Gerry's Grill - Ginataang Kuhol

I really love eating at Gerry’s Grill because of the ambiance and their affordable foods. In college, my friends and I always hang out at Gerry’s Grill Ali Mall branch because of one dish: the Ginataang Kuhol. At first I was hesitant to try it, but when I did try it, I was instantly hooked.

This serving of Ginataang Kuhol was something a friend and I shared. Both of us are now out of school, but whenever we meet, we sometimes go to our favorite branch just to eat this. Actually, even if I am with the family or some other friends and we would eat at any Gerry's Grill branch, I would always order this (with special request to the wait staff to serve this first - as quick as possible), so we could eat it while waiting for the other dishes to be served.

I guess there was something about how they cook this that made me love it a lot. The blend of all the flavors - coconut milk (or cream), shrimp paste and the ginger was just so good... plus, the slurping sounds add to the fun of eating it, too. Well, they do provide toothpicks to help take out the meat inside the shell, but sometimes, a little slurping sound makes the eating more enjoyable.

Jesz

SM Hypermarket Master Chefs Program

In celebration of their 1oth year, SM Hypermarket created the SM Master Chefs Program, and part of that program is the Cooking Marathon. From July to November, we will witness great chefs touring and cooking at different SM Hypermarket branches. With the partnership of nineteen master brands that all the people are always buying and use in their cooking like Knorr,Nestle All Purpose Cream, Unilever Food Solutions, Tabasco, Lee Kum Kee, Lady’s Choice, Maggi, Clara Ole, Kikkoman Soy Sauce, San Remo, McCormick, Bounty Fresh Chicken, CDO, Purefoods Tender Juicy Hotdog, Magnolia Cheeze Spread, Magnoila Purefresh, Magnolia All-purpose Cream and Magnolia Dare Crème, the SM Hypermarket Master Chefs Program aim to provide not just good foods people can re-create and serve at home, but also provide them with knowledge and a chance to have a kitchen makeover, too!




Last July 9, I, together with my sister and two blogger pals participated the cooking demo at SM Fairview. Chef Deejay D. Santos III (he does cooking demos for Sysu International) prepared three dishes viewed by students and SM Hypermarket customers. I liked how he presented the dishes because he explained everything to the audience and I did gain more knowledge in cooking because of him. He used Lee Kum Kee products for the three oriental dishes he prepared namely:


Spicy Prawns in Hoisin Sauce

I loved the blend of Lee Kum Kee hoisin sauce and the Lee Kum Kee chili bean sauce, but Chef Deejay didn’t put a lot of chili bean sauce because he acknowledged the fact that most of his audience were students who might not prefer too spicy foods. Very easy dish to make, perfect for busy moms and yuppies.


Oriental Pasta Delight

Tired of the usual white and red sauce? Try this dish, it’s like our Filipino pancit with a twist, but if I will cook this one in the future, I will put some nuts on it, too.


Delicious Chicken in Lee Kum Kee Soy Sauce

Very simple yet delicious dish, if you have some reunion or a typical Sunday dishes this will be perfect. This dish needs slow cooking, and you need at least two hours just to cook the chicken, but for moms, this will also give you time to do other chores, like cleaning the house. There wasn't enough time to make the chicken skin crispy, but still, it was a dish I really liked.

SM Hypermarket will also launch a series of supersized cooked-off events. It will be held in five different locations, with the help of local government units and the community, and participants will be feature a regional dish. Not only that, because SM Hypermarket is happy to serve their customers there will also be five lucky shoppers who will win a kitchen make-over with the help of the designer from Philippine School of Interior Design(PSID).

For at least 500php single receipt purchase including at least one of the sponsor in SM Master Chefs Program (see the first paragraph to see the list of the 19 brands), customers may join the promo. All registration forms are available at the customer service, just fill up the form and answer the question “Why does my kitchen deserve a free makeover?” using at least 50 words or less. You also need to attach at least three pictures of your kitchen, before dropping off your entries at any SM Hypermarket branches. This is a raffle, so equal chances to everybody.

Winners will be notified via registered mail and phone, but if you are renting your current house, you must have a written consent of the owners. All the employees of SM Hypermarket, all sponsors, its partners, its affiliates, and all companies and individual directly or indirectly connected with SM Hypermarket, its agency Ad Targets, Inc. and their relatives up to the second degree of consanguinity are disqualified from joining the promo.

