PBA 38th Anniversary

I was at Robinsons Galleria to get my NBA clearance when I saw the art exhibit by Janddie Castillo for PBA's 38th Anniversary. Armed with my iPhone, I took this chance to test my phone's camera. Here are the photos:

. . . The Furious

This painting is called The Furious (Mark Caguioa). Check out how much it cost.

the price . . .

. . . the artist's signature

 

Then I saw someone making her own signature on this board so I did the same.

Can you see my sign?

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Today Is A Good Day

Today marked our 6th months as husband and wife. A lot of good things happened which made Tapioca and I very excited. Finally, Tapioca got his tablet while I got a new phone and . . .  a new job offer. Yeah, I'm joining the corporate world again. It's about time. Never thought I would do this but I'm also joining the Apple bandwagon.

Tapioca loved the Sony Tablet. He's ignoring his PC right now (which seldom happens until today). I love the iPhone! Can I just say that it's really nice? It's far too different than the phone I'm used to but I'm loving it! I like the qwerty keys so much. Also, the touchscreen never gives me a hard time (unlike some other touchscreen phones). I still have a lot of things to learn about this phone, not to mention transferring/downloading a whole bunch of stuff like my contacts, music, games, etc. When I'm all set, I'll sign up for Instagram. Follow me ha? #excitedmuch

Update: I am now on Instagram. Follow me @jellybean74170.

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Xin Tian Di - Dimsum Buffet

Yesterday, Tapioca and I celebrated Valentines, Chinese New Year and his birthday (all-in-one celebration) at Crowne Plaza's Cantonese restaurant called Xin Tian Di. It's never too late to celebrate, ya know. When Tapioca was finally allowed to go out of the house and do some walking, we took the chance and decided it's time to use the vouchers before they expire. I got them from Deal Grocer, one of my favorite Groupon sites in the country.

I made reservations the day before and as early as 11am we were already outside Xin Tian Di waiting for it to open.

 . . . Xin Tian Di's entrance

 Photo op from our lovely booth . . .

. . . chic and elegant

the table setting . . .

Just look at the table setting. Social. Intimidating. I feel like I don't belong. Is this really a Chinese Dimsum place? Yes, it is. A high-end Chinese Dimsum place.

. . . the condiments

Tapioca loved the sauce holders.

hot towel . . .

We asked for green tea and they served us . . .

. . . morning blossom - pearl tea

The tea smelled so nice. I checked the pot and saw this huge flower swimming inside. However, this tea did not taste or smell like a flower (I hate teas that smell like flowers. It's like drinking perfume). It was something else which we enjoyed a lot.

By the way, I thought pearl tea = bubble tea (tea with Tapioca pearls). I did some research and found out that pearl teas are the same as gunpowder tea - a type of green tea. The dried leaves of pearl tea resemble to blackpowder grains and that's how it got its name. However, in Chinese, gunpowder tea is called zhū chá or literally means "pearl tea or bead tea". (source:Wikipedia) That's tea 101 for you and me!

And then we found out they have a tea menu pala . . .

the tea menu . . .

Omg, the morning blossom tea was the most expensive of them all! Anyway, I think the price is still reasonable. We kept asking for refills and I'd lost count on how much tea we drank that day. Sulit ang bayad :-)
 

 . . . the menu

The menu consists of dimsum (steam, fried & vegetarian), noodles, congee and dessert. All items are made fresh upon order. They strictly implement a no leftover policy. You can order the dimsum per piece to avoid uneaten portions and pay additional charges.

To order, just tick the boxes of the items you like and specify how many pieces. These are the items we consumed. Warning: photo overload!

salmon taro puff . . .

Tapioca liked this. Deep fried salmon and taro paste. I think it's gross. Tasted fishy and not pleasant to the palate. Obviously, I did not like it.

. . . steamed seafood dumplings in superior stock

This we both liked. The dumpling was huge! And it's filled with shrimp and everything seafood. My only complaint is the skin breaks easily. I loved the superior stock the most.

stone fish dumplings . . .

Tastes like paper.

. . . bird's eye dumplings

Tastes like the stone fish dumpling.

abalone mushroom vegetable dumplings . . .

