Almond Chocolate Fudge Cake

Cake of the Month

As the family marks my third child’s progress onto her first year, I will be celebrating her monthly birth day in this blog by featuring a cake. Lined up for the next twelve months, and hopefully on afterwards, are old-time favorites, reliable standards, as well as new discoveries, as I go on a quest for the best cakes around the country.

I regularly pass by this restaurant, Malen's, along Noveleta in Cavite, going to and coming from work. The restaurant sports the subtitle pizza, pasta, bakeshop. I haven't had the chance to eat there yet, except once when we tried the Filipino dinner buffet served on Tuesdays and Fridays.

But I went out of my way to drop by this week, as I remembered the "bakeshop" appellation. I haven't been out of town much lately, and I am getting tired of suffering one frustration after another sampling Metro Manila's cakes.

Malen's bakes a few cakes, but there are a lot of refrigerated, graham- or chiffon-based floats, tortes and trifles. Which I haven't tried as I don't buy this kind of desserts - they're easy to make and much more cost effective home-made.

The baked cakes are all chocolate based - the usual black forest, rocky road, chocolate fudge, and almond chocolate fudge. I was told that the first two's cake base is not pure chocolate. That, and the fact that I never liked any black forest cake I've tried, and I hate rocky road ice cream, nudged me to the last two.

Which are cakes of the pure chocolate kind. The chocolate fudge is the simpler, more basic version - black chocolate pound cake in two layers, coated with a thick ganache of milk chocolate that's also present between the layers of chocolate cake, decorated with cylinders of chocolate shavings on the sides and on top. It is an elaborate, and a bit sweeter, version of the astounding Belgian chocolate cake at a La Creme in San Fernando City, Pampanga.


The almond chocolate fudge is the fancier kind. The same cake base and icing, patted with almond slices, piped with whipped milk chocolate creme, sprinkled on top with shaved chocolate curls, then finished off with a dusting of powdered sugar.


The chocolate cake is dense - so tight-crumbed and heavy - and very buttery. Nutty, too. Pure chocolate to the core - so pure that it's black. It is also very lightly sweetened, that it almost has the tendency to be cloying, especially since the cake is almost six inches thick, so even a thin slice will get you too much cake.

But thankfully, the filling and icing are a bit overboard sweet, which nicely makes up for the seemingly sugar-free crumb (is it just me, or does your mind violently react to low-sugar chocolate, too?).

On its own the cake could also have been boring, but the ganache, creme, chocolate swirls and almonds provide scintillating contrasts in sweetness, texture, flavor, with gradations of chocolate in many forms.

A success story, for me.

Almond Chocolate Fudge Cake, 10" Php695, 6" Php410

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Malen's
Pizza, Pasta, Bakeshop
9025 Magdiwang Highway
Noveleta, Cavite
Tel. No. (046) 4385027, 4381634
www.malens.multiply.com

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Cakes of the Month
Divine Chocolate Cake, by Divine Sweets (Puerto Princesa, Palawan)
Cakelines, by Jon-Rhiz (Cavite City)
Dayap Chiffon Cake, by Kiss Cafe (UP Diliman, Quezon City)
Belgian Chocolate Cake, by a La Creme (City of San Fernando, Pampanga)
White Chocolate Mousse, by Gateau de Manille (Katipunan Avenue, Quezon City)
Mango Cake, by Red Ribbon (with outlets all across the country)
Ube Cake, by Goodies and Sweets (several locations across Metro Manila)
Mango Charlotte by Sweet Bella (Dasmarinas Village, Makati City)
Strawberry Cake by Vizco’s (Baguio City)
Caramel Cake by Estrel's (Quezon City)
Marshmallow Birthday Cake by Estrel's (Quezon City)

My Accidental Tikoy

No, I wasn't aiming to make tikoy - that sticky, gooey, rice delicacy that come in many forms and variants and versions, and is known by various names across Asia - at all. I was trying to make puto, a similar delicacy made of rice, but uses leavener and so is not as sticky.

I had scouted the internet for puto recipes. I wasn't even aiming for a Calasiao puto, as I know it would take a special session with a genuine Calasiao puto maker for that, and even then there would be no guarantee that the results would be satisfactory (here's why).

I had eaten a very nice, moist puto at a kiddie birthday party held at the home of a neighbor. The puto was made no less than by the celebrator's grandmother, but much as I begged, the lola couldn't put down the recipe on paper.

