Category: Lifestyle

Happy Chinese New Year everyone!

How timely is my post today as I share with you yummy Cantonese dishes being served at Jasmine Restaurant located at the New World Hotel.  It’s a nice second visit for me and I was uber excited when I stopped by the Cantonese restaurant for dinner.

If you remember my post sometime last year, Jasmine had brought two chefs over from Shanghai for their Shanghai Surprise promo.  This time around, I was able to try out their a la carte dishes that are made by Jasmine’s very own Chef Choi Wingki.

Oh and, yeah.  There’s a surprise by the end of this post (related to Chinese New Year feast!).  But before the exciting news, here are the a la carte dishes we tried out at Jasmine Restaurant, New World Hotel.

• Fresh Fruit Juices

I was second to arrive at the venue so while waiting for the other bloggers to arrive, I ordered cantaloupe shake while Yedy got watermelon shake.  I always go for fresh fruit juices or shakes.  It’s always nice to drink healthy refreshments.

• Boiled Peanuts

We got ourselves munching on boiled peanuts which are now my favorite snack.

• Pork Siomai

It pays to be early as I got to eat more food especially dim sum like pork siomai.  Our plain old Chinese dim sum favorite.

• Har Gow

Har Gow, however, wins over pork siomai.  As soon as the har gow came out, I totally forgot about pork siomai (although it’s tradition to serve har gow and siomai together).

Do you know that this dish is said to be the one that people judge the skill of a dim sum chef on?  Well, since this was obviously a hit early on during dinner, then there was no doubt that the chef was pretty successful and super skilled 🙂

Har Gow is a chinese dumpling that has shrimps, pork fat, bamboo shoots, scallions, cornstarch, sesame oil, sugar and soy sauce inside.

• Steamed Gizzard

Gizzards, like liver, I’m not really fond of.  So I wasn’t able to try this dish.  However, for gizzard lovers out there, Jasmine has it. 🙂

• Wagyu Beef with Mango Roll

When this dish, wagyu beef with mango roll, was served in our table.  Everyone of us (who coincidentally were at Jasmine’s last year for their Shanghai Surprise) exclaimed, “Yay!”.  It was our favorite dish and we’re glad Jasmine added it permanently to their menu.

It has the same honest to goodness taste of wagyu cooked with mango and wrapped in a roll.  I can eat this over and over!

• Shrimp Mousse with Vegetarian Sauce

To make things simpler, I’ll call this shrimp balls.  But wait, they are not your ordinary shrimp balls!  They were made from real shrimps and cooked in Jasmine’s special vegetarian sauce.  Not too sweet, not too salty, just the right amount of flavors.  I love it!

• Deep-fried Oysters

How many times have I said that I don’t like oysters in this blog?  I lost count!  However, I have grown to love it as restaurants was able to cook oysters in such a way that it removes the after-taste that I used to dislike.

I usually have baked oysters.  Imagine my surprise when I tried out Jasmine’s deep-fried oysters.  Suffice to say, I was totally blown away!  It was one of my favorites at the dinner!  I think it was the garlic and some other secret ingredient that they put in that made the dish a success!  I couldn’t stop getting more servings of the dish.

• Beef with XO Sauce

Others might think that XO sauce is a liquor sauce.  In all actuality, it’s a seafood sauce that is mainly used by Chinese chefs as condiments in cooking.  Like in this case, Jasmine used XO sauce to cook the beef with.  The result is a nice delicious dish.  What I liked most is the tenderness of the beef.  I’m always wary of meat that is chewy and I’m glad that Chef Choi got the right formula for this! 🙂

• Steamed Live Garoupa with Soy Sauce

In every Chinese meal, there’s either the steamed fish or crabs.  This time around we had steamed fish.  A simple recipe but yummy nevertheless.

• Pan-fried Chinese New Year Cake & Sesame Seed Balls

For dessert, we had sesame seed balls and tikoy (fried new year cake).  It’s the chinese new year and everyone is in celebration mode so it’s nice to have ended the meal with the accustomed Chinese New year delicacy.