Another bland item.

. . . crispy spring roll

This is indeed crispy. Perfectly wrapped, super crispy and meaty on the inside. No sauce needed.

 
steamed glutinous rice dumplings stuffed with duck meat, mushrooms and egg yolk in lotus leaf . . .

This tasted like dessert because of the glutinous rice. Not bad but not good either.

. . . double-boiled congee with dried scallops

We loved it. Too bad we can't eat too much or we won't be able to try other items on the menu.

steamed crystal prawns or hakao . . .

My favorite dumpling. Xin Tian Di's hakao was just okay. I wish I ordered more of these instead of stuffing myself with bland tasting dumplings.

. . . taro puffs

I thought without the salmon and fishy taste I would come to like this. Still it tasted yucky for me. I'm sorry.

steamed xiao long pao - shanghai style . . .

I am always on the lookout for xiao long bao/pao whenever we go to a Chinese resto. However their Shanghai style failed to impress. Again, it's tasteless. Even the dipping sauce didn't help.

. . . steamed chicken feet in XO sauce

Tapioca doesn't like chicken feet so I had these. It was super soft and tender however I'm not so fond of the XO sauce. There were about 5 pieces of them and on my 3rd piece, I felt like I was being tortured. Afraid to pay extra charges so I finished them. If this was cooked adobo-style, I'd probably finished them in no time or perhaps order a second serving.

deep-fried buns with condense milk . . .

Finally. Something to cleanse my taste buds after the struggle with the chicken feet. The buns were toasty and crispy on the outside and then soft and moist on the inside. The condensed milk was perfect to dip the buns in. Yummy!

. . . glutinous pork puffs

These were okay. A little oily, though. At this point, I surrendered. I'm done. I'm moving on to desserts. Tapioca still had room for more.

steamed sio mai - japanese style . . .

. . . steamed minced beef balls with beancurd skin

steamed BBQ pork buns . . .

. . . pork buns innards

 
wanton noodle soup with roast duck . . .

The noodle soup took a long time to arrive. More than 30 minutes. As in ang tagal! I would give the service a perfect score na sana if this didn't happen. Buti na lang Tapioca enjoyed the soup. They probably had to order this from the 7 Corners downstairs kaya natagalan LOL!

Here's my dessert:

. . . sesame buchi & coffee pudding

The buchi was just okay.  The coffee pudding was amazing. I took a bite and I thought it's just ordinary gelatin. Then the coffee flavor exploded inside my mouth. It was so good!

sweet egg custard . . .

. . . sweet egg custard's innards

 Okay lang.

chocolate mantao . . .

This tasted like the deep-fried buns except it has chocolate filling inside. I still preferred the deep-fried buns with condensed milk.

. . . Jellybean & Tapioca

We're stuffed but not totally satisfied. Tapioca's game plan (order the dimsum that we've never tried before) failed because most of the dimsum tasted bleh. I still wanted to go back here but next time I know what to order. I'll make sure to keep away from the items I didn't like.

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Pinoy Food for Tapioca's Birthday

I know it sounds weird to be cooking Pinoy food on Chinese New Year but I did. Chinese cooking is not really my forte (as if I have any forte in cooking, LOLZ!!!). Anyway, this is about Tapioca's favorite Pinoy food and I found an easy to follow recipe courtesy of Mama Sita. I thought I'm gonna cook all three dishes by myself but my brother came up to our house, much to our surprise. Good thing cause he became my assistant the whole time I was cooking.

This post is an account of my cooking experience. I'm making a blog post on this to help me remember. Let me tell you one thing. It was the first time I tried cooking all three dishes. The cookbook was a HUGE help. But before I followed everything on the cookbook, I tried to cross-reference the recipes from other reliable cooking blogs to check if there's something I can tweak on the recipe like add an ingredient or two or try a different approach or techniques.

First dish - Caldereta.