So I had to search for a recipe. You see, I am much of a puto-lover, but I grew up on Calasiao puto, so it is the puto of all puto for me. Since Calasiao puto is uber-moist and bouncy, all other puto are parchingly dry in comparison, for me.

But that puto at the children's party was good enough, moist enough, for me. I itched to re-create it. I was consumed by it, and I had to have my puto fix.

Then I saw this puto recipe by Manang Celia Kusinera, a Filipina blogging in UK at English Patis, and it looked like what I had eaten at that birthday party.

It was simple enough, the ingredients readily available, though it works with baking soda, not yeast (which I suspect is used on Calasiao puto - you could taste it).

So I went to the grocery, where all the ingredients could be sourced, and proceeded to make several batches. And everything turned out into tikoy, in the shape of flattened muffins.

When I told the story to friends and had them sample it, they christened it putokoy, because it is tikoy from a puto recipe.

Yes, I had the courage to offer it to friends, and proceeded to offer it to everybody else besides who came to parties I subsequently hosted. Yes, I had the guts to serve it during parties, and bring it to pot luck gatherings. And I have been doing so these last three years, ever since that accident.

Because this accidental tikoy is probably the best tikoy I've ever eaten. And based on the reactions of those who have eaten it, I think I'm not alone in this opinioin.

It's not the white, gelatinous starchy Chinese tikoy served and given away during Chinese new year, or even the variously-flavored, filled tikoy rolls eaten year-round.

This is more of a Filipino tikoy, milky and sweet, but still sticky and gooey. I love it because it is a cross between my two favorite kakanin - the Quezon tikoy that is a bronze-brown and sports a sheen, not available anywhere else because it is so perishable it lasts only a few days, and the Ilocano bibingka (in photo) made of glutinous rice, sprinkled with grated cheese on top, wrapped in aluminum foil, and is known variously as Vigan bibingka, royal bibingka, cheese bibingka.


The baking soda make the sides of the tikoy a bit cakey, but inside it is one solid mass, all soft and sticky, chewy enough to hold its shape, but not so seriously that it harms one's dentures. I steam it in an 8" round tin cake pan, and usually serve two pieces for parties, one topped with sliced salted duck eggs, the other with grated cheese.

The saltiness of the two toppings counter nicely the sweetness of the "putokoy." They are both popular, but just two is enough even for a big party, as they are dense and heavy, so only one thin slice per guest is needed, and I usually have other desserts on the table.

And this is, for me, way better than the Chinese new year tikoy that needs to be fried. It is steamed, and keeps for days at room temperature, not turning tough or chewy.

So what caused the accident? As I am wont to do when grocery shoppping, I picked up the wrong flour. The puto recipe specifies using powdered/ground rice flour, but I inadvertently bought powdered glutinous rice flour, and used it without checking the label. I only checked, and found out, when the tikoy didn't rise. It was an accident waiting to happen. But an accident that produced a most happy result, and I haven't looked back since.

(Note: A big thanks to Manang Celia for the recipe. I follow it to the letter, making an exception only on the flour and increasing the amount of milk by substituting the water needed with milk. I have tried making puto, too, and it is commendable that the amounts specified for the ingredients are the exact ones needed - I tried increasing the sugar to make my puto more moist, but they turned out overly sweet.)

Click here for the original puto recipe, titled "Rich Puto."

My Accidental Tikoy

2 cups glutinous rice flour*
2 cups milk (can be substituted with evaporated milk, same amount)
1 egg - slightly beaten
1 Tbsp baking powder
scant 1/2 tsp fine salt
1 1/3 cup sugar (can be substituted with condensed milk, about 1 1/2 cups)

1. Use an electric mixer to mix all ingredients well.
2. Pour into a tin, 8" round pan. Steam in medium heat for about 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.**
3. Remove from heat and and let cool.
4. Invert the pan onto a plate, gently tapping the bottom of the pan to loosen the tikoy. Then place a serving plate on top of the tikoy, right side down, and again invert.

Can be served cold. Keeps at room temperature for about 2 days. Or keep in the refrigerator and pop in the oven for a few minutes before serving.

*In the Philippines, packaged rice flour comes in 500gram packs, which is about 3 cups, under the Peotraco label and an unreadable Vietnamese brand. Available in SM supermarkets and Rustan's groceries, and at the Cavite City public market (don't know in other public markets). If the label says it is rice flour, this is the flour that can be used for puto. For tikoy, buy the kind that specifically states that it is glutinous rice flour. The original recipe calls for plain flour, which I take to be all-purpose flour. I used rice flour because I know the puto I like is made with rice.

