that perfect pan-grill

There is one thing that I bought this Christmas and it is making a big difference in my grilling world. I had wrecked a couple of pans during the past couple of years as I try to perfect the art of grilling using a pan for steaks, be it beef or pork. Steaks, I was taught through tedious discussion with steak lovers and through devout reading of food magazines, is supposed to be cooked under high heat to ensure that the succulent juices be trapped in the middle retaining that wicked liquid that makes all the difference in having a perfect bite or a shitty steak experience.

I’ve destroyed a supposedly Pan-grill French Tefal brand with a high-tech red spot in the middle to check the pan’s temperature. I have also tried the American brand Mayer but these two brands were all disappointments to me. They were built for medium to low heat and not for the heavy duty high powered heat needed for that perfect steak.

Then I realized after doing my once every god knows when breathing meditation to get into the meaning of joy eating meat that steak houses uses thick sizzling plates. Yes, eejit, they do. They heat the plate under high heat then put the meat on top until done to its required doneness then they pour that freaking brownish gravy that makes the plate sizzle then serve it to the salivating customers in line (this observation I based from mall food courts).

So I consciously searched for that thick cast iron skillet meant for heavy duty cooking and destiny brought me to Landmark in Trinoma. My active detachment approach in finding that right grill served me well. I am not greatly affected when I ask for a pan grill and are shown with sloppy thin shitty non-stick pans. I was calm.

Then as destiny would define it, I detachedly asked the salesperson for their available pan-grill describing my required specification that is, thick, heavy, and would look heavy duty enough. The salesperson confidently said, “we have just what you need.” Guiding me towards the display rack, I was just numb, thinking nothing, expecting nothing. Then fucking freaky December, there it was beside those shitty thin non-stick pans and small sizzling plates for sisig orders, the heavy-duty grill for steaks that has limitless potentials for great grilling.

It is manhole cover-like heavy and has a good diameter size to cover enough meat for grilling. And it was on sale at 50% off. Now that I got the tools, its time to apply the theory.

Kopiroti in Banawe

Kopiroti was first introduced to me by Thelma roughly 3 or 4 years ago when one of her students brought a piece of kopi bun that changed the landscape of Andres and Ponso's taste palate. They are fucking crazy with that brown coffee smelling flavored bun. We would pass by the Tomas Morato branch in any given day, or night, to have their kopiroti fix.

I am not so into the Kopiroti craze but i've tried their coffee and tasted like really old school coffee made by Lolos and lolas as they start their day at 4:00 a.m. in the morning (which is just 30 minutes shy of my forced waking time at 4:30 am, shesh). Was it liberty condensed milk that they blend with the coffee?

Good thing there is a new Kopiroti branch along Banawe street near some of our other favorite Banawe food spots. Wait, what if I try all the food spots along Banawe? Thats a mean shit idea. Bwahahaha!!! Now for some Kopi at the Roti to plot out the plan.

Garlic and Onion

- Renoir, 1881

Garlic and Onion rocks! I like onions called shallots because of its pungent aftertaste. I like garlic because I have to because there is garlic in this painting by Renoir. And garlic is very versatile. It can be used in pizza for garlic and cheese pizza, or in kebabs, or in bistek Filipino for sauteeing.

Garlic and Onion are the best. I heard that they are relatives. That is so cool! And also, ah, they, ah, rock, again.

Sizzlers' Blends

There is a new resto-bar hangout where I will surely, as always, time and again, get wasted bingeing on good food and cold bottle of beers.

Opened just this November 2009, Sizzlers’ Blends is a notch higher than the typical restaurants that are trying to carve a niche in the sizzling plate food genre. And it is not because of its location at the Mezzanine, Shoppes @ Victoria, in Timog Avenue (it is a stone’s throw away from the Delta circle area in Quezon City), overlooking the entry point from Quezon Avenue to the busy Timog strip, but because of what it has to offer.

The restaurant’s rustic but sleek interiors sets the mood for people expecting a delicious, mouth watering juicy sizzling steak experience (and I am now drooling just thinking of a perfect special cut t-bone steak grilled to perfection with the gravy bouncing on top of the sizzling plate, shit, I am losing my train of thoughts, I am getting hungry). While Sizzlers’ Blends is definitely a haven for meat lovers with its prime beef cuts coming from the batangas speaking cows of Batangas, it also offers an array of veggie and seafood viands that I bet, is at par with their meat courses (the pictures above the counter looks delicious).

I ordered the Sizzling pork sisig and it was just crunchily superb with that tiny dash of ginger taste to complement the pork chunks and is a perfect fit with a spoonful of java or even plain rice or a swig of ice cold beer. It was just as I imagined. I consider it as one of my favorite sisig preparation.




Thursday nights are band nights with easy listening full band set doing three sets of folk, rock, country, alternative, and maybe even hiphop music. The band that played the last time I was there was relaxing and can belt out songs from four different eras. The rest of the week is open for open jam. Just bring your guitar or your armpitik and realize your innermost dream of performing on stage.

I think Sizzlers’ Blends seems to operate in a 24/7 scheme with its doors open 7 days a week from 7:00 am for a filling breakfast until the late night for people who wishes to unwind over a bottle of beer, coffee, shake, and cool, discriminating music.

Sizzlers’ Blends is steady in terms of delivering that old traditional sizzling plate experience with that sinful gravy deliciously embracing the tender beef.

Their brand tag says it all: Tasteful fusion of Fire and Ice. Why? I almost forgot, they also serve crazy coffee based concoctions for that caffeine fix.

