A Hip Cordillera Evening at Mario’s

Mario's Menu

Last Saturday, I was invited by Mr. Fil Benitez and Kaoko to a dinner at Mario’s Tomas Morato. I’d be honest that I know little about Mario’s. I think we’ve eaten once or twice at their Makati branch and when that was gone, so was our Mario’s experience. So last weekend’s expedition (for us southerners, going up north is an expedition), was the perfect time to reconnect not only with the food but the institution that is Mario’s.

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Meeting the Beef Noodle King

CK 032

There was a time when my late afternoon entertainment meant this cartoon called Cooking Master Boy. This Japanese anime showcased the story of Mao as he goes on a quest around China finding different methods and secrets to perfect his cuisine. In his journey, he met amazing people, some of which bore titles such as Dumpling King or the Prince of Mapo Tofu. Back then, I used to poke fun at the idea of meeting people like these, ‘Iron Chefs’ who are kings and masters of their chosen recipe. Until recently, an amazing experience by Chowking’s doors has shown me that it can happen, there are indeed cooks who become kings of their recipes.

A few weeks back, ((Yes, I have a terrible backlog)) I had my Cooking Master Boy experience when I crossed the Beef Noodle King of Taiwan, Chef Liu Zheng Hsiung of the Lao Dong restaurants. One thing interesting about this guy is he won first prize in the Traditional Beef Noodle Competition for his clear soup beef noodle. What is more interesting is Chowking is planning to bring in his epic beef noodles to the Philippines.
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A box of treasures from the sea

Top Tier
A few months back, my good Japanese friend and her family brought me again to another great restaurant for lunch. The almost unwelcoming facade of Seryna makes you wonder if that shop is ever open at all. Sans the signs, the wood panels make the place look dark and you can only wonder which panel slides open to enter the restaurant. Apparently, Seryna is like this because like any great treasure, it takes a bit of curiosity and wanderlust for you to enter the door. What lies behind their strange door is a lunch packed with treasures from the sea. And here I am, back again in front of Seryna’s, hoping to taste the sea, with only two tiers.

Chirashizushi at Seryna! :3 Bottom tier closeup

I’ve never seen chirashizushi like this. Usually, I get a bowl of rice with sushi morsels on top. But on this end, I’m served a tiered bento, with the top tier just for the sushi and the bottom tier for the rice and other side dishes. The sushi tier is packed with slivers of tuna, hamachi, octopus, squid, uni, shrimp, and my favorite inari. Naturally, the fish was fresh. So fresh that at some points, I don’t dip it in the shouyu anymore and just eat it straight with the wasabi. The fish was sweet and still had some salt from the sea. During the first time I visited, it even has some cuts of fishes that I wasn’t so sure of but I ended up eating anyway. It’s not like it’s poisoned or anything. But I guess the fact that I’m still alive after my second chirashizushi means eating random fish meat from this place is definitely worth the treat. The sushi tier in is on a bed of grated daikon which you can probably eat if you felt like eating daikon. I really thought at first they were sotanghon, but my friend corrected me and told me it was daikon. I guess daikon truly is a versatile vegetable.

The bottom tier is just as exciting as the top. The rice is topped with kampyo, sakuradenbu, some daikon pickles, and tamagoyaki. But even without these, the rice alone is amazing. Seryna’s sushi rice has a slightly brown mixture, probably due to the vinegar. The vinegar is not too tart which makes the rice strangely taste sweeter. Or maybe it was brown because the vinegar had sugar in it. Either way, despite its unusual shade, the rice completely complemented the freshness and sweetness of the fish. In this chirashizushi, you’d want to eat the rice. Somehow, it doesn’t feel complete if you missed the rice in this chirashizushi.

It also has a side dish of potato salad and soup. For the price of Php320, extravagant sushi like that is probably one of the best sushi bargains you can find. One thing interesting about the chirashizushi in Seryna is that around 25 or 30 sets are only sold in a day. So yes, despite the reasonable price, it is still a rare treat. You have to go to Seryna’s by lunch time and make sure you beat the crowd in ordering this prized box.

Restaurant Tip!!

