Christmas Cheers

Right after Halloween, the streets of Makati literally lit up to reveal shiny stars to signal the onset of the holiday season. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! The air is now colder and is starting to "smell" like Christmas, too.

Stars shine along Ayala Avenue

To bring some holiday cheer to my work space, I bought this cute snowman that lights up in changing colors.

My personal Frosty perched atop my office computer

Heck, I also started my annual Starbucks planner quest...and my fill of Toffee Nut Latte, yum!

Coffee nights are here again!

Here's to a happy Christmas...let's spread peace, happiness and love, love, love. Mwah! :)

Filed under SIGHTS

Bazaar for Things Proudly Philippine Made

Six years ago, the Yabang Pinoy – Filipino Pride movement started the Global Pinoy Bazaar in order to help Filipino entrepreneurs market their products and at the same time, to boost Filipino Love and Pride among the shoppers.

Mark November 5 and 6 on your 2011 calendars for the best Filipino Christmas shopping experience. Yabang Pinoy will be staging the 7th Global Pinoy Bazaar at Rockwell Tent, Makati City, together with Yabang Pinoy’s community of Filipino entrepreneurs committed to Filipino artistry and craftsmanship.

Global Pinoy Bazaar 2011 will feature businesses with 100% Filipino Love and Pride, showcasing ladies’, men’s & children’s apparel, accessories, jewelries, bags & shoes, home decor, beachwear, home and wellness products, as well as Pinoy art and design.

For more information, visit www.yabangpinoy.com. For interested Filipino entrepreneurs who want to be part of future Global Pinoy Bazaars, you may email us at bazaar.globalpinoy@gmail.com.

Filed under EVENTS and FINDS

Hong Kong Roast: A Taste of Hong Kong on Your Plate

After a tiring work-week, I look forward to weekends for some retail therapy and a good meal of my comfort food. Aside from Pinoy food, my second choice is Chinese food because the dishes are tasty and there is rice and noodles on the menu. Craving for authentic Chinese food usually leads me to Binondo but since it is far from where I live, I end up eating in Chinese restaurants in malls.

It was such a delight to discover that in the heart of San Antonio Village in Makati, just a few blocks from where I live, there's a quaint little restaurant called Hong Kong Roast Food Express that offers "authentic Chinese food," providing a "taste of Hong Kong." I was skeptical at first because when I went to Hong Kong, I was very disappointed with the food that I tried.

Anyway, glancing on their menu, Hong Kong Roast Food Express (HKR) offers roast, rice, noodles, dimsum, bread/sandwich, desserts, coffee, and milk tea. It can also be noted that it boasts of "the best Hong Kong asado." And so we ordered Siomai for starters, BBQ Roast Pork (Asado), Roast Chicken, Black Chicken Sesame, Curry Beef Camto Noodle, Sate Beef Hofan, and to complete a Chinese dinner feast, Yang Chow Fried Rice. For drinks, we tried Milk Tea with Black Pearl while for dessert, we had Coffee Jelly and French Toast.

Since the dishes are cooked as ordered, we were served a trio of appetizers consisting of boiled peanuts, fried dumpling wrappers and pickled green papaya.

The four-piece Siomai order was delicious and was more flavorful than any siomai I have ever tasted. Each piece is packed with fresh ingredients and is not rancid nor soggy. Just be careful about using too much chili garlic on your siomai sauce, HKR's is super hot that just a little goes a long way.

The much anticipated BBQ Roast Pork (Asado) did not disappoint and it even surpassed my expectations. The meat is tender and the bbq flavor is sooo good it is indescribable. No wonder HKR is confident about claiming that it is "the best Hong Kong asado" in town.

The Roast Chicken is well cooked and each piece is evenly flavored. I think I ate three slices of this chicken because I couldn't resist its texture and taste, which is reminiscent of Causeway Bay roast duck.

Sate Beef Hofan was okay, its just that am not a fan of the super thick flat noodles because for me, it diminishes the flavor brought about by the other ingredients. For pancit, am more of a bihon/sotanghon kind of person.

However, I became an instant fan of the Curry Beef Camto Noodle Soup. The noodles are firm, the beef camto so tender it melts in your mouth and the mild kick of curry brought life to an otherwise simple beef noodle soup.

Next was the Black Chicken Sesame and this was my first time to eat one as I've only been hearing about the silk chicken with white feathers and black skin from stories of my colleague and fellow blogger Joyfully Yours, who happens to grow silk chickens in her backyard. Truthfully, the dish was not visually appealing at all, much like burned food on a platter. I braved my first bite and found it weird at first because it had little meat on its bones and it tasted funny. I guess the flavor grows on you in the next few bites. Black chicken cooked into soup is believed by Chinese to give strength to sick people, helping them recover faster. It is also given to mothers in their post-pregnancy stage twice a day to bring them back to health.

