Tasteritos

As an Asian, I am always in the search for the best bubble tea. I think it is the combination of sweet creamy liquid and chewy texture that just gets me all the time. Even though there are TONS of bubble tea shops out there, some good, some bad, and some just plain ugly, there are certain stores that you can always rely on to buy this delicious beverage, and my go-to store is Kung Fu Tea!

Kung Fu Tea is great because it doesn’t add too much water to the mixture and uses a special milk that makes the drinks very flavorful - not bland at all, like most other bubble teas.

My go-to beverage at my go-to bubble tea store is the Black Milk Tea with Herbal Jelly and 30% sugar (bubble optional, depending on my mood):

I really like this combination because it’s light, since there is no bubble, and not too sweet, since there’s only 30% sugar (you can customize the sugar content of your drinks). The Herbal Jelly somehow makes me feel less bad about drinking it, because it’s herbal and HERBAL GOOD!

 One famous beverage from Kung Fu Tea is the Wow Milk, which is basically a very creamy milk, I believe, mixed with condensed milk (someone please confirm or deny this!). A lot of people like Wow Milk, but I prefer the milk tea because it has more taste. A blogger mentioned that  Wow Milk tastes better warm, which I have never tried before and would definitely be up for in the future (follow up review coming!). And so to add to that, yes, Kung Fu does serve hot versions of most of its beverages, so definitely experiment!

So there you go. New time you are in New York or Boston, definitely stop by one of Kung Fu Tea’s locations and try out this liquid gold!

Indita

There I was, alone in the apartment and food-less, so I decided to go to the Wholefoods market nearby and buy some organic meals/snacks. As I was searching for muesli, I passed by the frozen goods section and decided to check out some healthy ice creams and yogurts.

This is what I stumbled upon:

Raw vegan ice cream.

Now before I start, I gotta say that I am quite judgmental on raw veganism because of this. However, I have always admired raw vegans, because of their commitment on being healthy and ability to resist the cooked food taste. So I am always intrigued to try any alternative food, such as raw vegan products, just to experience how it’s like to do the diet.

Back to the ice cream; I picked the Mint Chip flavor, because I wanted something refreshing. So I took a small pint of the frozen good and happily purchased it.

Got back home, observed the product even more, and this is my review:

Of course, since its raw and vegan, the ice cream doesn’t look as green as the processed ones:

In fact, it looks just like normal vanilla ice cream with chocolate chips.

Looking at the ingredients, the ice cream is basically made out of beans, nuts, water, nectar and salt for taste and the chocolate bits. So no signs of milk whatsoever.

Taste-wise… Well… These are my stream of thoughts:

First impression: “What. The. Fuck. Is. This.”

Second impression (basically second bite): “Okay, fine. I guess it’s not that bad. It kind of tastes like red bean, but it’s supposed to be vanilla. The chocolate tastes like chocolate but the texture is like paper.”

Third impression: “Dear god I really want to like this but I cant. How am I supposed to finish this? Thank god it only comes in a third of the normal ice cream pint.”

Overall, I’m not sure if I would recommend this to people. It is quite of an interesting experience. However, if you don’t feel like spending on something you don’t like, then do not buy this ice cream.

Indita

Our thoughts and prayers are with the people affected by Hurricane Sandy.

Although I live in New York City, my neighborhood was not as much affected by the hurricane as the downtown area. But I hope that people who are without power are fine and taking shelter. For those who are running out of food, here are some useful links to places that are/might be open:

http://ny.eater.com/archives/2012/10/the_ultimate_hurricane_sandy_dining_guide_to_nyc.php

http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20121029/new-york-city/whats-still-open-whats-closed-amid-hurricane-sandy

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/forkintheroad/2012/10/restaurants_open_hurricane_sandy_nyc.php

I know that D’Agostino is currently closed, but they announced on Twitter that they will be open today at 2 pm, which means MORE FOOD SUPPLIES!

Also, if you don’t have electricity, I suggest to buy magazines, snacks (chips, salsa, hummus, guac), order a delivery, clean the apartment (always useful) and exercise. And if your area is not that bad, got out and take some pictures! Cos that’s what I’m gonna do. Be careful though.

Good luck,

Indita

After living in NYC for about 3 years, I finally got the energy and time to wait in line at Totto Ramen. My friends were visiting from Jakarta, so I thought, “why not be touristy??” Not that Totto Ramen is such a touristy place, but apparently it’s the one noodle/ramen place to check out.

Reading this link might be useful:

http://blog.zagat.com/2012/10/new-york-citys-8-best-noodle-shops.html

We arrived at about 8:20pm and we finally got in at almost 10 pm. It was raining and overall boring. But thank god my friends were pretty entertaining. And by the way, there is a food massage place right across the street. I think it’s $18 for a 20 minute massage. Try that place out to kill some time.

Moving on to the food. I got the Totto Miso Ramen with extra Char Siu Pork.

I think that the ramen itself was fine, but the pork was a little overcooked, the broth was delish and, of course, like any other ramen places, the portion was too much. You can ask for sesame chilli oil (Rayu) on the side for $1.25. Trust me, it’s worth the price. The sauce made such a difference to the flavor of the broth and it wasn’t even THAT spicy.