Seryna
Tel. Nos. 02-894-3855, 02-894-3741
Address: Little Tokyo,2277 Chino Roces Ave., makati City
Notes: The restaurant faces the Plaza Fair entrance of Makati Cinema Square. It’s also right beside the entrance to Little Tokyo (the giant red Tori that says Little Tokyo)

A Burger Celebration

Today’s National Burger Day! A great fun day to celebrate these juicy meats, sandwiched between supple buns, possibly glazed with ketchup, maybe even topped with lettuce, some pickles, and cheese. Oh prudence, don’t stop me from overindulging and getting a nice big cheeseburger with everything on it. I’m not exactly a burger person at most (I’m a fried chicken and noodle person more), but occasions like this, it’s nice to enjoy a bite or two from this meaty treat.

While I celebrate this day by having a bite, at Serious Eats’ A Hamburger Today, they’re celebrating National Burger Day with rhythm and rhyme as they compiled a bunch of funny haikus submitted by their readers. Of the lot, my favorite was this…

You once were a cow
Now you are a burger
Tasty little cow

Have a nice burger day today!

Would you like a cup of tea?

Let's have a cup of tea. :3

Sometime last week, I got invited to a tea tasting. I’ve had my fit of coffee tasting, but tea tasting is definitely something I’d love to try. Without hesitation, I said yes, even grabbing Kaoko in the process. It was an event not to miss! And all the more when you have a tea expert guiding you through the tasting! You just can’t resist the invitation!

assorted teas from different brands.

We arrived a little late. We missed some small details about tea making, but we arrived just in time to know more about the history of tea, the process of tasting and the flavors to look for. Finally, something quite applicable. There was even a comparison of commercial teas and the teas served in Coffee Bean Tea& Leaf. There was a marked difference, for us who didn’t know, how much it’s ground and how ‘fresh’ it is from the picking. These two things truly mattered in your tea tasting.


And then Coffee Bean Tea & Leaf brought out their teas by the cup. We had a shot in drinking Genmaicha Green Tea, a Japanese rice tea with a bit of sencha, Fancy Dragon Oolong Tea, which is naturally sweet compared to the oolong teas we get in Chinese restaurants, the Apricot Ceylon, a nice and lovely fruity tea that screams apricot (If you love the jam like I do, you’ll love this!), Chai, which is usually not to my liking, until this tea came along, and lastly, the African Sunrise, a CBTL tea that will be released in Philippines sometime June. When I tasted this, the first thing that entered my head was bubble gum. Others thought it was caramel. But for me, it’s like the taste of nice and soft, freshly-made bubble gum for slurping. It was lovely. The flavors were amazing and the tasting definitely showed a great spectrum of teas.

Sencha tea

This tea tasting was a wonderful experimental experience to me. I just tasted tea and it’s versatility in terms of flavor. It’s great to have a chance to see tea’s potential. Lipton tastes pale in comparison to these teas, and it’s quite grueling to know that you’re getting back to these teas when you get home. Thank god for the tea bags they gave away. At least I have 6 tea cups to treasure. :3

Alternately, Coffee Bean Tea and Leaf is asking your own coffee and tea experiences. Tell them how coffee and tea has changed your life by answering “What’s your Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf Story”. If you do answer, you could get a shot to go to Hollywood. Now isn’t that sweet? :3

More than just drinking beer…

And now... food matching

As early as Monday, Arpee informed about an event that was brewing on Thursday. It was a beer event, a beer appreciation event at Red Box. The guy’s been inviting me to all of these blogger events, but I never had a chance to go because either I have a dolly meeting or I have more important personal matters to attend to. But this time, I’m not letting such an opportunity pass by. A chance to drink different beers around the world saves you some cash from traveling around the world just to taste them. Besides, if this gives a glimpse of what the Institute of Brewing and Distilling has to offer, then I’m up for it. And I’m so happy that I didn’t miss this event.

Heiney~~ my luffs. I’m not entirely an avid beer drinker. I have mentioned to Arpee that I’ve got a weak spot for beer. I can go all night drinking Spirits and Wine, but beer is something else. With 3 bottles, I’m probably incoherent. Thankfully I wasn’t driving that night, so I barely had any problems. However still, the idea of having to drink myself silly that night just to taste different beers scared me. Thankfully, all we got were samplers.

