Kimchi Sandwich!

I was scanning the fridge, and I was thinking of a meat-free breakfast (excluding eggs). So I made an omelet and boiled a large potato.

That's stir fried lettuce with onions and garlic. I also added a tablespoon of oyster sauce and a pinch of sugar. Did you know that potatoes are best eaten with their skin on? You just have to wash them well.

I was hesitant if I should open this bottle of kimchi since I hate anything spicy but my curiosity took over and I ended up with a Kimchi sandwich!

Lucky me, this particular brand is not so hot! You should try this! Very flavorful!

Corned Beef v.s. Corned Tuna

Move over corned beef, here comes corned tuna! Corned tuna is widely promoted here in the Philippines as an alternative to corned beef. If you check google for "corned tuna", it's likely that you will get results from the Philippines. In Yahoo! Answers, some people (obviously outside of the Philippines) are not even familiar with the term "corned beef" (see "other answers"). Which brings me to a conclusion that this phenomena started in the Philippines considering that google corrected me when I asked who invented corned tuna. So anyway...

So What's the Difference?
Brands like this, claim that corned tuna has the same taste of corned beef but has all the benefits of canned tuna which includes - Omega 3 DHA which is good for the heart, low in cholesterol and high in protein. With the wide campaign of corned tuna brands as a healthy alternative, (not to mention Derek Ramsey) more and more people are trying it out!

Even for Corned Tuna, sex sells...

And the list gets longer...

So is it the end for corned beef? Not quite! Argentina corned beef came up with a vengeance.

It's so true, it doesn't taste like corned beef I have tried it myself. If they do, then there must be something in it that makes the taste similar because tuna will never taste like beef on its own. The feud will never end, both had the word "corned" but that doesn't mean there should only be one. Corned beef is delicious and so is corned tuna... but I don't like the fact that corned tuna is marketed as "I taste like corned beef". Why not just embrace the natural taste of tuna?

Mikuru Random Cooking: Cabbage Omelet

I cook my own food most of the time and grabbing whatever I see in the fridge is fun! So here are the stars for today:

Cabbage, eggs, a large onion and cloves of garlic and an edible plate.

Note that I didn't boil the cabbage, I stir fried it right away with the onion and garlic and added a few oyster sauce. I saw leftover meats so I decided to add them up to add flavor, so I added bits of grilled pork. Let it cook for a while and mix in the eggs and stir everything then let it set and I topped everything with grated cheese and pizza sauce.

The grilled pork chops and oyster sauce gave it a barbecue kick while the cheese and sweet sauce gave it a pizza twist! Delish!

House Blessing

I was checking on my folder and I realized I haven't shared our house blessing party. Our house was renovated a few months back so we had friends and family over and had lunch party. Here are some of what was served:
Fish fillet topped with peppers, swimming in some sort of soy soup. An all-time favorite - liempo. It was really good. The only thing that I hate about it is it's too oily. Baked mac, buko pandan salad, and I can't remember what that is... I think it's pork.

It was a simple gathering at our garden area. Where am I, you ask? I was busy trying out different cocktails at the bar. Oh, I love the bar! Always open! ^^

Mikuru Random Cooking: Sardine Spaghetti

I was hungry so I took a visit to our pantry and rounded up ingredients that could possibly go well together and I came up with this bunch:
An opened spaghetti pasta, sardines in tomato sauce, instant carbonara sauce, tomato sauce, spicy mustard and left-over fish hotdogs. They are just begging to be cooked. So do you know what time it is? It's - MIKURU RANDOM COOKING TIME! Uhuh, no recipes to follow, random ingredients, just pure cretivity and a little bit of insanity, haha.

So I placed the fish hotdogs in my ever-faithful oven, separated the sardines from its tomato sauce. I squeezed the sauce out, I don't know why but I just felt like doing it and cooked the pasta as per label.

Chop some onions and garlic, saute and mix in the sauces... let them simmer for a bit and add the drained pasta. Mix again to coat evenly and top it off with the fish hotdogs...

Although it really looked ordinary, it's delicious, I swear! It surprised me...really.

Can't Get Over Pizza

I usually crave for pizza, but instead of ordering, I made my own. Good thing there are a lot of instant ingredients available to cut your preparation time in half! So I sliced up a few hotdogs, onions, garlic and green peppers.

I preheated the pizza crusts so it will be a little bit crunchy.

It turned out really nice and the pizza sauces were flavorful. I had a lot of left over pizza sauce so the next day I experimented on pork tonkatsu... I made it into a pizza! I just added bits of spam on top of the cheese. It was good! I ate it over a bowl of rice.

Saisaki, Kamayan and Dads

The power of three... and I'm not referring to 3 sisters living a life of endless demon banishing related activities, I'm talking about three restos where you can eat all you can for just less than 600 php! It's a great bargain actually, considering there is a wide range of food selection - from Japanese to Filipino to European and American cuisine!
It's like a food bazaar! Everywhere you look there are stations serving a certain kind of cuisine. It's like a festival of delicious food!
On top is the ramen station where you can order ramen, cold Japanese nodles, sukiyaki, etc. Ingredients are laid out in front of you, just tell the chef what you want and how you want it then he'll prepare it for you. There is also a grilling station where Japanese style skewered meats and salmon (and corn, too) are displayed, just grab a plate and put in everything you want and they will grill it for you... or if you don't want to wait, there are already-grilled meats on a platter.
On top, there's the fried rice and next to it are different kinds of tempura (pork, chicken, crab, shrimp and vegetables). The sushi is a blockbuster, when I went to that station, a lot of people are just grabbing what they see so I ended up with that pick. We had sukiyaki, ramen and they also have kimchee. I also love their tofu topped with crab stick, it's so delicious!
So there's my plate, I got a lot of gyoza, fancy sushi and for dessert, I got a lot of creampuffs, blueberry squares, some random unidentified sweets and chocolate coated apples and mallows via chocolate fountain.
You can create your own nachos or taco salad at that area and on the left are several custards and candied coconuts for dessert, those are cakes served in small squares, they also have pudding and on its left is the salad bar. Fruit, potato, macaroni, veggie... you name it, it's there! Several ingredients are also available so you can customize your salad the way you want it.
Those are french breads with fancy spreads and they even have an oven toaster! And there is the roasted chicken and ham station, the chef carves out a slice or two then just stretch out your plate.
And for the win, there is also a bibingka station where a chef cooks bibingka on the spot! It's really fun to watch him. He even posed when I took a picture. There are a lot of Filipino rice cakes and jellies in this station.
They also have a pasta section. Different kinds of pasta and sauces are up for grabs... I was wondering though why this station is empty. And to complete the fun atmosphere, there's a band!

It's a long stretch of food! I believe I only tried 20% of what's being served there. I am planning to go back. This is definitely a place where you get value for your money! The food is great, too!

2nd Level, Glorietta 3 Ayala Center, Makati

Telephone nos.

(02) 892-8897
(02) 892-8908 to 09