Kat's Notebook » food

Starbucks Frap Christmas Flavors

Katkat — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 06:51:00 +0000

I love Starbucks cold frapuccinos. I used to have my dad buy the 1 case of a dozen bottles of Starbucks frap from Costco. It was so yummy! But I stopped when I realized how frivolous to buy this and how it contributed to my weight gain. Yet once in a while I will treat myself a Starbucks frap from a starbucks coffee shop. This holiday season, Starbucks introduces its special Christmas flavors which gives me an excuse to drink this delicious beverage. They have pumpkin spice, cinnamon dolce, peppermint mocha, salted caramel, caramel brulee, and eggnog.

Unfortunately they don’t have my all-time favorite flavor, Toffee Nut Frap. Boo. I mean they can customize the blend for me but…it’s not the same! Anyway, so far I’ve tried the peppermint mocha which is good considering I don’t like minty chocolate flavors; salted caramel mocha, which was ok kind of like caramel only (this is a new flavor, not special to yuletide season); and caramel brulee, which brown sugar crystals toppings were a bit addictive. I’m debating whether I should try the eggnog frap flavor because I drank eggnog drink straight from the carton and it was a little bit gross. So far I got lucky trying the new flavors because my employer keeps treating us to Starbucks coffee! Happy holidays!

Japan Food Blog part 3

Katkat — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 01:55:00 +0000

Here are more food that I tried in Japan. After eating only Japanese food for our entire vacation, I was missing and more than yearning for Filipino or Chinese food. However I couldn’t get enough of Japanese mochi, though!

Ekiben at Tokyo Station. My breakfast box (880Y) for the 3-hour-ride from Tokyo to Kyoto. There were many choices but chicken looked the yummiest. The box was bought as is, which was, cold. The store had no microwave to reheat it. Prices ranged from 800Y to 1300Y.

Verdict: It was ok. I wished it was warm though. But it filled my stomach for the rest of the morning.

Nishiki to-go food. We hit Nishiki Market at lunch time so we decided to buy our food there. There were many stores selling snack foods, udon, and few sell rice meals. We tried out some tuna in skewers (180Y) which was really delicious.

yummy fish skewers

For our lunch, my sister bought grilled salmon while I bought an eel teriyaki don (390Y). We ate at our lunch at Daimaru sitting area after buying some desserts and one more food in their food section.

eel teriyaki don

hard-to-chew-and-very-salty grilled salmon

fried shrimp

Verdict: another cold meal. My sister’s meal was worse – it was really cold that the meat was so tough and it was salty too. The fried shrimp was delicious because it was hot and fried. I kind of missed fried foods by this time (I’ve only been eating cold food for most of the time).

Nigiri restaurant at Kiyomizu. We chanced upon this restaurant when we were heading out to Kiyomizu. Because it was raining hard and it was past our lunch time, we decided to eat lunch first before tackling Kiyomizu. This place was small and the menu was very limited. My sister had the Nigiri Sushi set while I had the Chirashi sushi set. When I got mine, I laughed because it was similar to what my sister had except it wasn’t rolled into sushi.

only food they serve

chef and apprentice

my sister’s nigiri sushi set

my chirashi sushi set with udon

different kinds of meat toppings on rice

Verdict: very yummy. I loved the hot udon soup, green tea, and my meal actually. It was a different style of eating sushi nigiri.

Osaka Okonomiyaki restaurant. We were disappointed that we couldn’t find a cheap sukiyaki in Osaka so we settled on this restaurant. Okonomiyaki was popular in Osaka and Osaka had a different style of cooking it compared to Kyoto or Tokyo. We ordered this beef viand (forgot the name) and seafood okonomiyaki. They didn’t have rice so we just pecked on the dishes.

restaurant

hot pan

beef meal

okonomiyaki

Verdict: The beef meal was really good while the okonomiyaki was ok but in big portions and without rice, the flavor grew tiresome.

Italian restaurant in Kyoto. Because we needed to catch our train back to Tokyo, we settled for this restaurant near our hostel. My sister ordered grilled fish rice meal while I went for the breaded chicken meal (700Y). Each dish had a scoop of potato salad, miso soup, and sweat pea green salad.

chicken meal

fish meal

Verdict: I liked it because it was a warm dish with rice. However there’s nothing remarkable about the taste and it seemed comparable to food in a fast food restaurant.