**When using topping (either grated cheese or sliced salted duck eggs), sprinkle on top of the tikoy when surface is bubbly and batter has thickened a bit, about halfway through the steaming.

***If making two round pieces tikoy, just double the amounts of all ingredients and use two pans.

More Than Just Peanut Brittle

Tourists and visitors to the Philippines' summer capital always lug home one of the city's well-known products - peanut brittle, either as pasalubong, or as a keepsake for one's pantry. Peanut brittle appears in many forms in the city of pines - in very thin, buttery rectangular sheets embedded with pounded peanuts, which are considered the most inferior, and also the cheapest, to whole or halved nuts encased in torn nests of butter caramel in a spectrum of colors, from pale to golden to bronze to dark brown.

Among these, the most popular, and the most expensive, are two brands considered neck-to-neck rivals - Tantamco's and Romana's. A national broadsheet once featured an article comparing the two products point for point. I am not going to do that here, since, honestly, I can't tell much of a difference between the two.

But if I were to choose one to promote, I'd do that for Romana's, because, as I learned only a few years ago myself, it is a brand sprung and grown in my home province of Pangasinan.

Specifically, it was born in the municipality of Mangaldan, which is adjacent to the pilgrimage town of Manaoag. I learned about this because my husband traces his family roots to Mangaldan, and we inevitably visited the town every time we are home.

At first I thought those billboards of the Romana's trademark label I had been seeing were in imitation of the Baguio delicacy, or at best an outlet carrying Baguio products, so would cost more. So I had been surprised to know the truth when I had the chance to visit the outlets.

But the surprise did not end there, because, it turns out, Romana's is not just a label for one of the best (dare I say the best?) peanut brittle in the country (whole roasted peanuts in crackly, buttery toffee caramel), but also for a whole slew of other peanut products, and more.

Aside from the famous peanut brittle, there's roasted or fried whole peanuts, creamy peanut butter, nutty yema and polvoron, cornik or chichacorn (crunchy fried corn kernels), banana brittle (Romana's version of banana chips, but using whole slices that's just slightly sweetened with honey, and not snappy-crunchy but verging on the chewy-crunchy), kundol (sweetened dried wax gourd), ube jam, tsokolate tablea which I hoard like a crazed addict.

Sometimes there's also the provincial bibingka - small white things made with ground rice and slivers of coconut meat, not fluffy and eggy like the Metro Manila versions but dense and heavy, and slightly sweet, akin to puto and not cakey.

My husband drives by the outlets, fast, whenever we're in Mangaldan because of the sugar overload the family is likely to get from all those sweet things. But once in a while, about once or twice a year, he takes pity on me, and drops me off to indulge myself.

And of course every balikbayan we entertain is likely to be brought to Romana's, for a taste, or a reminiscing, as well as for a box of goodies to take home, wherever in the world it is.

Romana's is worth making a side trip to from a pilgrimage to Manaoag. It is just a few kilometers away, going towards Dagupan City. Aside from Romana's, the town's not-to-miss offerings include intemtem, better known as tupig, the pancit at the New Mangaldan Panciteria (better know locally as the bangking pancitan) along Rizal Avenue by the public market, which is good eaten with Manaoag puto, and the tapan dweg (tapang kalabaw, carabao/water buffalo beef jerky) at the town market.

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Romana's
Rotico Products
Mangaldan, Pangasinan 2432
Tel. No. (075) 5235739

*Two outlets in Mangaldan, Pangasinan, one by the side of the town plaza across the municipal hall, on the way to Manaoag, and at the tourist patio at the corner of the block occupied by the Roman Catholic Church

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Cafe by the Ruins

[Pan de sal with fish roe pate and strawberry jam with butter]

Whenever I am in Baguio and if I completely had my way, I'd eat all my meals at Cafe by the Ruins, one of my favorite restaurants of all time. To the chagrin, and sometimes embarrasment, of my husband, particularly when I want to be there first thing in the morning, and to which I respond nonchalantly (what's the fuss? they open at 7AM!). After all, I've taken countless friends, and former boyfriends, there before him.

Cafe by the Ruins subscribes to my ideal eating philosophy - use local produce, serve only what's in season, exploit the maximum potential of fresh vegetables, go whole/organic, low salt/seasoning- and msg-free, nothing canned/bottled/processed (except jams made in the premises), no softdrinks and alcohol (but make wines available).