And with that, I share with you the highlight of the night:

Ultimate Eighteen Treasures Feast on Wood Basin

A Chinese New Year custom for most tsinoys is to have a big reunion with the whole family and have dinner together.  Jasmine at New World Hotel acknowledges that and has prepared an extended Chinese New Year Feast for families.

From January 18-30, 2012, families can celebrate Chinese New Year in a luxurious kind of way with Jasmine’s Ultimate Eighteen Treasures Feast on Wood Basin.

It’s a HUGE wooden basin that includes eighteen different food items that we can enjoy by eating them layer by layer.  It’s an ultimate feast and rightfully named at that! 😀

We were actually so fond of the ultimate eighteen treasures that we had to take some time looking at it, taking pictures, observing it, naming the treasures inside the basin and preparing our eager stomach to indulge such great food.  I was in total awe…

I tried to get one of each of the treasures in my plate.  See at how lovely it looked?

The feast includes abalone, sea moss, conpoy, sea cucumber, dried oyster, fish maw, prawns flower mushrooms, eel fillet, roasted duck, chicken, pig knuckle, goose web, fish balls, dried squid, taro, radish and bean curd stick.

The food highlight is definitely the ultimate 18 treasures feast on wooden basin but Jasmine prepared a whole meal for families who’ll be availing the Chinese New Year Promotion.

Here’s the complete menu for the Ultimate Eighteen Treasures Feast on Wood Basin:

• Deluxe Appetizers (6 Kinds) – eggplant sesame sauce, spicy cabbage, clam meat spring rolls, shredded chicken, bamboo shoot soy sauce & marinated cucumber
• Double Boiled Chicken Soup, Whelk, ‘Sun Moon Fish, Chinese Herbs
• the Ultimate Eighteen Treasures Feast on Wood Basin (featured)
• Poached Chinese Lettuce with Superior Soy Sauce
• Steamed Thai Rice with Chinese Sausage
• Sweetened Ginger, White Fungus Soup with Glutinous Flour Dumplings
• Pan-Fried Chinese New Year Cake
• LoZhou Pomkam

We were certainly lucky enough to be able to try out both a la carte dishes and Ultimate Eighteen Treasures Feast on Wood Basin at Jasmine in New World Hotel.  I was completely stuffed after!

Happy Chinese New Year again friends!  Have a prosperous water dragon year, think positive and don’t forget to celebrate with your family by visiting Jasmine, New World Hotel 🙂

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Jasmine Restaurant
2/F New World Hotel, Esperanza Street corner Makati Avenue, Makati City 1228, Philippines
(02) 811-6888

Yakitori Kitchen is a new restaurant located at Burgos Circle, Fort Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City.  Their concept is so unique that I kept raving about it to my friends after trying it out.  In fact, I liked it too much that I’m finding it hard to start this blog post.

Where do I begin? Obviously, Yakitori Kitchen is a Japanese restaurant; the latest offering from a restaurateur who has been opening solely Japanese-themed places. Ramen Bar was his first venture and it was a great success. So it must be pretty understandable that I approached Yakoti Kitchen with high expectations.

The term yakitori comes from 2 root words: Yaki (grilled) and Tori (chicken).  Japanese usually hang out at Yakitori places to drink sake.  The grilled chicken which are usually skewered serves as their snack (‘pulutan’ in tagalog).

If you don’t like chicken, you don’t have to worry as Yakitori Kitchen also serves a lot more skewered food.  And I must say, I liked most of the ones we tried out during our visit last month.  I was actually surprised when I saw the prices in the menu because I thought they would be expensive.

The skewered food items available in Yakitori Kitchen are either cooked with salt (Shio) or with tare (a grilling sauce made from chicken bones, mirin, sake & soy sauce).  The meat used are of export quality.

Without further ado, let me share with you the dishes that our group tried out.  Believe it or not, we had so much food that I almost couldn’t breathe anymore.  It’s quite ironic considering the food that we ate looked light but boy, it definitely filled up my stomach space and more, hahaha!

