meal for the year.

Our Starter:


Deep Fried Mussels in Beer Batter with Garlic-Flavoured Walnut Sauce
This became an instant favorite! I mean, who doesn't like beer battered seafood? I'm a big fan of fish n' chips, but using mussels instead of cod blew me away! Best when served during drinking sessions.


What really makes this appetizer stand out from all its other beer battered counterparts is the exotic sauce that's paired with it. Its light nutty taste and semi-crunchy texture complemented the strong "oceany" flavor and chewy texture of the mussels.


Our Main Dish:


Lahmacun
An Anatolian snack with a thin crispy base smeared with a lightly spiced minced lamb on top. Eat it with fresh parsley and a generous squeeze of lemon. We didn't have lamb so minced beef was a good substitute. We also tried using lime instead of lemon for added flavor and we were oh so right to do that!


Chargrilled Chicken Wings in Pomegranate Marinade
Originally a recipe meant for quails, Garandee used chicken wings instead since it was the only poultry we had in the freezer. After marinating, she baked it in the oven a bit before grilling it on an open flame. Since pomegranate is rarely available in Manila (so we think), Garandee told me that this could be the last time she's making it. Sniff... sob...


She was pleasantly suprised to find some of the fruit in SM Makati, and bought one immediately. I've never heard the fruit, so I was looking over her shoulder the moment she opened it up to make the marinade. As she left, I stole a spoonful to get a taste. It felt like eating sweet & sour papaya seeds...


Our Dessert:


Garandee's Low Calorie 4 layer Milk Chocolate Cake
Beeyootiful! Melted semi-sweet milk chocolate mixed with cream sqeezed between 4 layers chocolate sponge cake. If that's not enough, she used the filling to coat the cake too. No butter was used in the filling, significantly reducing the calories of this monstrosity. Once you take it out of the chiller, the coating and filling hardens up a bit, but not too much that it cracks when you slice it.

For the record, she finished up to 70% of this cake. Seriously.

Anyway, I placed bookmarks on all these dishes in her cookbook. Hopefully it will convince her to make them all again this year.


Garando mode:
I hardly have 2 days of vacation left... Read More......

The day after Christmas...

The morning after Christmas:
Garando: "ZZZZZZZZZZ...."
Garandee: "zzzzzzzzzz....."

Around noon:
Garando: "ZZZZZZZZZZ...."
Garandee: "zzzzzzzzzz....."

Around 2PM...
Garandee: "zzzzz.... time to wake up, Garando!"
Garando: "ZZZZZZ uuurrnnhhhh.... again?"

After getting up I looked back at our bed and was surprised to see my body engraved on it... The form was so detailed you can trace it with chalk just like in a crime scene.

eeeeep!! Did I eat that much?!?!

Ok, now I'm seriously going on that fruit & veggies diet now! ...at least until New Years' Eve when I need to take a quick break to eat my juicy grilled steak, then resume eating plants for the rest of 2009.


And speaking of fruits, Garandee made this delicious Fresh Fruit Trifle for my family's Christmas party! As expected, it was another hit!


Originally an English dessert (hint: Nigella), no fancy recipe here! Just chop 'em all up, dump these in a container and enjoy:
Fruits:: strawberries, melons, bananas, mangoes
Etc: sponge cake, whipped cream, custard
For Luck: chocolate sprinkles
* you may want to bake your own sponge cake and prepare your own custard though

DOH! My diet is screwed...


Garando mode:
must... chop... more... strawberries! Read More......

Garandee's Christmas Hit!

Oh my gulay!! I never expected the last few days of Christmas to be this busy!


Christmas parties, a LOT of shopping and wrapping of presents have taken most, if not all of our time... The presents are stacking up at home and we're not even done shopping! I guess that explains my week-long hiatus from blogging.


But last week's real highlight was Garandee's first shot at baking an authentic Japanese Cheesecake. She never expected it'll become an instant hit!


If you haven't tried one yet, Japanese Cheesecake is a light, moist and spongy cheesecake that simply melts in your mouth. Think of it as the exact opposite of the rich New York Cheesecake or the infamous Filipino Blueberry Cheesecake. Its taste, flavor and texture is so light that you can easily devour half of the cake in one sitting and not feel full at all. It also has significantly less calories so you can toss the guilt out the window.

...straight out of the oven!
I know Bread Talk is selling these for a bit over P300, but Garandee's cake is definitely superior than those. Why? Because Garandee uses LOVE as the main ingredient. Now that's what makes this cheesecake so cheesy!

Sent early prototypes to some colleagues and friends to try out and now we have serious orders for 6 - 8 pcs! (Thanks to Jonie!) Now how can we even think of mass production with our tiny oven? We'll figure it out!


Garandee: "oooooh... Garandee's Pastry Shoppe!! Do you think I can start one in the future?"

Garando: "Of course! But we'll need a bigger oven for that dear..."

Garandee: "Ahhh... hai!"