Food served is not just for temporal nourishment, but is geared towards satisfying cravings of a higher plane. The location, and structure (and the restaurant's name, yes?), of the restaurant alone make for a deeply philosophical conversation that occupies the time before food is served (service is not fast, it takes time to prepare good food, yes?).

[Rosemary garlic ciabatta with herbed cheese]

It always puts my spirit at ease, when I'm at the "Ruins." So I always insist on having breakfast there, for a stupendously refreshing and relaxing way to start the day, as much as for the warming cup of native tsokolate, the excellent newly baked breads paired with molasses-sweetened jams and other whimsical spreads, and the fresh fruit platters that once contained slivers of the creamiest avocados I've ever eaten, and always showcases the mountains' bounty - wild blueberries and raspberries, Kalinga oranges, etc. - whenever they are in season.

The traditional hefty Filipino breakfast platter - meat or fish, eggs and rice - is also available in the mornings. My son couldn't forget the tinapang bangus he had, which says a lot, because he's used to the best - Bonuan bangus (milkfish).

The longganisang hubad is also a favorite - meaty (as opposed to fatty) and seasoned well (not sweetish). Servings are large and are good enough for two, just order an additional cup of rice, and perhaps an egg.

Rice served is whole, mountain variety (red or brown), and each rice platter comes with a cup of fresh fruits and a steaming mug of brewed Cordillera coffee.

The cafe's menu has remained the same throughout the years (no change in the last decade or so that I've been eating there). There are daily lunch and dinner specials (full-course meals), in regular or vegetarian options. In between the rice platters (some of which are featured below, plus the breakfast items I've mentioned) are assorted nibbles - sandwiches, soups and salads, appetizers.

If we had to eat somewhere else during the course of our stay in Baguio (our favorites are enumerated here), I make it a point to eat breakfast at the Ruins, or have my last meal there, so that the soothing mountain atmosphere stays with me for a bit longer even if I had already descended to the lowlands.

Long-life Tofu, lightly battered fried tofu stuffed with chopped marinated shiitake mushrooms

Marinated fresh whole shiitake, fresh watercress and lettuce with balsamic dressing

Sinigang na Baka, beef ribs in soured broth

Lengua, sauteed ox tongue in pastry cup

Named for someone's mother, this is tapa (marinated beef) stripped into floss and fried to a crisp, served with mountain rice and a salad of chopped onions, tomatoes, lettuce

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Cafe by the Ruins
23 Chuntug Street
Baguio City
Tel. No. (074) 4424010/4464010
Website
Facebook

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Related Posts
Lunches at Rose Bowl/Sizzling Plate
Vizco's Strawberry Cake

Dishes at Cafe by the Ruins that I've recreated
Forest Stream Soup
Adobo sa Mangga
Shiitake-Potato Omelet

Lunches at Rose Bowl/Sizzling Plate

I've said a mouthful in my previous post, so I'll just let the photos speak for themselves this time.

The first set is from a late lunch at Rose Bowl, beside the Tiong San department store (at the back of Session), across Burnham Park. Rose Bowl is our favorite Chinese restaurant in Baguio City - dishes never fail to satisfy.

We love the fried chicken, tender pieces fried to a crisp sans a touch of batter. The house specialty is pata tim, star-anise infused pork hock stew liberally strewn with blanched watercress.

But we've had enough meat during the holidays, so we ordered mostly vegetables, with only small strips/slices of beef.

Hototay Soup

Beef Chopsuey

Ampalaya with Beef in Tausi Sauce

Rose Bowl Fried Rice

Cantonese Noodles. I generally dislike noodles of the canton kind, but the way this was cooked I could have finished the entire plate. Of course I controlled myself, because the kids loved it, too.

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I always see Sizzling Plate in the food centers of malls around Metro Manila. It seems it originated in Baguio (I may be wrong), with a small, cramped outlet along the main thoroughfare Session Road. I haven't tried the Metro Manila representatives, but by the looks of the servings alone the Baguio restaurant is way above in quality and quantity, literally and figuratively speaking.

I generally eschew meats - I have to give credit to my husband, who has to have steak each and every time we eat out, for introducing me to the carnivorous side of eating. I'm not a convert, and I don't think I'll ever be, though I get to eat pork and beef every once in a while (forced is the more appropriate term).