Sukiyaki restaurant at Shibuya. After looking hopelessly for the Lockup Restaurant (I forgot to bring the address), we finally gave up and went to the first restaurant we saw in Center Gai Shibuya. We perked up when we saw that it was a sukiyaki kind of place. We ordered 3 plates of beef, which was Australian grade beef and not Japanese beef, soup, and sauteed greens. I felt that the place was a Korean restaurant because many of their dishes were from Korea.

australian beef

cold salad

korean soup

Verdict: Finally something substantial for my stomach. I love what we grilled. The soup and greens were a bit meh.

Japan Food Blog part 2

Katkat — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 19:32:24 +0000

Here are some of the snacks I tried in Japan. I’m sort of an adventurous eater especially when it comes to sweets like sticky rice cake, mochi…or mochi. If I only had a bigger appetite, I would have indulged myself more.

Uirou from Nagoya. One of the specialty snacks of Nagoya is the uirou. Fortunately my sister’s plane was landing there before she fly again to Narita. So I specifically told her to buy me this snack (440Y). It’s a sweet glutinous rice cake of different flavors just like mochi but more gelatinous.

Salmon onigiri (130Y) from 7-11. Convenience stores in Japan are treasure troves of cheap yummy foods. Because we were in a hurry to get to our destination, my sister and I bought salmon onigiri to eat along the way for our breakfast. (Note: for Japanese, it is bad manner to eat while walking). The onigiri was really good especially warmed up. The salmon filling was a generous chunk (not measly amount) which really whetted the appetite. IMHO, onigiri in 7-11 tasted better than the ones selling at the train stations.

Mochi ice cream (126Y) from Lotte. I bought this at 7-11 just because I love mochi ice cream. I always buy this back in the US. One pack has 2 mochi ice cream in it. I took the strawberry flavor. The mochi ice cream was disappointing. Mochi was so thin and the ice cream too creamy. It somehow tasted so artificial for me.

Green Tea Ice Cream from Nakamise Dori. I have observed that the popular ice cream flavors most street stalls sell was green tea, vanilla, and sweet potato. I opted for green tea (300Y). Well the ice cream was soft and true to its flavor – very green tea-ish.

Deep Fried Manju (80Y) at Nakamise Dori. It’s like buchi from Chinese restaurant. It has different coating – plain, sesame, etc. I chose the plain one and it was really good – not too oily and the bean paste inside was yummy too. It’s like siopao with mongo paste. Yum!

Dango balls (110Y). I saw this mochi balls in skewers and I love mochi (as if it’s not obvious by now). They had this “caramel” sauce drizzled on it and my mouth just watered. When I ate it though, I was surprised it wasn’t caramel. It was some weird salty sour sauce like soy sauce but not. Later I would find out it’s called Mitarashi Dango – dango covered with syrup made from soy sauce, sugar and starch. It didn’t taste well with the rice ball.

I’ve researched that the phrase Hana Yori Dango (popular Japanese anime) – the dango mentioned was the dango balls. The phrase meant “rather have dumplings than flowers”.

Tokyo Banana (470Y). In one of my research this product came up so when I saw it in the train station, I bought a pack of 4. It tasted like chiffon bread (mamon) shaped like a banana with banana caramel filling in the middle. It was ok. Nothing special.

Waffle at Angels Heart (400Y). Along Takeshita Dori there are two waffle booths that were competing against each other: Angels Heart and Marion Crepes. Both have almost similar menu. We chose Angels Heart because it had the flavor that we liked (Banana/Strawberry caramel) and the line was shorter. The waffle came out fast and we ate it walking (which is bad manners; we didn’t know it at that time.) Waffle was really bland – the crepe was plain and bland; the toppings were…well just fruits. Suffice to say, I had better.

Okay that’s it for now. I’ll tell you more later.

I’m loving Green Tea

Katkat — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 18:51:00 +0000

I’m not a tea person but green tea flavored tea made me a convert. When I went to Japan, most of the restaurants serve free Green tea – cold or hot. I preferred hot. It was really delicious. It wasn’t the green tea leaves in bag rather it was the Matcha powder (Green Tea powder). It didn’t taste bitter or leafy. I couldn’t describe how it taste. When I went to find them in the grocery stores, they were really expensive! A small can was 575Y! But it was fine since you need only to mix 1-2 scoops of powder in a teacup. Then refill it with warm water again and again if you finish your tea, without adding any scoop of the powder. Yum!