The Yang Chow Fried Rice is surprisingly not as oily as I know it to be that I felt less guilty eating a second serving. Can't deny that Yang Chow is my most favorite fried rice of them all.

I was able to meet the owner, Mary Chan, a simple and unassuming lady who has a degree in Hotel & Restaurant Management but she loves to cook and was trained under Chef Gene Gonzales when she was in college. Because of her love for food, she discovered the true recipe for asado, or barbequed pork, which she wanted to focus on for HKR. The recipe for asado is a trade secret and was only known to Chinese chefs who work for Manila's fine dining Chinese restaurants. But Mary felt the need for a restaurant that can give the true Hong Kong dining experience of excellent food, fast and efficient service, and affordable prices and so she she and her chef trained with Hong Kong and Shenzhen chefs to perfect the recipe of the best-selling dishes at HKR.

Hong Kong Roast Food Express, a hole-in-the-wall restaurant that is truly a gem for people like me who seek the best chow possible. Visit them at 7467C Bagtikan Street, San Antonio Village, Makati City for dine-in, take out and delivery. Call them at 553-7846 and 984-7760, find them in Facebook hkroast@yahoo.com or follow them in Twitter hkroast_makati.

John & Yoko: Modern Japanese with a Twist

Since being introduced to the John & Yoko restaurant in Greenbelt 5 a couple of years ago, I've been coming back to taste my favorites, either with friends or family. The interiors suggest early on that John & Yoko offers something more than the average Japanese fare -- modern Japanese with a twist. I love how they made circles a part of the design from the lighted wall decors, to the designs on the wood cabinets.

Recently, they replaced some of their ho-hum dining chairs with these funky Japanese themed chairs.

John & Yoko's menu boasts of a wild variety of maki, tempura and rice bowls plus salads, pizzas and more; and it does hurt that the prices are affordable and competitive. Among my favorites are:

Big Star Salad

A delicious mix of fresh crispy greens, mango slices, shrimps, cherry tomatoes and peanut brittle bits.

Spider Roll

Soft shell crabs wrapped in rice and topped with orange caviar and teriyaki sauce.

Ika Fritters with Cocktail Sauce

Crunchy squid rings with tomato-based cocktail sauce.

Bacon Enoki

Enoki mushrooms wrapped in smoky bacon garnished with spring onions and brown sauce.

Tofu Steak

Fried tofu slices in oyster sauce with beef slices and cubed carrots.

Chicken Teriyaki and Mango Pizza

Mozarella pizza topped with chicken teriyaki bits and mango cubes plus spring onions, toasted sesame seeds and orange caviar...a surprisingly good combination.

For drinks, they have the bottomless dalandan (blue), calamansi (red) and lime (green) that are equally refreshing and thirst quenching.

I have yet to try their other food offerings but I'm sure that my next visits will give me and my companions a truly unique dining experience every time.

Dreaming of New York...Pizza

Am a self confessed pizza and pasta lover and can easily survive on eating those for the rest of my life. I've tried Italian and Pinoy pizzas but never one from New York and so I was curious when I heard that a new pizza place just recently opened in A. Venue -- New York Pizza Palace (NYPP).

Inside New York Pizza Palace.

The feel of NY

The exterior is nothing unusual: all glass walls and doors, with an obscure lighted sign and alfresco tables. But once inside, I felt I was transported to a place that I've only dreamed about -- New York City, USA. I saw familiar street signs and NY icons (Times Square, Mulberry St., Coney Island, Grand Central, and Fifth Avenue, among others) on the walls of the interior but the main attraction was the LED ticker board splashed across the ceiling, showing actual New York Stock Market, sports scores and news that New Yorkers follow. Numerous TV monitors showed live footages, real-time happenings at Times Square and Fifth Avenue, being updated every 30 seconds. The "Empire State of Mind" video of Alicia Keys and Jay-Z plays at an hourly interval and every so often, the screens will show old movies that had the New York theme such as The Godfather series.

NY icons such as baseball player Babe Ruth, Yankee stadium and original yellow subway chairs, among others.

The LED board showing NY stock exchange results, sports scores and news.

Screens with real time NY scenes.

The ordering counter reveals more NY attributes -- the menu board looks like the ticketing panels of the Grand Central train station; colorful NY graffiti decorates the surface below the counter; and there were several manhole covers lining the pavement, mimicking the streets of New York.

Graffiti artworks and more NY reminders decorate the counter.

Surprise detail -- NY manhole replica.