Garando: "Let me go ask Santa if he can send some elves over to help out... I heard they're cheap labor."

Garandee: " ok po... "


Garando mode:
All set for Christmas Eve!
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Tortang Toron

Garandee: "Garando!! Wake up already! I made Tortang Toron!!

Garando: "ZZZZzzzz.... uurrrhh... Tortang banana?"

Garandee: "Nyo... Come here... See? It looks so authentic Filipino!"

Garando: "Ohhhh I see! That's Tortang Talong dear..."

Garandee: "Hai, Tortang Toron! Nice, di ba (isn't it)?"

Looks like Garandee surprised me again! Look what I found on our breakfast table today: Tortang Talong (grilled eggplant omelet)!

This popular domestic dish makes a regular appearance in any family's dining table, and is also a mainstay in foodcourts and carinderias (affordable food stalls) around the metro. This is officially Garandee's 3rd Filipino dish.

Garandee: "It's also Japanized!!"

Garando: "...Japa-what?"


One munch and I knew what she meant.

She grilled the eggplant on an open fire until the skin was easy to peel off, giving it a nice smoky taste. Inside that omelet is minced chicken marinated in miso, shoyu, ginger and a little bit of sugar. Net, the classification of Japanized!

Loved it! It's unique, and it's probably the healthiest Tortang Talong I've ever had!

Garando: "But Dee, you should practice saying Talong, because Filipinos might get confused and think it's a banana omelet.


*Turon is a popular snack made of banana & jackfruit wrapped in spring roll wrapper and smothered brown sugar syrup before it is fried

Garandee: "Of course not! That's different because that's Tulon!"

Garando: " ... "


Garando mode:
Listening to my favorite Blues & Bebop Christmas songs!
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Leftover Platter Surprise

Garandee went out on a dinner date with one of her Japanese amigas. I guess when the wife's away... what's the husband usually left with?

Leftovers. And our fridge is packed with abandoned ulams (meals) waiting to be noticed.


But guess what, after she left I found this plate covered with foil on my ugly desk. She mentioned she was worried about what I'll have for dinner while she was gone. So the sweet wife that Garandee is, she whipped up something quick for me! YEY!


And VOILA!!

I'll call it: "Garandee's Leftover Platter Surprise!". It looks pretty good and should be enough for me to survive through the night.

I just don't remember having these things earlier in the week though. Hmmm...

...is that lipstick on my cabbage?


Garando mode:
Must stay awake so I can pick her up later!! Read More......

Garando's Top 5 Chicken Wings

I've been hunting for the best chicken wings in Manila since 2004 and I thought I'd share my list of the best chicken wings around!


Garandee says chicken wings are best eaten with your fingers and I totally agree. There's nothing more satisfying than sucking the meat off every bone, then tossing it over to an empty plate or bucket. Besides, picking on the small thing with a spoon and fork just looks really wrong.

On to the list...



#5 Firefighters
This was a small fastfood restaurant in Libis that IMO, served the best chicken wings at that time. Their buffalo wings were spicy, juicy and tasty.. match it with their blue cheese or honey mustard dip and it's a sure winner! Too bad it's no longer around, I never got a chance to take a photo..


#4 Yellow Cab's Hot Wings
Around the time Firefighters closed down, along came Yellow Cab. The pizza's ok but I'm not too fond of the after-taste that came with the spices they used. The chicken wings however, was Firefighters re-incarnated and even better! They're bigger, juicier and crunchier!! Wish it came with the dips though...


#3 Hooters' Chicken Wings
My love for chicken wings started in the U.S. during my first visit to a Hooters branch. We ordered 50 pcs of breaded goodness and I was totally hooked after that. Now you can just imagine the excitement I felt when I heard out about Hooters in SM MOA (Mall of Asia).

Though I don't think it's worthy of the "Hooters" brand ("Hootlets" is more appropriate if you ask me... ehem!) the wings are almost as good as the ones in the States. Best of all, they have the dips!


#2 Garandee's Asian Wings Trio
Dee totally surprised me with these Chinese, Thai and Japanese inspired chicken wings! Chinese was deep-fried, very crunchy with that "home-cooked" familiarity you'd come to expect. Thai was done in a similar fashion, but had a hint of green curry for that extra spicy kick. Japanese had a subtle sweet-shoyu flavor topped with sesame seeds for that authentic nippon taste. Three kinds of chicken wings in one sitting, she sure knows how to make me happy!


#1 Garandee's Roasted Rosemary Chicken Wings
This takes the cake! It's slow-roasted making it very tasty, succulent and healthy. Perfect with Dee's chili pasta with baked cherry tomatoes marinated in balsamic vinegar and extra vigin olive oil. It's so good it makes my mouth water as I type this post, not to mention this is always a big hit with our guests.

Well, that's my list of the best chicken wings. If in case you're interested in the the recipes of #1 and #2, leave a comment and I'll ask Garandee for it. Trust me, #1 is so good!


Garando mode:
Now back to my oatmeal and normalizing my cholesterol...

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