At Sizzling Plate all dishes are, of course, served on a hot plate, and the specialties are steaks. The menu is relatively short, and everything is accompanied by a small serving of fresh vegetables and an outstanding gravy I'd love to replicate.

[My son's Salisbury Steak]

[My husband's Australian T-Bone steak]

My daughter and I shared a forgettable chicken barbecue that's been basted with a sweetish ketchup (ack!) but was still very dry. Never mind, I got slices of that T-Bone and a third of that salisbury, which were both very good and more than made up for the chicken.

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Rose Bowl
7 Harrison Road
Baguio City
(074) 4424213

Sizzling Plate
116 Session Road
Baguio City
(074) 4424219

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What else to eat in Baguio?
Vizco's Strawberry Cake
Mountain Maid Cinnamon Swirl Loaf

Related post
Cafe by the Ruins

Choco-Strawberry Float

Fresh strawberries being sold along the streets of Baguio before the new year had the tag price of about P100 per kilo, on average. On the day the family was to go back down to the lowlands, we spent the morning lounging in Burnham Park, in one of our picnics, and fruit vendors were going around loaded with basket trays on their heads.

One such vendor approached me, carrying these incredibly gorgeous, large red and extremely fragrant strawberries of the Shoga variety. But I waved her off when she said they cost P130 a kilo. I said I'd buy if she would give it at P100, but she retorted I wouldn't find any strawberries at that price that day.

She went back to me after a round or so of the park, I guess, and was giving it at P120. I should have realized it was already a steal and should have bought 5 kilos right then and there, considering we haven't had fresh Baguio strawberries in almost two years, more so the Japanese kind. But the stingy me prevailed and thought I could still scour the streets for something cheaper.

It turns out we didn't have the time, not even for my mandatory foray into the market for vegetables (fresh shiitake, button and oyster mushrooms, asparagus, kuchay flowers, broccoli, kailan leaves...those in Metro Manila groceries don't taste as good). We had no choice but to stop by the stands along Kennon Road, and bite the gauntlet.

At those stands, already some 8 kilometers out of Baguio City, there were strawberries in boxes, but only in small to medium sizes. And when I asked, they were going at P160. I felt painful tugs at the pit of my stomach, as I haggled to no avail. So I had them weighed, which elicited weird looks from the vendors. The boxes weighed about 800 grams, so I asked how much is per box.

Again they raised their eyebrows and said P160. I pointed out that each box has only 800 grams of strawberries. They must have thought this is one dense girl, as they replied that the price per kilo was P200.

Of course it is standard practice that when you ask, the price quoted is by the kilo, not by the box. But never mind that I looked foolish, as I already felt like hitting my head with a shovel by then.

The only strawberries I could buy, after almost two years, were of inferior quality, and they were more expensive by 67% than those luscious looking large ones I had forgone at Burnham Park.

But enough of my heehawing, strawberries are strawberries, and the ones I bought (just 2 kilos, and paid with a heavy, reluctant heart) were good enough, particularly since I didn't have better ones to compare them to.

We ate them fresh and simply, by themselves, for breakfast. But any trip out of the mountains causes strawberries bruises, which quickly fester into pus-filled black cavities.

So I had to make use of half of my stash fast. Shakes were out of the question, as mists surrounded the fields mornings and twilights, resulting in chilly days perfect for sleeping in.

When I was still single, my friends and I went on bonding trips to Baguio, cooking and chilling out, literally, in a house on Gibraltar road, and we made floats or refrigerated layered desserts using strawberries. Our favorite then was a two- or three-layered affair using crushed, chicken-flavored Sunflower crackers, and sweetened cream.

It was delectable, the saltiness and flavor of the crackers pairing well with the strawberries. This is very Filipino, having sour fruits with salt - lots of it. The saltiness also cut through the sweet cream of the dessert.

But this time I wanted to make use of the excess chocolate cake unbelievably languishing in the refrigerator due to chocolate satiety. Plus, the only cream available in the groceries after Christmas were of the strawberry-flavored kind.

It was easy to imagine these three together - and they resulted in an impressive dessert. Simple, but strikingly pleasing, and incredibly easy to assemble. A thick layer of the chocolate cake (preferably dark/bitter sweet) as the bottom "crust," an equally thick spread of strawberry-flavored cream sweetened a little with condensed milk and blitzed with fresh strawberries, then topped with fresh strawberries, half-submerged in the cream.