Appetizer

Present in any Japanese restaurant is my all-time favorite Japanese snack! 😀

• Edamame (Php 120)

Edamame is a vegetable that is boiled green soybeans.  We eat just the beans by popping it out from its pod.  Sooo good!  I’ll never get tired eating this Japanese snack!

Yakitori Chicken & Specials

Before I start with my long list of Yakitori dishes that we savored, let me share first the two condiments we can use with it.  The seven spices (left on photo below) gave a great kick to the overall taste of the grilled dish while the pink salt (right on photo below) gave a distinct salty taste.  We all enjoyed adding seven spices to the skewered dishes but it’ll depend on your taste.  In all honesty, even without those two, the yakitori will taste good as they are cooked with flavorful ingredients already.  We are just given an option to add more spice to the already well-cooked dishes.

Each order has two sticks of Yakitori goodness.  Ohhh la la!  I somehow felt that I don’t need to describe each food item one by one as the pictures speak for themselves.  I have to apologize though because my photography skills failed me that night.  So don’t get fooled, do try out Yakitori Kitchen!  I get restaurant suggestion requests each time as you, my friends, want to try out something new.  Well, here’s my newest discovery and a unique one at that!

• Uzura (Php 95)/Asubei (Php 140)

Uzura is quail eggs.  I remember when I was still in college, I would eat like 5 pieces of it each day.  I was warned by friends that I have to stop doing that as a routine since quail eggs contain lots of cholesterol.  I followed their advice but eating quail eggs doesn’t hurt every now and then.  So it was quite a good reunion for me and my old favorite quail eggs at Yakitori Kitchen:P

Asubei is asparagus wrapped in bacon.  I usually get this over and over when I dine at a restaurant that serves Japanese buffet.  Vegetable and bacon is such a good combination right?  Who dare say that healthy and sinful food can’t mix well?

• Corn (Php 85)

As much as I love corn, I wasn’t able to try out this one.  I guess I was too shy to bite into it as I might have corn all over my teeth hahaha!  But grilled corn especially with Shio (salt), do we even have to judge its taste?  It should be good!

• Kamaboko (Php 95)/Shishito (Php 60)

The crab cake (kamaboko) was my ultimate favorite among all the food that we had in Yakitori Kitchen.  It was so tasty!  I loved how the sauce was absorbed by the crab cake during the grilling process.  First time I have tasted crab cake grilled (I usually had it fried) and it was an ultimate success!  I highly recommend this dish.  Do not miss ordering Kamaboko at Yakitori Kitchen! 🙂

Green pepper (shishito) was a great buffer with all the meats that we have savored that night.

• Shitake (Php 150)/Chikubei (Php 120)

Shitake mushrooms – I’m sure will be a hit for mushroom lovers.  I’m not fond of mushrooms but I tried a stick anyway.  It was as flavorful as the other yakitori dishes we’ve tried out.  I somehow have a new kind of fondness over dishes that are grilled.

Chikuwa is a Japanese browned fish cake with a hole on the middle.  Basically, it’s made from  fish surimi, salt, sugar, starch, monosodium glutamate and egg white.  I believe Chikuwa is good as it is but with bacon, it was much better!  Another favorite among the Yakitori dishes in Yakitori Kitchen.

• Ninniku (Php 50)/Hatsu (Php 70)

Afraid of cholesterol?  then Garlic (niniku) is a good food item to eat!  Do you know that garlic is actually considered as one of the healthiest food you can eat?  Yakitori Kitchen has it in their menu so order one just to give it your meal a bit of a balance 🙂

When I learned that Hatsu is chicken heart, I was a bit hesitant trying it.  I mean it looked scary, hahaha! Who would want to eat chicken heart?  But since it’s already right there in front of me, I decided to give it a try.  Hatsu was chewy but definitely flavorful considering the sauce that was put when it was cooked.  Not too scary as I thought 😛

• Jagabei (Php 140)/Bonchili (Php 150)

Have you ever tried potato wrapped in bacon?  We certainly did and it was a huge hit!  I knew that I shouldn’t be eating a lot of those as it can easily make me full.  However, I didn’t care!  Imagine having two of my favorite food items in one.  It was like hitting a jackpot or shall we say, hitting two birds in one stone 😛

Chicken tail (bonchili), the tastiest and yummiest part of a chicken.  Yeah, some people might argue that it has the most cholesterol.  But who could resist such a delicious treat?  The meat was tender, it has the right amount of fat and most of all, it was just too flavorful.  I would never say no to bonchili.