I cooked the Caldereta first. It was super easy. I followed everything in the book from the ingredients to the procedures. The recipe uses the Mama Sita Caldereta mix therefore it did not require you to add any garlic, onions or tomatoes. However, Connie from Casa Veneracion mentioned that a good Caldereta uses a good amount of these stuff and I believe her. Also, Tapioca loves onions. So I saute a whole bunch of garlic and half a kilo of onions together with the browned  beef. As I was simmering the meat and waiting for it to become tender, I worried about the onions. There's just too much. It's like I'm making French Onion Soup. When the meat was tender, I put the sauce mix in, the potatoes, carrots, bell pepper and olives. While mixing everything up, I realized the onions suddenly vanished - like magic! Tapioca tried it and said it was perfect. He loved it! The sauce tasted like authentic Caldereta. We hardly noticed it came from an instant mix.

Second dish - Fresh Lumpia.

For the recipe, it only requires Mama Sita ginisa mix for the veggies. The grocery sold ginisa mix for a whole pack and we never use those in our kitchen. Since I'm out of onions (I used them all for the Caldereta) I went to the nearby sari-sari store and bought the Ajinomoto ginisa mix (they didn't have the Mama Sita brand). Anyway, when I sauteed all the veggies, they turned out all right. I added some fish sauce for more flavor and it came out fine. The sauce was very simple and easy to make. The recipe asked for 6 tablespoons of cornstarch. I thought it was too much and also I'm out of cornstarch. I still needed them for the wrapper. While I was boiling the sauce I thought it was not thick enough and that I should have followed the recipe. When the sauce cooled down, it turned into a really thick paste. Tapioca did not like it. I made a second batch using 2 tablespoon of cornstarch and the consistency was much better.

The wrapper was quite a challenge for me. Making the batter was easy-peasy. Cooking them was not. We only have 2 pans. Big and small. First I used the big one and I couldn't make a round wrapper. Until I had no choice I asked Tapioca to help out. He used the small pan and it worked out right. The problem was it's hard to wrap the veggies in a smaller wrapper. It breaks easily. Tapioca found a solution. He cooked the wrapper a little longer and it helped that he made it a little more thick, too. Sort of like a crepe kind of thickness. The wrapper didn't break but I was still having such a hard time wrapping it. The filling spills out from the lettuce leaf. When we're out of lettuce, it becomes easier to wrap them. Though having a lettuce leaf makes the lumpia more presentable.

Third dish - Pancit Palabok.

This was the last dish I've prepared. The Palabok I would say was easy, too. Except it requires a lot of ingredients that needs to be prepared separately such as:

- Cook the noodles.
- Boil the pork.
- Boil the shrimp.
- Boil some eggs for the toppings.
- Use the pork stock to make the sauce.
- Grind the chicharon (good thing I already bought a ready made tinapa toppings or else it would eat up my time picking up the bones.)

Yes the procedure was really easy. Just boil everything. But prep was such a hassle. Sobrang busisi! And it did not help that we only have 2 pots and pans (big and small). So what to do? No choice but wait until one of them is done cooking so I can use the pots.

Now I understand why on every fiesta or celebrations where there's a big handaan they require so many pots and pans because it's necessary to cook things faster. Did I also mention, time is key? Yes it is. Because people are waiting so they can eat because hello they are hungry and lunch time is lunch time. Because I'm being a Martha Stewart wanna be, nastress out ako ng bongga! Hahaha!

Here I am trying the best that I can to wrap the veggies as neat as possible. Promise ang hirap pala lalo na with the lettuce. My kitchen was a mess. Told ya, I was stressed!

Here's the spread . . .

That's the best I can with those lumpia. Then there's the brown sauce for the lumpia. the palabok sauce and the bowl with cover, that's the Caldereta.

In fairness, konti na lang natira. Or because ang tagal kong nagluto nagutom na mga bisita. Lol!!!

This was the cake I bought from Goldilocks . . .

. . .  and the cake innards

This one was given by Dirk . . .

Super moist chocolate cake with caramel! This cake was super yum! We always pass by Cake 2 Go on our way to work but I can't believe we never tried their products until now.

The birthday boy with his cake and the leaning brown-out candle. Hahaha!

It was a simple fare with a few friends who came to celebrate with us. Though, it was not what I would like it to be, what's important is we were together on his special day and he is recovering well.

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