For more information just log-on on their website at
http://www.smhypermarket.com/hypermarket/?p=420 or you may like them at their facebook account at http://www.facebook.com/pages/SM-Hypermarket-Super-Chefs/111494208866352 or you can visit any SM Hypermarket branch.

Jesz

Ice Cream Cravings: Satisfied!

Yesterday my mom asked me to buy some ice cream and bread at the nearby supermarket, which she will served for the prayer meeting here in our house. Of course no more negotiations there, because I love going to the market and I can buy whatever flavor I wanted. When I was already in the ice cream section, I realized mom can't eat chocolate ice cream, so I tried looking for her favorite flavor - the Halo Halo. At first I thought I might just visit a different store or get another flavor, but thankful to the supermarket staff who digged into their freezer just to check, I was able to take home the Nestle Temptations Halo Halo ice cream.

I was already okay with that, but as I walked to the counter, something else caught my eye: the Magnolia Strawberry ice cream!

Needless to say, I bought the ice cream (pint) as I am not fond of the halo halo flavor. Ice cream is one of my comfort foods, and I enjoy eating it even on a cold weather. Actually, I can eat 800ml of ice cream in one seating, and would still crave for more (my sister will have goosebumps reading this - she can't consume that much ice cream because her tummy reacts quite fast). After eating dinner I ate this for dessert and shared a tablespoon of it to my sister because my brother was already eating the left over halo-halo flavor. This one is 425ml for 65php.

I loved my weekend, how about you?

Jesz

ps - sis said the Halo Halo ice cream was better than the typical ice cream because it was creamier and was packed with many halo halo ingredients.

Bloggers' Buffet at Carol's Texan 5

Ms. Carol Chua loves American foods, before her mother branch right now, she has a two little store branches that delivered foods for the call center. Whenever she has a friend to come by her house for a party, they really enjoyed her foods especially the ribs. Her friends pushed her to make a restaurant and Carol’s Texan 5 was born.

Why Carol’s Texan 5? Well, obviously, "Carol" is the name of the owner, "Texan" because she loves American foods so much and "5" because the restaurant has 5 main dishes namely: Dynamite Chicken, the Ultimate Texan Ribs, Tomato Basil Pasta, Cowboy Roast Beef, and the Fish Fillet.

Last June 23, the first bloggers buffet event was held and my sister was one of chosen bloggers for the event. Upon seeing that bloggers can tag along people for the event (provided they pay p200 for the buffet), she happily tagged me along, something I was really thankful about. Being a newbie blogger, this posed a good opportunity for me to meet other bloggers, too.

Anyway, it was a rainy day, and even if there wass a storm, we still went to the event. We knew there will be some prizes for the early birds, but we never realized we would get there so early! Well, since the restaurant was bare (for the meantime), we grabbed the chance to take as much pictures as we wanted. I loved the interiors so simply and homey.

They also have a “wanted” wall that guests can enjoy while waiting for food, and they included hats, guns and some accessories - making this wall truly Wild West-like.

For the buffet, we were served three of the five main dishes of the store:

The Ultimate Texan Ribs.

Her friend was right, it was so delicious and perfect combination on the rice that mixed with red bell pepper and carrots. The ribs was so tender and tasty, put some sauce on it and was a two tumbs up=)

Dynamite Wings

When we saw this on the menu, “dynamite” made us think that was a super spicy food, but this dish wasn't really that spicy. This is my favorite meal that night, the wings was so juicy and I love to put a lot of sauce on it. I think it was mayo garlic, but not the typical mayo-garlic that we made at home. Even the kids will love this dish, and parents need not worry about its spiciness.

Tomato-Basil Pasta

I thought this would be sour because of the tomato, but it's not (though my sister said it was a bit sour - well, she isn't really fond of sour pasta). What made me love this pasta was the basil. I just love basil!

Magnolia Ice Cream

Initially, I was given the bowl with chocolate, but I decided to with the bowl with strawberry and vanilla because I don't like chocolate-laden foods that much. Soon, Carol's Texan 5 will offer this and other ice cream dishes for desserts.

I love this restaurant. They have affordable meals and I want to try more of their menu, maybe if I eat here I will want to try the two other main dishes and their burger - I was so curios what's in it. See you next time carol’s Texan 5 =)

For more details about Carol's Texan 5 just check their website or you can find their Facebook page. If you're in the San Juan area, you may reach them at 727-3843/0922-485-0154 for deliveries.