• Lever (Php 70)/Tsukune (Php 120)

Sorry, I just dislike chicken liver (lever) and will never even try it.  It’s a personal choice and not because of any food establishment.  Anything liver, I will never eat.  Of course, my friends ate it and finished it.

A lot of people loves meatballs and Yakitori Kitchen has just that and it’s called tsukune.  Of course, they used chicken meat instead of the usual pork meat.  Was it good?  Of course!  Especially with the special grill sauce that the restaurant is using.

• Boneless Tebasaki (Php 120)/Yagen (Php 140)

I’ll call Tebasaki a dish for the lazy ones.  You know why?  Because tebasaki is boneless middle chicken wing meat!  We don’t have to exert any energy in taking out meat from the bony chicken wing anymore.  Yakitori Kitchen has taken care of that!  All we have is honest to goodness, chicken wing meat!  Whoo! 🙂

Another unique Yakitori dish that I tried out that night is Yagen.  It was chicken keel bone which can be found near the breast part.  The bone was actually cartilage so it’s soft and edible.

• Tebasaki (Php 120)

I shared boneless tebasaki earlier.  Some people might want to eat the original version of chicken wing which is actually full of bones and must be enjoyed by eating it with your hands, sucking the meat out of the bones and truly savoring the taste of the chicken.

• Momo (Php 100)/Seseri (Php 150)

Momo is Yakitori Kitchen’s signature dish.  It’s basically chicken leg meat and really what Yakitori is all about.  Don’t forget to drink sake with this one!

If I’m not mistaken, it’s the first time that I’ve eaten purely chicken neck meat (seseri).  I love that Yakitori Kitchen serves a whole variety of chicken skewers and a number of unique ones at that.  Another great offering that diners can try out.

Beverages

While people usually order sodas, for Japanese people, it’s always the sake, an alcoholic beverage.

• Gekkeikan Sake – 120mL (Php 200/serving)

My friends who are with me are just casual drinkers while I, myself, don’t drink alcohol at all.  But Yakitori Kitchen, being a drinking place, it’s gonna be such a waste if we don’t order any of their Japanese drinks.  So we had Gekkeikan sake..  Sake is a Japanese alcoholic drink made from fermented rice.

According to tradition, it’s being served warm.  However, for pinoys like us, we just enjoy drinking ice-cold alcohol.

Rice Toppings

I’m totally a rice person and I’m just glad that in spite of the awesome concept of the restaurant, they still offered rice toppings.  I guess Yakitori Kitchen understands that some people might have such a big appetite that they tend to look for rice (like me!).

I was lucky enough to be able to try all three offerings from Yakitori Kitchen.  All three had distinct taste but of course, there was one that I liked the most.

• Yakitori don (Php 150)

I wasn’t surprised when I saw yakitori rice topping as obviously, mono (chicken leg meat) is Yakitori Kitchen’s signature dish.  The special grilling sauce really made this dish such a hit!

• Curry Chahan (Php 180)

I’m not fond of curry but this rice dish was too flavorful and too tasty that I couldn’t help getting more spoonfuls than I’m used to!  Curry Chahan is curry fried rice with meat, curry powder, garlic chips and leeks as garnish.  A must-order if you want to have rice together with your yakitori orders.