The dream of NY

The tour stared with a story by NYPP chief operating officer Eric Orland, who introduced himself as a New Yorker by birth but lived in California. He has been on the hunt for great tasting pizzas but nothing can satisfy his cravings like New York pizzas. So he collaborated with Chef O'Connor to develop authentic NY recipes which he wanted to offer initially to the market in China until a Filipino-American friends suggested he try the market in the Philippines. The opening of New York Pizza Palace was the materialization of a dream that took 7 years to fulfill and this first branch in A. Venue, Makati Avenue, is just the beginning.

Their main offerings are pasta and pizza but they have a lot more for the discriminating palate of the working people of Makati City. Everything if made fresh (cooked as they are ordered as much as possible) and served hot. You can even view the pizza being made through a glass show window at the side counter and according to Eric, their pizzas are made with four different flavors each to ensure the quality as they are served.

Peek at the pizza show window to see how your pizza is being made fresh.

The taste of NY

For starters, their NYPP Sicilian salad was served -- a perfect combination of romaine lettuce, croutons, marinated steamed chicken, mango, grapes, diced tomatoes and cashew nuts tossed with their signature Sicilian dressing. The salad was delightfully refreshing and tasty, with the dressing made from the finest and freshest ingredients and did not come out of a bottle.

NYPP Sicilian salad

Next were their best seller pastas: Fettucine Alfredo Chicken, Penne with Grilled Chicken and Pesto and Seafood and Garlic Linguine. The alfredo white cream sauce was surprisingly light, not oily nor overly creamy but flavorful enough to offset the mildly salted chicken bits; penne pesto has fresh, earthy taste brought about by the roasted vegetables and mild garlic flavor; while the seafood pasta has strong garlic flavor and good mix of shrimps and squid rings.

Fettucine Alfredo Chicken

Penne with Grilled Chicken and Pesto

Seafood and Garlic Linguine

An interesting appetizer called Suppli, their signature rice ball stuffed with parmesan and cheddar cheese, fried to golden perfection and served with marinara sauce, is heavy enough as a main dish. Crusty outside and soft inside, the cheese and tomato sauce blend beautifully inside the mouth. Yum!

Suppli, originally an Italian appetizer

The Chicken Wings (NYPP's version of buffalo wings) are fantastic! The skin is crunchy like lechon skin and their very own sweet-chili winger sauce seals the deal.

NYPP Chicken Wings

Pizza is their main offering and so NYPP makes sure that every pizza is made right and every slice is served fresh. Eric told us that, "What makes good quality pizza is the crispness of the product. You can hear the crisp when they cut it." NYPP has 7 Classic Pizza flavors: New York Style Cheese, Pepperoni, Triple Meat Lover, Fire Grilled Vegetable, Wild Mushroom, Sweet Sausage and Hawaiian. The cheese pizza was mildly salty which is great because one gets to enjoy the chewy goodness of the cheeses without choking on salty flavor; the meat pizza, a triple delight pizza with ham, pepperoni and Italian sausage, was not greasy at all and the freshness of the tomato sauce can be tasted.

PIZZA!!! (clockwise from the top) Mini Meatballs, Triple Meat Lover, New York Style Cheese and Spicy Shrimp

As if the 7 classics are not enough, NYPP also developed their Signature Pizzas namely NYPP Vodka Pie, Spinach & Artichoke, Mini Meatballs, White Pie, Prince Street Clam, Eggplant Ricotta and NYPP Spicy Shrimp. My early favorites are: the spinach & artichoke, with mozzarella, romano, provolone cheese, breadcrumbs and basil leaves -- satisfying but light despite the thick spinach & artichoke mixture and cheese; the vodka pie, which actually has no alcohol but rather a mix of sauces including creamy tomato sauce and basil leaves; the eggplant ricotta, which has a rich cheese flavor from ricotta, mozzarella and romano cheese was made unique red bell pepper and breaded eggplant; and the white pie which has smoky herb flavor from the onions, bacon and thyme leaves toppings.

More pizza! (clockwise from the top) Spinach & Artichoke, White Pie, Vodka Pie and Eggplant Ricotta

NYPP may look and sound expensive but their prices are competitive in the pizza/pasta market. For those who can't have lunch outside their offices or for those who want to enjoy their favorite pizza, pasta, chicken, salad, appetizers and delicious desserts at home, NYPP delivers to your doorstep. Dial 720-5977 for delivery and feast like New Yorker.

Vroom! Vroom! Have your pizza delivered now.

Visit New York Pizza Palace for an authentic New York dining experience. NYPP is located at A. Venue, Makati Avenue, Makati City and is open from 9am - 4am daily. Please visit http://www.newyorkpizzapalace.com/ for more information.

Me and NYPP's 18" pizza