Filipino Food Cravings

It feels like I've been away from home for about a year already, but it's just been about a month. I've been living in Singapore for about 9 months now, but I always start itching to go home just after a few days of being away. And I become badly homesick in about ten days. Good thing I've been so busy at work and it ain't so bad after awhile.

Aside from my loved ones, the gastronomic delights we have at home makes me want to take the first ride available back to the Philippines.

Longganisa - is our local sausage. Mind you though there are many different types found all over the country.  The photo below doesn't do justice to it (I cooked that at home), but everyday I think about the different types of longganisa we have back home -- Pampanga, Lucban, Vigan. And for the desperate like me, Jollibee's breakfast longganisa hits the spot too.

Crispy Pata - I kid not whenever I tell friends from other countries that we have a lot of cardiac delights in the Philippines. These are dishes that are usually pork-centric and high in cholesterol. And here's the perfect example of a cardiac delight - the crispy pata. Best eaten with special soy sauce + vinegar dip.

Sisig - oh my and this photo I took in Bataan a few years back. Traditional sisig is made out of ******* (best not to disclose) but it's sooo yummy. In restaurants in the city though they usually either use pork or chicken with chicharon. A lot of people eat sisig as pulutan (best with San Miguel Beer!), but I actually prefer to eat it with rice. Sisig also comes in many different types. I love the one in Davao because it has mayonnaise.

Manggang Hilaw with Bagoong - green mango with shrimp paste. I love eating green mango with bagoong and usually have ensalada whenever I eat in Filipino restos. Best matched with grilled food.

Plain `ol Barbecue - I can easily finish three sticks of barbecue in less than 5 minutes (considering I'm such a slow eater!). I don't think I'll ever tire of eating barbecue. And I miss eating isaw too.

And that's all about I can write about now because my tummy's grumbling in protest over seeing all these yummy food that's best eaten when I'm home.

Crispy Pata Bloggers Association

When me and my blogger friends get together we oftentimes make up stuff (as what storytellers usually do). I remember I used to do that a lot back in college when I was part of our university's literary folio. Anyway, our banter revolved around crispy pata this time around. The reality though is most of us can't consume as much crispy pata as we used to when we were younger and some of us aren't allowed to eat crispy pata anymore. That didn't stop us from ordering one large crispy pata when we dined at Max's Restaurant last weekend.

So what is the crispy pata bloggers association? It's an organization of friends who love eating crispy pata (can you count the number of times I've included crispy pata in this post?) and well... that's just about it haha. And here's our pledge of allegiance (made by Sweetie):

The Crispy Pata Bloggers Creed 


I pledge allegiance to the association of the Crispy Pata Bloggers 
And for which it stands, one nation, under pig with crispiness and pata for all.

Please note that this post was just born out of boredom and fun.

Happy birthday Juned! =)

Crispy Pata

Crispy pata is deep fried pork leg which is on top of the many Filipino cardiac delight dishes. Crispy pata is not for the faint hearted, but definitely a delicious dish that you would crave for often.

And that's why I accepted the invitation of Max's Restaurant for an evening with crispy pata. I just couldn't resist!

I've eaten crispy pata many times already and I must say that there are three key success factors to a delicious crispy pata.

(1) it's not oily
(2) the skin is crispy
(3) the meat should come off the bone easily

I'm no expert chef, but I can pretty sure say that the three factors are hard to meet. Max's Restaurant definitely met my expectations. An added plus was the soy sauce-vinegar dip that came with the meat. I didn't add the sili because it was just good as it is.

The PhP865 meal* came with sinigang na bangus. The soup dish definitely matched the crispy pata and made me feel good that I was eating something nutritious to go with the meat.

Dessert was buko pandan. I had taken a spoonful already before I remembered to take a photo! Haha. It was pretty good too.

Of course, my table-mates were hubby and my crispy pata connoissieur friend, Juned.

We definitely loved the crispy pata... hehehe.

*Crispy pata + 4 rice + 4 glasses of soda + sinigang + buko pandan, roughly just PhP200+ per person for a group of four!

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Interesting to note that if you are abroad you can do two things with Max's Restaurant:

(1) Go eat in any of their 7 international locations.
(2) Order online for your family back home! Just go to the Max's website.

And did you notice the cool uniform and motorcycle of their delivery crew?

Pork Barrel

No, I'm not referring to the political term. I'm referring to Portico's yummy pork barrel which I fortunately sampled during the Spot.ph bloggers food tour.


And I'm posting about it just now! Arggghhh!

I know, I know it's been a pain to start posting about my experience in the Spot.ph bloggers food tour which happened last April. It's been a pain, not because it was not fun, but because I ended up accumulating too much content and I got overwhelmed with it all. There was also iBlog4, the Juned Sunido Manila Tour and our visit to the Manila Ocean Park which coincided with the food tour.

Well, enough with the excuses. Here's my first installment of the food tour and I don't really know when I'm going to finish the series (perhaps with 18 Trinoma establishments and 24 from Serendra and Bonifacio High Street I'll probably finish by November hahaha).

Here's a short vlog about my experience at Portico:



My review of the establishment can be found at Lakwatsera Ako.