• Chasyudon (Php 150)

Chasyudon is a rice topping that has chasyu (pork belly) and nori (seaweed).  Another unique creation in my book.  I distinctly remember that a Korean friend of mine always put seaweed in her rice.  I guess it really works and look, a restaurant serving rice with seaweed! 🙂

Suffice to say, we ate much more than 4 people can actually take hahaha!   Look at the number of sticks that was in the bin provided on our table.  Can you count how many skewers we finished?

We are definitely impressed with Yakitori Kitchen and I’m glad that we were able to try it out.  I can’t remember how many times I actually recommended Yakitori Kitchen to friends.  It has such a unique concept that I wouldn’t miss mentioning it to friends whenever there’s a chance.

Considering authentic Japanese restaurants having a high price point on their dishes, Yakitori Kitchen is a nice welcome to the increasing number of Japanese establishments in Metro Manila.  Guess what? their dishes are actually affordable!

If you’re craving for skewers then Yakitori Kitchen is the place to go to!

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Yakitori Kitchen
Forbes Town Center, Burgos Circle, Fort Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City, Metro Manila, Philippines

Best Western Premier F1 Hotel is the first hotel that opened in the booming Bonifacio Global City.  I was lucky enough to be part of the media folks they invited to taste the food that the hotel offers at their resident food establishment, F Restaurant.

F Restaurant is located at the 5th floor of Best Western Premier F1 Hotel.  This restaurant has the best view of Fort Bonifacio!  Actually, the marketing manager was narrating to us how their guests enjoyed the fireworks last New Year’s Eve.  People were changing positions to view the beautiful firecrackers in every angle.  I wish I discovered this sooner but oh well.

The circular design of the couch greets guests upon entering F restaurant.  I love how cute and innovative the design of the restaurant is.  It keeps the classy hotel restaurant look but at the same time, it’s hip and cool!

Chinese decorations were all over the place…. and I guess you most probably figured that it’s because Chinese New Year is upcoming!  I will be surprised if Filipinos won’t know this special Chinese occasion.  Because guess what?  Our very own Philippine president declared January 23, 2012 a non-working holiday!  Wow!  I never imagined that this could ever happen!  I’m happy that the government recognized the presence of numerous Filipino-Chinese (tsinoy) here in our country thus declaring Chinese New Year as an official Philippine holiday!  Whee!

If you’re looking for a place to celebrate Chinese New Year, why not give F Restaurant at Best Western Premiere F1 Hotel a try?

Here’s a rundown of our ‘preview’ of the Chinese Buffet that F Restaurant is currently offering.  At Php 998++ per person, you get to eat unlimited amount of Chinese food goodness!

Take note that the F Restaurant’s Chinese buffet runs from January 16-31, 2012.  If you choose to celebrate Chinese New Year on the day itself at Best Western Premier F1 Hotel’s signature restaurant, you get to see the much-anticipated dragon dance!  Now, that’s a treat!

Appetizers

• Boiled Peanut

I’m used to eating fried peanuts.  Upon tasting this tea-boiled peanuts from F restaurant, I’m now a convert!  Boiled peanuts taste so much better!  I’m not sure why this particular appetizer won me over.  According to the other foodies that attended the food preview, there might be a hint of cinnamon and sugar with it.  I couldn’t tell but I was having multiple servings of it, can’t get enough!

• Selection of great Chinese appetizers

Next on the table was a mini lauriat of Chinese appetizers.  There were Jelly Fish, Beef Kimchi, Cucumber with Garlic & Chili Sesame and Cold Pork Knuckle.  While I liked most of those dishes, Beef Kimchi came out as a winner!  At first, I was actually hesitant as I dislike eating kimchi.  However, it didn’t look like kimchi at all so I took one piece and voila, sooo yummy!

Soup

I like the choice of soups that F Restaurant decided to serve in their Chinese New Year Buffet.  I wish they included hot & sour soup though as it’s what most tsinoys refer to as their favorite (apart from seven herb soup of course!) when dining at a Chinese restaurant.

• Crab and Corn Soup

I love the generous servings of crabs in this soup.  I can see that it’s really quality that F restaurant at Best Western Premier F1 Hotel is striving for.  Considering it’s a buffet and people will get numerous servings, they wanted to ensure that even a soup like this can taste just as good as their main courses.