The health benefits of matcha tea exceed those of green tea because when you drink matcha you ingest the whole leaf, not just the brewed water. One glass of matcha is the equivalent of 10 glasses of green tea in terms of its nutritional value and antioxidant content. It contains:

- Rich in Antioxidants and Chlorophyll – good for cleansing the body of toxins
- Contains Catechins Only Found in Green Tea – specifically catechins, EGCg, known to be the most potent in fighting cancer. One gram of matcha contains 105 mg of total catechin content, or roughly 61% EGCg.
- Naturally Mood Enhancing – the L-theanine amino acid is known to relax the mind.
- Zero on the Glycemic Index – will not raise insulin levels
- Sugar-free, High in Fiber

I tried a variety of food with green tea in them:

ice cream

jelly

donut

Source: Matchasource

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Japan Food Blog part 1

Katkat — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 15:45:00 +0000

During our trip, we planned to eat only Japanese cuisine and gathering information from a lot of food blogs before the trip, I was so excited to taste all the good food of Japan. I was so excited for sushi, mochi, Mos burger and a lot of sweet snacks. I set aside a good budget for food and I was surprised that it didn’t cost as much as I had anticipated. Or maybe we were also particular with our food not wanting to spend more than 1000 to 2000 yen for a meal and also we shared our dish many times.

Day 1 Dinner at Shinjuku: Shouhei Ramen

I was so jetlagged and tired coupled to that my sister failed to meet me in the airport. Without any means of communication, I waited for 1.5 hours in the airport for her before deciding to proceed to the hotel, where thankfully she was already there! Because I was ready to drop on my face, we decided to eat somewhere near and something hot and comforting. We found Youhei Ramen few meters from our hotel. It looked Japanese but when we perused the menu, we saw Chinese dishes. We shared an udon and Japanese version of “chopsuy”.

Verdict: it was too salty and the umami taste was too strong. Not comforting at all.

Day 2: Breakfast at Shinjuku: Mos Burger

When I first tasted Mos Burger in Taiwan I was hooked. I loved it! And Mos Burger came from Japan so I asked the hotel personnel where I can eat Mos Burger and I was happy there was one near the area. Food wasn’t expensive. At most with drinks and fries it came down to 630Y. I only chose the specialty burger (rice patties) and stayed away from the american-style burgers.

Verdict: Yum! I love my beef teriyaki burger. Instead of bread buns I had rice buns. French fries was ok. I like McDonald’s fries better. The beef teriyaki was tasty and the sauce complemented the rice bun really well (just like eating a regular beef teriyaki don).

Day 2: Lunch at Asakusa: Kaiten-zushi

One of the things I was most eager to try was the sushi-belt conveyor restaurant, aka Kaiten zushi. We found one in Asakusa in one of the alleys of Nakamise. We went inside and sat in front of the belt conveyor however no sushi was coming out. We ordered our sushi and the chef, who was standing behind the belt table, just handed it over to our side of the table. I was disappointed; I wanted the real kaiten zushi experience! So for photo-op and my enjoyment I placed the small plates of sushi on the belt conveyor and acted that it came out from the conveyor. Hahaha. The chef took the hint and put our next plates on the conveyor from then on. Each plate cost 130Y. A special plate can go up to 180Y. The hostess handed us this menu of sushi and we were disappointed it was so few. I kept glancing at my neighbor and she was eating sushi not from the menu and I was envious. I told the chef to give us what she was having so we tasted more kinds of sushi. One thing to note: the chef put wasabi on the sushi customarily so tell the chef beforehand not to put wasabi if you don’t like wasabi, like us. The proper way of dipping your sushi on the soy sauce was topping first (upside-down) and not the rice to the sauce.

Verdict: the sushi tasted like…err…sushi. It’s fresh as it can be (not as fresh and delicious as Tsukiji Fish Market). I was disappointed of its limited sushi selection. The picture in the middle was really delicious. We went for 3 orders of it. Stay away from the sweet shrimp sushi and the squid sushi. It was so gross – very slimy and…slimy.

Day 3: Dinner at Odaiba: Ooedo Onsen Monogatari

We spent the evening in this onsen park and we had no choice but to eat inside too. I liked the ambiance of the place – we were wearing yukatas and we ate at a tatami-floor dining area. Many of the food booths offer udon soup. We didn’t want udon. We wanted something with rice and very substantial. So we ordered pork teriyaki (990Y) and grilled salmon (650Y). It came with soup and free green tea was available inside the park.

Verdict: salmon was really tasty and good. The pork was ok too, nothing special. I was just happy that I was eating something rice and meat. I was too tired that I took a quick nap while my sister finished our dinner. Hahahaha.

If you have garlic and greens

Katkat — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 00:02:00 +0000

I love eating vegetables. I couldn’t relate to advertisement where kids hate eating their veggies well because, I love eating them. My most favorite vegetable is squash or kalabasa while my least fave is radish or labanos. Every time we shop at the oriental grocery store, we always stock up on vegetables because it’s cheaper there compared to Lucky or Safeway and it has the asian-type vegetables that we love to cook.