I only made one layer, deciding that a two- or three-layered dessert would be messier to dig in. Nestle's strawberry-flavored cream was not as runny as the all-purpose one, and it resulted in a lusciously thick filling. I mixed in half a bottle of cream cheese spread, which further thickened it, to the point of being almost "chewy" when chilled. My sister-in-law said it was like ice cream - in fact, it was better than any strawberry ice cream I've had, due to its thickness.

The trio of chocolate, cream and strawberries were made for one another. They were perfect together - the bittersweet chocolate and the sweet cream with salty hints from the cream cheese served to bring out the sweet-tartness of the strawberries, enhancing their fruitiness. I couldn't have had strawberries any better, even in any shortcake.

The only thing that could improve this, I imagine, is using a flourless bittersweet chocolate cake, which I vow to make as soon strawberries are in their peak.

Related Post
Choco-Mango Float
Crema de Fruta

What/where to eat in Baguio
Cinnamon Swirl Loaf
Vizco's Strawberry Shortcake
Rose Bowl/Sizzling Plate
Cafe by the Ruins

Your Friendly Neighborhood Restaurant

[Sinigang na Ulo sa Miso, Php240]

The agency I work for celebrates its foundation anniversary in the first week of January, marked by a mass, a toast to the new year, and subsidies for lunch. During this year's mass, the bishop who presided remarked that we now qualify for discounts (referring to senior citizens' privileges).

But even though our agency may now be considered a senior citizen, its employees are not, thanks to a wave of early retirement programs (three during my time alone) that sent most of our superiors and mentors on their way to spending most of their time at the golf courses, and mainly for pleasure. This, and massive hiring of twenty-somethings, helped bring down employees' average age substantially.

But, reminiscing, we miss the, as they say, good ole' times. Those retirees taught us most of what we do, now. And this includes not just etiquette and protoccol and systems and procedures, but a way of life, too - particularly what, where and how to eat, in the corporate jungle where we are.

They were in the business and commercial district long before it became one, when it was still a field of cogon grass and our building was the tallest one for miles around (it's now one of the smallest) and they, literally, saw to life and sustained many eateries and restaurants in the area, decades and decades before the explosion of the restaurant scene these past few years.

Such eateries were family affairs, in family homes, and served food evoking home-cooked meals. Most are gone now, with the transformation of residential areas into commercial ones. But a few remain, good and steady, still serving our employees and those of the (relatively) new offices around despite the numerous fastfood joints and restaurant chains. They are repositories of the area's history.

One such eatery - it's a carinderia serving food turo-turo style (a hole in the wall with pre-cooked meals, and you order by pointing to the dishes on display) is Friends & Neighbors, to which I was introduced early on in my working life. Employees of my agency have remained loyal to this (now) restaurant, its food still gracing many anniversary celebrations in many departments.


The elders recount that it started out in a nipa hut, right where it now stands, expanding for more room as people patronized it, and improving over the years to a wooden affair, then to a concrete four-storey building (the upper floors let out as a dormitory), and finally to an air-conditioned, spacious affair with an expanded menu.


But the "core" menu remains, which consists of well-known and favorite Filipino dishes, served on ordinary days in most Filipino homes across the country. Nothing fancy, not gourmet, but with the goodness, and comfort, of home-cooking.

So there's ginataang kalabasa at sitaw (squash and yard-long beans in coconut milk), beef steak Tagalog (beef strips stewed in calamansi, soy sauce and onions), chop suey (sauteed Baguio vegetables), pinakbet (eggplants, okra, ampalaya, tomatoes in fish paste), tortang talong (grilled eggplant and ground pork omelet), adobong pusit (small squid stewed in soy sauce and vinegar), lechon Macau (chopped fried pork belly).


Slices of fresh fruits in season are always available, and their desserts, though not of the fancy kind, are always great to have - leche flan, sweetened saba with ice and milk.

The specialty dish, and the most expensive one, is sinigang sa miso, fish head in soured broth thickened with miso. The husband and wife team who put up and manage the restaurant have roots in Pangasinan and Bicol, and so it goes that their famous dishes are coconut-based - laing (taro leaves stewed in coconut milk and chiles), and Bicol Express (pork stewed in coconut milk and chiles).

For years, when I was still single, I had their pinakbet, and good bangus, every week, without fail. And that siningang sa miso.