• Seafood Spinach

The seafood spinach soup is another winner for me!  I love that they put bits of shrimp into the spinach soup.  I love the lightness of the dish and the right amount of flavors that were in it!

Fresh Noodles

• Fried Noodle with Sliced Pork, Bokchoi, Carrots, Mushroom and X.O. Sauce

Noodles will always be part of every food menu on a Chinese celebration.  Noodles signifies long life so a fried noodle dish like this one by F restaurant was a nice touch to add to the 2-week Chinese-themed buffet.

Main Course

• Hainanese Chicken with Ginger Sauce

The hainanese chicken tasted a bit bland but I guess that’s how it should be, right?  Well, I was able to enjoy it as I dipped the chicken into the ginger sauce.  Finally giving it some sense of character.  I wish they provided the other sauces that usually comes with Hainanese chicken order too like soy sauce and chili sauce.

• Steamed Asparagus with X.O. Sauce

When I saw the asparagus, I was ecstatic!  I super love asparagus as it’s light, delicious and healthy!  I also appreciate that they cooked it with X.O. sauce.  The vegetable doesn’t really need too much.  I’m glad they brought out the natural flavors of this dish.

• Deep Fried Pork Ribs with Salt & Pepper

Another favorite chinese dish of mine is spareribs!  I was truly delighted that F restaurant included this in their buffet menu or else, I would be so disappointed.  If you’re watching your cholesterol intake, the looks of this dish might take you aback.  However, the crunchy and salty taste of this pork will leave you wanting to forget all those doctor’s advice.

• Peking Duck

The star of the buffet is the peking duck.  Others might think that the Php 998++ price for unlimited serving of this peking duck wraps is enough reason to indulge in the Chinese New Year buffet.  I must agree!  Where else can we find unlimited peking duck these days?

• Steamed Marlin with Soya Sauce

This is the only dish that I disliked among the ones we tried.  I guess it’s acquired taste but it would have been nice if they served steamed fish fillet with garlic sauce instead.  That would have been perfect.  I gave this suggestion to Best Western Premier F1 Hotel but of course, it was just my opinion.  I heard the other foodies liked this.  So I guess it really depends on your taste.

• Sichuan Beef

Spicy!!!  That’s how I describe it but I do love the spiciness combined with the soft and tender beef slices.  You’ll love this I’m sure.  Don’t forget to get servings of this when you dine at F Restaurant during the Chinese New Year buffet offering.

• Lechon Macau

this dish looked so simple yet so deceivingly good!  The skin was uber crispy and the meat was juicy!  I was eating about 2 pieces of it without sauce when someone suggested that we put mustard and sugar with it.  The suggestion was a big hit among the foodies in our table.  Suffice to say, we finished all the lechon macau served in our table.  However, I have to remove some fats.  I don’t want to get a heart attack haha!

Dessert

• Mango Sago

Last, but definitely not the least, is their dessert which was mango sago.  It wasn’t the usual mango sago that I see in Chinese restaurants.  F restaurant’s version is thick!  Usually, the tapioca are immersed in mango juice.  This one, however, looked almost like a custard or a pudding.  It’s a good twist to our usual mango dessert.

It was so nice trying out F Restaurant with fellow foodies.  As I looked at my watch, I realized we were eating for more than 2 hours!

My favorites among the Chinese buffet were boiled peanuts, beef kimchi, peking duck, szechuan beef and lechon macau.  The Chinese dishes I mentioned in this post will comprise 70% of the buffet table.

Php 998++ price for a hotel buffet such as this one is definitely good value for money.  The buffet runs from January 16-31, 2012.  Catch it while you still can!  Kung Hei Fat Choi!

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F Restaurant
5/F Best Western Premier F1 Hotel, 32nd Street, Bonifacio Global City, 1634 Taguig, Philippines
(02) 928-9888
http://www.bestwesternpremierf1hotel.com