A renowned British chef (whose name escapes me) guided us through the tasting. The event was rather packed and the tasting seemed to be placed to speed so the waiters pretty much poured us dribbles ever 2 minutes or so. I’m familiar with the basics of wine and coffee tasting. However, I wasn’t so sure if this was applicable to beer as well. Since the guy didn’t mention of any technique (he only said take time to taste it) I pretty much let the beer swirl around my mouth for a bit and then swallow. It wasn’t much of help since I realized later that tasting beer was similar to how you taste wine. It involves some swirling of the glass, a sniffing of the beer, the slurp, the gurgle, and the swallow (or the spit if you don’t wish to get drunk.) I think it would have been more interesting if there was time to really go through the tasting process and to distinguish the flavors. The only thing I learned from the lot was “The essence of the beer is its water. Drink it chilled and without ice because only then will you taste the water.” A very helpful tip, perhaps one that could be useful to our family drink outs.

Anyway, they served our group around 6 beers, all of which had very distinct flavors which I didn’t realize beer ever had. Here’s the rundown.

Kirin and fish and chips. Becks~~ I love you too! Stella Artois. The Table Beer. The End of the World.

  • Heineken – A very good straightforward German beer that had a nice crisp texture and light tartness. It was very smooth to drink. I will consider this the pre-WWI beer. Very nice and clean impression of German beers.
  • Beck’s – Another German beer that had a far more complex flavor than Heineken. So this would be my post WWI beer. It’s bitter without being difficult to drink. To me, it even had a slight sweetness for a beer. I find this beer very manly. If beers can be manly.
  • Stella Artois – A Belgian beer described as Belgium’s table beer. It was clean to the taste but it still had that small tartness of beer. I don’t know if that tartness is actually related to the malt and the beer. I think I understand why this beer is a table beer. Because of it’s mild flavor, you can eat it with anything.
  • Kirin Ichiban – A Japanese beer which I believe is the reason why we see a lot of Japanese salarymen out drink with neckties over their head. The beer is too clean that it tastes like water. I think it would take a couple of bottles before you can even taste that malt. Maybe because Japan’s water is too clean. However, after the first three beers, I think I understand why Japanese men prefer drinking San Miguel. I wonder if Asahi or Yebichu are the same.
  • Hoegarden – A beer with a hint of coriander. NOT! It tasted like fizzy coriander juice! I can be harsh about this but it tasted awful. The coriander was too strong and I don’t think I’d even drink another sip of this (in fact, I threw the rest of the drink). According to the chef, this was such a beer that is enjoyed by women. I’m a girl but… well… another female attendee liked it. Maybe I really have a more manly taste on things. At most interesting, but never again.
  • La Fin Du Monde – A very expensive beer no longer produced in the world. Apparently, it’s award winning too. What is interesting about this beer is its triple fermentation. It’s also considered vintage which is something I’ve never heard of in beer. The beer tasted like a heavier version of champagne, without the sweetness or the acidity of grapes. If champagne was stored for a century, it could have tasted like this.

They offered some food pairings. Had a chance to taste only baked tahong (mussels). It was yummy, but wasn’t able to match it with beer. I wish I had a shot to really take more time to study the pairings and see what matches with the beer but time flies by when you’re buzzed. I wasn’t honestly buzzed though since we only had sips. We had a chance to drink the beer afterwards but I didn’t bother because I had eaten so much of the buffet. The night ended with a sweet swag of bringing home your favorite beers. To the organizers and Red Box, it was a pleasant experience.

Apparently, Red Box is bringing in these beers for their karaoke-goers to taste. I don’t think I need beer to sing karaoke, but it’s nice to know that you have an option to drink these beers in their club. They’ll also be introducing some beer of the month bit which is sweet.

While everyone had set meals…

I ate Jamaican Patties at home. There’s not a day that passed by with me regretting what I did not attend to because of some work I’m doing which I have not been paid for yet. ><;; Oh well, that afternoon was spent with a really lovely Cheesy Beefy Jamaican patty. :3 I guess I’m partially okay. I think.

I always wondered what’s inside these things. Seriously, it’s sludge. But it’s the tastiest sludge I’ve ever tasted. I can’t distinguish the beef from the chicken. All I know is Pinatubo is nice and spicy and Express is spicy enough for my mom to enjoy. For a moment I thought of recreating this Jamaican Patty at home but then I thought, there are some things that are best left unexplored. Jamaican Patties are all about the mystery filling, don’t you think?