For a quick stir-fry and dinner, some suggestions of green leafy vegetables that you can easily saute with garlic are Asparagus, Kangkong, Yam Leaves, Spinach, Broccoli, Chili leaves, and Bok Choy. To prepare it: as much as possible serve the leaves and cut the hard part of the stems. Immerse in cold water to make the vegetable look fresher. For asparagus and broccoli, cut in thin slices so that it’s easy to cook. To cook: pour 2 tbsp of cooking oil in a pan and saute the chopped garlic first. In just one batch, mix the greens into the pan and stir-fry quickly over medium to high heat. Add salt to taste. Remove from heat after 2-3 minutes, serve it hot.

This stir-fry method is most favorite way to cook my greens. It’s easy and delicious and gives me the most consumption of the vegetable. As we all know green leafy vegetables are important to our health. The darker color the better. Among the nutritional benefits of the vegetables I mentioned are:

1. can detoxify our system
2. has anti-aging functions
3. is a good source of fiber for a healthy digestive system
4. can protect against cancer because of its high anti-oxidant properties
5. reduces pain and inflammation 6. can prevent osteoporosis and osteoarthritis –it’s rich in calcium
7. reduces the risk of heart disease
8. good source of vitamins such as A, C, B6, potassium, iron, folate

The moral lesson of this blog I would say is, it’s really easy to make healthy and nutritional dinner when you have garlic and greens.

Celebrating at Town San Carlos restaurant

Katkat — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 02:04:00 +0000

For my mom’s birthday, I decided to treat her to a popular restaurant in downtown San Carlos, Town. Every time we would pass by this place, it’s jam-packed so I have followed the my friend’s advice and booked a reservation ahead of time. Town is known for its steak and wine. I’ve been wanting to try this place a long time ago but I knew that it would be pricey so I passed up the opportunity until now. Costco was running a promo of 2 50USD gift card at Town/Nola/Milagros for only 79.99. I purchased this gift card in time for our night out at Town.

When we got there at exactly 8pm, we weren’t ushered into our seats immediately. We waited 5-10minutes before a table was made available for us. The place was dimly-lit, a wine bar encircled the center of the restaurant, and TV monitors hang discreetly in some corners of the room playing sports game. People were dressed up and the place was so busy. We were glad that we perused the menu while waiting to be seated because we were already hungry. Our server wasn’t very attentive and personable but I didn’t blame him because of the busy crowd. He didn’t make suggestions just quickly jotted our orders and left. Our food came in 10-15minutes later. Throughout the meal we had trouble calling for him. He was just hurrying.

Here’s my quick take on the food:

Filet mignon “Baseball cut” with sides of mashed potato and wine braised mushrooms. We never had filet mignon and it sounded expensive so this was a best time to splurge on it. The steak was really tasty but we had it cooked well-medium so it bordered on being dry and slightly firm. Next time (if there’s a next time) we would have liked it cooked medium rare. The sides were disappointing (at 6USD a piece) especially the mushrooms which weren’t fresh but came from a can!

Seared Sashimi grade Ahi Tuna. We enjoyed this dish very much. I loved the sauce made for the sashimi. The steamed jasmine rice with pea sprout garnish was also very delicious. The meal was very light but filling. Don’t pass this up!

Sparkling Pink Guava Cooler (HAND SQUEEZED LIME JUICE,ORGANIC AGAVE NECTAR, PINK GUAVA PUREE, SPARKLING SODA) The description in the menu sounded nice but when I drank it I didn’t like the sparkling soda they put in it.

No Heat-O (MUDDLED MINT, FRESH SQUEEZED LIME JUICE, HOUSE MADE MINT INFUSED SIMPLE SYRUP, SODA) It tasted like leaves in a cool drink.

Vanilla Bean Creme Brulee. This was very delicious especially that the berries on top of it complement the vanilla flavor of the custard well. However the custard consistency was crumbly and soggy which I knew shouldn’t be. Nonetheless we enjoyed it and the server waived the cost of the dessert when he found out that it was my mom’s birthday.

It was a great evening. My mom truly enjoyed her dinner celebration which what really counted. Our meal came down to 75 plus tip. I was glad I bought that gift card from Costco. Will I come back here? Absolutely not. It was an expensive restaurant but it didn’t deliver to its value, too bad.

So what is Chicken sibot soup?

Katkat — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 05:33:00 +0000

When my mom was recuperating in the house from a major surgery, we made sure that she ate food that would help her get well quickly. Chicken in sibut soup was one of the food that has been tried and tested. I remembered when she had surgery before back in the Philippines, a relative came bringing this weirdly aromatic soup. The soup contained native chicken cooked in a dark-colored liquid. Aside from the odd smell, I found it slightly bland but still spice-flavored. I didn’t know if this was an ancient mysterious Chinese herb/medicinal soup.