Wok with Yan

I grew up watching Stephen Yan in the government run channel 9 (but it was the time of the dictatorship, media was under government management, Marcos, remember?) whip up fantastic asian dishes in the canned program Wok with Yan.

He introduced his funny style of presenting the dish and cooking at the same time in front of the camera while the studio audience salivate as they wait for him to finish and share the asian gourmet food. I am always curious with his "magic powder" as he sprinkles it on top of the food magically, and mysteriously. He uses chinese cooking wine (and there was no chinese cooking wine available in the groceries at that time, its the 1980s and cooking life was much simpler then, unlike the complex choices for mixture nowadays).

Stephen Yan's chinese accent is very contagious and can really make me smile as I watch him stir up and heat up his wok. His show was an oasis in an otherwise drab television show landscape during the dictatorship. I wonder where he is now?

gourmet and gourmand

What's the difference between a gourmet and a gourmand?

Discretion. Pickiness. Taste. Knowledge. Put simply. A gourmet is a connoisseur of fine food and wine: a gourmand is one stop short of a glutton. Webster's dictionary kindly defines gourmand as "one who is excessively fond of eating and drinking."

- Reader's Digest, May 1997 edition, vol 69, No. 410

Hands down. I am a gourmand.

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Froggz Clogz

I enjoy reading local and international food magazine and ogle at the delicious looking food preparations and gobble up the details of recipes which I normally would not give a damn trying because I find the ingredients just so meticulously meticulous. Of course I cook but not that grand, yet, where I can publish recipes created by myself. Being a cook or a chef is a tedious and tiring work. I am not even excited to clean up all the pots and pans piled up high at the kitchen which is part of kitchen work.

But I have a new chef clogs courtesy of my sister and brother in law. They gave it to me as an advance gift for christmas, i think. It looks like the more famous Crocs clogs but is called Froggz. Original names, isn't it? Reptiles both. It is used by Hotel and Restaurant Management students and its got a non slip sole apt for oily kitchen floors.

This is a good start for my cooking career.

Authentically Arabic

If there is one sure way to know the authenticity of the restaurant, just check out the customers.

- Calixto L. Fangki
Etag Cooking Expert

Thelma and I went to Ermita, Manila for some errands and got hungry because humans do get hungry, and we are but human. We scanned the area and decided to go Persian for supper. So we walked towards the place we know that serve Persian food and saw another Persian restaurant in front of the familiar one in Soler St, Ermita, Manila. The new Persian restaurant was teeming with middle easterners of all shapes, colors and sizes smoking their sweet scented shee-shas. So this might be the feeling in Oman or Qatar or Saudi Arabia, so we thought, minus the mutawah.

The restaurant’s name is so exotic evoking visions of the romantic but dangerous desert from Paolo Coelho’s The Alchemist as the lead character journeys across it to discover his treasure across dunes and oasis. The name is Shawarma Snack Center. Very Arabic.

We ordered a two hundred fifty peso (P250) plate consisting of 3 piece beef kebab with tomato, onion, and pita bread. I think it is expensive compared to the kebabs we get from West Avenue. After the long wait, the three tight Kebab made a grand entrance and it is by far, I should say, the best kebab I have tasted. Even their yoghurt and red sauce combined deliciously brings out the steady beefy taste of the kebab stick. I think they use a tiny wee amount of extenders on their kebabs giving it that full beef flavor.

The place is so middle east that they do not have free water. It’ll cost you P25 hard earned bucks for a 250ml mineral water coming from the springs of Maynilad.

The mood inside the restaurant is very Arabic you can almost see desert sand particles beside the cans of olive oils from Jordan sold at P8,500 per can. They sell dates and canned corned beef made in Brazil. Very Arabic.

Suffice to say, Shawarma Snack Center was a great cultural and palate experience. We felt sorry for the original restaurant in front because of its steep new competition. So as we went out, looked at the original Persian restaurant in front, and what do you know, it is also Shawarma Snack Center! A doppelganger.

Banapple Experience

I am still sleepy after a marathon seminar, partying, drinking, chatting from Saturday until 7 am Sunday in Antipolo City. Sunday afternoon after the link of events brought me back to my house all wasted and at a loss walking like a zombie, fucking affected with even the tiniest hint of brewing noise or distraction, just looking for the bed and the time to recover.



A good early afternoon snack at the Banapple Pies and Cheesecakes along Katipunan Avenue, Quezon City where I was picked up never lifted my sagging physical body. Try as I may to lift my spirits with a juicy looking hamburger, it still did not affect my tired disposition. Hamburger was juicy and thick all right but its only the presentation that got me attracted. I was not impressed with the taste.



But I did taste their lasagna and that might be the reason why people pack the small cramped but cutely chummily decorated hole beside my friend's house. The lasagna is "i'll dance the pogo like a shaker in trance" ecstasy. I eat lasagna, I might not know a great deal about what constitute a good lasagna like that fat cartoon cat, but Banapple's lasagna is just hell on earth for satanists who dreams of meeting satan horn to horn. Its so hot! It has a taste that is bitingly twisted. You put it inside your mouth, let it stand there as your taste buds study its taste contours and there you can taste that twisted taste. The spice combination is just perfect.

Even their tapa was pleasingly tapastic! Their rice can stand alone. It looked more than steamed. It has a greenish shade topped with some leaf garnishing.

Banapple is known for their cakes. We did order two slices of cakes. One has strawberry and white as coupon bond icing and the other was brown with some pecan as filling. The cakes were sweet. I bet it has sugar.