[Laing]

[Bicol Express

Pork barbecue served out of the stick. No self-respecting Filipino restaurant neglects to include pork barbecue (and chicken) in its menu.


The expanded menu consisted mainly of sizzling plates, and among them this sizzling stuffed squid with a decadent gravy is out of this world. The sizzlers were mainly geared towards the after-office crowd out to relax with a drink or two, but they are ordered by the lunch and dinner crowds, too, and eaten with rice.


The sisig (diced onions, chopped pig ears and cheek boiled and broiled, to be seasoned with calamansi and chiles on the sizzling plate) that can give Gerry's Grill (for me the best place to eat great sisig) a run for their money.

Service is prompt and friendly, the general ambience is of a community affair - can be loud sometimes, especially in the evenings, but all in the spirit of a neighborhood gathering. And there's nothing like a place suspended in time yet attuned to the present, a repository of memories long past but still has a lot going for the future.

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Friends & Neighbors
Burgos corner Valdez Streets
Poblacion, Makati City
Delivers, Tel. No. (632) 8993351)

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Flavored Calasiao Puto

We attended a healing mass celebrated by well-known healing priest, Rev. Fr. Fernando Suarez, right on New Year's eve. During the homily Fr. Suarez lambasted Filipinos' multiple loyalties, which was quite timely considering how we observe the coming of the new year. I was secretly laughing, picturing how at that very moment my in-laws were trying to collect thirteen kinds of round fruits to signify prosperity year-round.

And I remembered the coins used on my wedding - I had not bought new ones, opting instead to use the coins that my parents had used on their own wedding, but I had been distraught because there were only twelve, and it was supposed to be thirteen coins in all. One for each month of the year, plus an extra to symbolize material excess. My then groom had asked what the fuss was all about, since thirteen was an unlucky number, anyway.

Sociologists label this as adaptation, or adoption, or integration. Whatever. The essence was that, we accepted what was imposed on us (in this particular case, the Catholic faith), but integrated it with our own existing practices. Perhaps the proper word is indigenization.

What is extremely popular nowadays, though, are Chinese influences, and observances borne from the Chinese practice of feng shui. So we serve sticky food, so good fortune sticks with us (but what if the reverse happens and misfortune stuck?), and we horde those round fruits, which is quite a difficult feat since there are not that many round fruits in the country. And whatever, other new practices feng shui experts suggest every year.

It is the sticky food and the thirteen round fruits that have integrated themselves into Filipino new year celebrations, though, year after year, along with loud and long-exploding firecrackers with such names as sawa (python) or Judas' belt (totally banned this year).

So on the way home after the mass I proceeded to our favorite Calasiao puto stand and bought thirteen kilos worth of puto. Joke.

Kidding aside, Calasiao puto is enough celebratory food for me. I love it to the last stickily chewy bite, and the kids love it, too. And because we rarely get to have it on our dining table, its presence always makes an ordinary day a festive one.

Calasiao puto is in a class of its own. Nothing is quite like it, not even a close approximation. It can only be found in Calasiao, a town in the central part of the province of Pangasinan, and can only be made there. It is sweet, and moist, as a kiss, and as bouncy. To me, all other puto are dry in comparison.

Calasiao puto is white, as pure as the rice it is made of, but it also comes in the kutchinta variant. Other puto have sprouted flavors, but Calasiao puto is not Calasiao puto if it wasn't white.

Our favorite puto-maker, though, is an enterprising one, and we have seen puto topped with slivers of cheese (previously unheard of, what we traditionally did was to sprinkle grated cheese on top, or slathered with cheese spread, prior to serving) make its debut about four or five years ago. It was good at first, but later on the cheese started to taste like flour dough, so we stopped ordering and went back to the grated-cheese-on-top/slathered-cheese-spread route.

This holiday season a surprise awaited us at the puto stand - Calasiao puto sporting Advent colors sparkled like Christmas lights. They have started to make flavored Calasiao puto! Ube for violet, mango for yellow, buko-pandan for green. And it was actually good. Better, way up there by several degrees, compared to other flavored puto being sold in Metro Manila, mainly due to the moistness factor.

These variants don't need cheese, as they are flavorsome enough on their own. Of course the original white is still the best, but now there are three more reasons to indulge. And more to add to that new year spread of sticky and round things. ;-)

Available only at the "Bella" kiosk
(the first puto stand, nearest the church)
Calasiao, Pangasinan
Original Php50/kilo, flavored Php80/kilo

Related post
The original Calasiao puto