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When my grandmother was still alive (she died way before I was born, god rest her soul), she would make stacks and stacks of bibingka every December. It was bakeshop’s best seller during the Christmas season, especially among the early mass-goers. I’ve been craving for bibingka for days now and I thought I’d compile a list of places whose bibingka I’ve tried.
Via Mare Restaurant adds an interesting twist to their bibingka. Besides the usual toppings of grated coconut, they place a generous slice of melted cheese on top of the rice cake. You might find that a little strange but trust me - the cheese complements the bibingka like butter to pancake.
The bibingka at Tsoko Nut Restaurant (2nd floor Waltermart, along Pasong Tamo Road in Makati) serves a more traditional bibingka. The golden-brown cake itself is sweet enough to make a satisfying dessert, but not too sweet as to make you feel too full after a meal. Best eaten with their hot tsokolate.
Posted by Lauren | Under Uncategorized with 1,837 views
Wednesday Dec 19, 2007
Christmas is less than a week away, which means that a week from now my tummy will be bloated from the never-ending kainan with my family. Not that I mind too much since aside from birthdays and the occasional gathering, this is the only time of the year I can indulge in food that we don’t normally have at home. So next week I shall stop weight-watching and calorie-counting whilst I feast on my favorite noche buena dishes (arranged in no particular order):
It’s easy to see why lechon paella would rank above one of my favorite foods in the entire world - it’s pretty much two different dishes in one. You have a juicy lechon roasted to perfection. Hack its crispy skin with a knife and inside you’ll find steaming hot seafood paella. Eat the lechon meat together with the paella and lechon sauce, or eat them separately. Yum.
You can’t have noche buena without Chinese ham on the table. Chinese Ham to Filipinos on Christmas is like turkey to Americans during Thanksgiving. I like eating mine in a sandwich while picking on the pineapple or the apple slices, depending on which recipe my mom decides to make.
Home made apple pie a la mode is a staple dessert in our family feasts. No matter how stuffed we all are from the main course, each of us has to have a slice of mom’s warm apple pie topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Mom usually makes her apple pie with lots of cinnamon and according to some research I did, it’s a Dutch tradition to mix cinnamon and sugar into the apple mix. Dutch apple pies also include other ingredients like raisins and lemon juice, and are eaten warm with cold whipped cream or ice cream. Try out my mom’s apple pie recipe for yourself, and experiment with other things you can add to the filling.
Posted by Lauren | Under Uncategorized with 729 views
Monday Dec 17, 2007
I love how restaurants and coffee shops come out with different food or drinks during the holiday season because they remind me of the warmth and fuzziness of Christmases spent with family and loved ones. Among my favorite holiday goodies, the Starbucks Christmas blend is somewhere among the top. It’s got a deep rich flavor with spicy undertones and travels very smoothly down your throat. Add a dash of cinnamon or nutmeg and savor it with a gingerbread cookie. Pure heaven.
You can grab a 250g bag of the Starbucks Christmas blend at any Starbucks coffee branch for 450 pesos.
Posted by Lauren | Under Uncategorized with 1,013 views
Thursday Dec 13, 2007
If you’d like to deviate from tradition for this year’s Noche Buena meal and try something different, a roast turkey might make a great main course for your late Christmas dinner. Most people opt to have their turkeys ordered from a store or a restaurant since attempting to roast one yourself could be too difficult and time-consuming, especially if you have other dishes to prepare and you’ve never roasted a turkey before. The biggest challenge to roasting a turkey is making sure that the meat remains moist while giving the whole turkey a nice, even roast. This is a trial and error thing that could take many Christmas dinners to perfect, and unless you want a roast turkey to be a staple of your Noche Buena, attempting to make one yourself might not be worth the time and effort.
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