Yesterday I simmered a whole Cornish game hen (I don’t know where to find a native chicken here in the US) and then my mom put the Sibut spice when the chicken was tender. This was our lunch and dinner today. I also ate it even though I wasn’t sick which made me think, what will I gain from it since all I know it was for sick people? So researching from the internet brought me this answer:

Sibot is actually a 4 herb from Fujian or Hookien Chinese style of cooking. Adding Chinese herbs to soups has been a tradition and distinct of Cantonese cuisines. Chinese herbs are known for their curative functions for the human body. A common way to incorporate the herbs is brewing them together over slow fire for 2 to 3 hours. This releases the essences and nutrients of the ingredients into the soup. This then allows for the human body to easily absorb the nutrients of the soup. This soup is famous for restoring energy and strengthening the immune system and is very good for men and women of all ages.

A packet of sibot/sibut composed of (among other things): Shu Di or Chinese foxglove,Tang Gui or Angelica Sinensis, Chuan Xiong or Ligusticum, Bai Shao or Peony Alba, Chinese wolfberry or Guo Qi Zi:

Chinese foxglove – is used to replenish vitality, strengthen the liver, kidney, and heart, and for treatment of a variety of ailments like diabetes, constipation, anemia, urinary tract problems, dizziness, and regulation of menstrual flow. In China, this herb is often recommended for insomnia, restlessness, night sweats, chronic fever, and hot flashes.

Angelica sinensis – is widely used in Chinese traditional medicine to treat gynecological ailments, fatigue, mild anemia andhigh blood pressure. It has analgesic, anti-inflammatory, antispasmodic and sedative effects.

Ligusticum – is a superb "blood vitalizing" herb used to improve blood circulation and to disperse blood stagnation. It has recently been found to improve blood circulation in the heart.

Peony alba – nourishes Blood, activates circulation, and cools Blood; has astringent actions; pacifies Liver and alleviates pain; restrains Yin and adjusts Nutritive and Protective levels.

Chinese wolfberry – enhances eye sight, detox the liver and improve the liver function, improve our immune system, anti-aging, and powerful antioxidant.

Well I hope my mom gets well soon from eating this.

Ye Olde Georgetown Cupcakes!

Katkat — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 22:14:00 +0000

A trip to Washington DC brought me to this TV-celebrated cupcake shop, Georgetown Cupcake. Actually I’ve only heard about this from my friend who’s living in DC and she told me that I should try their delicious cupcake before I leave. I knew of Cake Boss and Ace of Cakes but Georgetown Cupcake didn’t ring a bell. Georgetown cupcakes is in the heart of Georgetown and another one in Bethesda. The TLC show features the 2 owners baking and making the shop work.

I’m not much of a cupcake eater. I couldn’t tell a cupcake as better than the other. However I could tell if what I’d baked wasn’t a good cupcake! Anyway, here we were in Georgetown making a beeline to the store which had a long line of customers. It was a cold Monday morning at around 11am. It was 30 minutes later when we were able to get to the door.

When we got inside I only wanted to order the red velvet cupcake. I’m not much into chocolates or other flavors and besides I had plans to bake a red velvet so I wanted to know how it should taste. My friend had tried many flavors of the cupcakes so she knew which was delicious. She got the chocolate mint cupcake.

The cupcakes were 2.75/each, 15/half a dozen and 29/dozen. I don’t know if that’s a reasonable price but it made me think I could have bought a dozen of krispy kreme original glazed donuts for less and I would still be easily satisfied. So the verdict: it was good but not extraordinarily-out-of-this-world-great. The frosting wasn’t sweet which I liked and it tasted how a red velvet should taste. The hype and celebrity status it achieved made this shop overrated and yet it was still fun to take pictures of this famous place. To learn more about this store, visit their website.

I heart Toffee Nut Latte Frap

Katkat — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 03:50:00 +0000

Yesterday I was dismayed that my favorite Starbucks drink was gone for the year. It’s the Toffee Nut Latte Frappuccino. Starbucks only featured it during the holidays and apparently holiday was over. Why did I find it delicious? Was it because there was that special holiday festive mood sprinkled on it? Looking back, I was only able to drink it twice. One was in HongKong airport terminal which to my frustration didn’t give me that swirled whipped cream on top of my frap because they didn’t have the equipment for the swirly cream. And the second time I drank it too fast to savor it. Oh well. Till next holiday season then.