Carol's Texan 5
2flr. 713 J. Abad Santos Street

Little Baguio, San Juan

Jesz

So Good! Weekend with Brother

Last Sunday, my mom and my sister went to the Prayer Mountain at antipolo. I was craving for KFC for almost a week so I told my mom last Saturday night that brother and I are going to KFC for lunch, since we won't be coming with them anyway. That day my brother insisted to eat at KFC for dinner (instead of lunch) because he had to attend their org's CLP. I agreed to him because I was so sleepy that day and I still wanted to sleep more.




We had the latest deal in KFC called the "Streetwise Bucket Meal." The meal had 6 pieces of chicken, 3 fixins, and 3 cups of softdrinks for only 399php. This meal is actually good for three persons, but because of the KFC cravings and that we love chicken, the meal was only good enough for the two of us. It was an extraordinary day for because not only did we get to eat this much, we also got to have our own big bro-lil sis bonding, which we rarely do since I always go out with my sister.

KFC may "just" be a fast food, but it helped strengthen my relationship with my brother.

So Good, indeed!

Jesz

Shabu Shabu

Food trip this week was at Healthy Shabu Shabu. Actually, these pictures were taken from not so distant past, I was just happy that I can now use the old desktop PC here at home and seeing these old pictures, I thought I'd share these on my blog, too.



Shabu Shabu is a Japanese dish that is cooked on the table in a simmering pot of broth then dipped into a sauce. There are quite a number of shabu-shabu restaurants here in the Philippines (my first taste was at Maxim's Tea House - which was our late father's favorite), but the best for me would have to be the Shabu Shabu served in Healthy Shabu Shabu. Yeah, I worked there for 11 months but I'm not biased in any way, it's just that, their soup is really tasty and their sauce is superb for me. One big factor I liked was that they don't use MSG and I know how they take care of their ingredients (vegetables, fruits, and meat) to ensure that all foods are fresh when served to the costumers. Another plus was that each guest has their own pot, so they can cook their Shabu Shabu according to their liking.

Here in Healthy Shabu-Shabu, guests can choose the meat and seafoods they want, and of course they can also opt for the combination of the two. If you have an allergy in any one of the item, just tell the server about it, and they will gladly change it. Set meals can be good for one person or good for groups (group set for four comes with free iced tea, and good for six to ten person comes with free fruit juice and Japanese halo-halo).

Different set meals in Healthy Shabu Shabu:


The vegetable set contains pechay (either Tagalog or Taiwan pechay), black mushrooms, carrots, tomatoes, taro, corn, tofu, fish cake crabstick, squid balls, mushroom meatballs, meatballs, vermicelli and egg noodles. This one is good for one person but it's quite big enough to share as well.



The Chicken Set with Seafood A contains shrimp, oyster, sea cucumber fish fillet and squid, and cost around 535Php. This is the cheapest set on a shabu, but I personally found the chicken fillet tasteless. Well, that's just my personal opinion; any shabu-shabu meal I ate with chicken in it is something I am not fond of.


The Vegetable Set, like I said earlier can be ordered as is, but for group meals (good for four), guests can choose what kind of meat they want, and aside from the meat, their meal also comes with the Vegetable Set. Meat choices include:


Angus Deluxe (2,460Php) - This my favorite shabu-shabu meat, it’s very tasty and is really a perfect tandem with the soup. This is also available for one person, by the way.


Angus with Wagyu Beef Deluxe (3,870Php) - If you prefer two meats, I suggest you go for this one, but it's only applicable for deluxe plate (good for four people). This is not available as a single serving.

Just so you know, the darker meat is the Wagyu Beef, the reddish one is the Angus beef.


Beef Tenderloin with Shrimp Deluxe (2,680Php) - My favorite set in here, because of the tiger prawns, beef and vegetable. Although the beef tenderloin is not as tender as the Angus, it's still delicious and is a cheaper choice for people who just wanted to eat beef.

For dessert, they have the Japanese Halo-Halo and the Fruit Mix Plate. This is served with crushed ice on top of the fruits so it will be cold (obviously).

Aside from shabu-shabu, this restaurant also have rice toppings, noodles and tempura, as well as fruit juices and shakes.

These pictures were taken at Healthy Shabu Shabu located on the second floor of Shangri-La Plaza, beside Fish and Co. However, as of this writing, this branch will be unavailable because of the current renovation / construction in the area. Should you want to taste their foods, I suggest you visit their other branches - they have one in Robinson's Galleria, the Podium, Rockwell (The Powerplant Mall), Alabang Town Center, and SM Mall of Asia.

Jesz