You can find the full menu below:

http://tottoramen.com/?page_id=50

The waiters and cooks were really friendly Japanese people. One cook actually knew one Indonesian word, “merdeka,” which basically means… Independence? Random, but funny. If you come here alone, you will definitely not feel lonely. They’ll try to make you as happy and comfortable as possible, knowing how long you have to wait to get in.

The place was REALLY small. So small that it only fits about 20 chairs max, probably. Hence the long wait. But it doesn’t feel stuffy at all though, so all is good.

So, was it worth the wait? If you haven’t tried it then yes it was worth the wait. But next time I’m craving for a ramen, I’d rather go to Menchanko Tei.

Indita

Totto Ramen

366 W 52nd Street

New York, NY 10019

I am finally writing again! My excuse: the usual (homework assignments, midterms, life). But hurricane Sandy is coming to New York and I literally won’t have class until Friday, so Tasteritos it is!

My friend Heera is working for David Letterman this semester, which is only a few blocks away from my place, so we do lunch dates about twice a week. One of the places I took her to was Island Burgers & Shakes. I know this place because, well, it’s sort of famous, and my other friend had told me about it for a while.

This place probably serves more than 30 kinds of burgers, sectioned by the level of hotness. Although this makes it harder to choose, I love the options! There’s one with guac jack and bacon, there’s one with no bacon (who would want that??), one with pizza ingredients, one with potatoes and eggs, the choices are endless!

I ordered the Tijuana, which has bacon, jack,  guacamole and caramelized onions:

Even though it seems like there are a lot of ingredients in it, the end-taste is not so crazy, which is okay, but I just wish the onions were more flavorful. Texture was good. VERY juicy. Portion was also really good.

I heard the customers’ favorite is actually the fries, but I didn’t get to try it. Maybe next time!

The crowd was basically people living in the neighborhood and business types who work around the area. Waiters are cool and young. There were some people who came alone as well, so if you don’t have anyone to go with, you shouldn’t worry too much. Speaking of, I’m seriously considering of writing about eating alone in restaurants. ANYWAY.

If you have been here, feel free to comment! I would love to try out more stuff.

Indita

Island Burgers & Shakes

766 9th Avenue

New York, NY 10019

It has been a month since I first arrived in Germany and have honestly been eating far, far too much! Tonight, I went to a small local restaurant called Flamm’s, which is a cozy, bubbling restaurant with a lot of character. The walls are dark yellow and covered in old advertising signs- a real authentic flavor. 

More importantly, the food is delicious! Flammkuchen is a very thin crust type of pizza and comes with all different types of toppings on it. The particular flammkuchen I ordered had a cheese, onion, pepperoni and tomato topping. It was absolutely scrumptious. To drink I had federweisser which is a fermented grape juice. It may sound disgusting, but it tastes like grape soda or sparkling sweet wine and is very refreshing. 

Then for dessert I had another flammkuchen, but this time with a raspberry and white chocolate topping! Mhhmmm :) 

Overall, both the food and the ambiance was perfect after a long day at work. I will definitely come back here to try out the different types of flammkuchen. 

This is probably my favorite restaurant in Singapore. It’s a French bistro, famous for its wines, located on Armenian Street. Such a nice photographic location too (the alley by the restaurant has cool wall arts, perfect for photography!) The combination of great food and excellent atmosphere makes me want to visit each time I’m in the city. Well, I’ve only been there twice, but my experiences were great both times!

I came here first with my parents and dad’s business partners and we basically had a feast! My mom took the chef’s, Patrick Heuberger, cooking class in Singapore about half a year before the visit, so we told them that we would really like to meet him and have a little chat. It was so nice that he took time to come over and suggested some of the specials. So we just took a leap of faith and have him decide what we should eat entirely.

The second time I went with my dad and sister and we almost ordered the same things. It’s pretty nice that the host remembers us, since I basically said “we’ll have what we had last time!”

We received a nice surprise when the host (who looks like a French, skinnier version of Chris Evans) served us a plate of artichoke, which we forgot to order at the beginning, but he remembered since I mentioned it was my favorite from our last visit. Or maybe it was just available HAHAHA. Well, either way, it was great.

This is the duck sausage with foie gras and pistachio, served on bread.

Another thing our host suggested was the salami combination, which were horse, wild boar and donkey meats. I never had horse and donkey meat before, so I was really intrigued by the idea of trying. In case you are wondering, the meal was very delicious even by itself!

That’s my sister with the horse salami that has black peppers on the edge.

And this is the one food I would swim across the Pacific ocean for. The pepper-y steak served with fresh tomatoes drizzled with olive oil. The steak is VERY tender, juicy and overall the best one I’ve had in a very long time. The pepper and salt portion is just perfect and writing about this makes me want to do a day visit to Singapore just to eat it again. I am jealous of anyone who is eating/about to eat this piece of heaven.

Of course, the barbarians we are, my sister and I decided to order a dessert, the special one of course! This is, in simple terms, chocolate custard with cream.

All in all, we spent about S$240, which is reasonable for this kind of restaurant and the kind of quality that they serve.

You have to definitely visit this place for at least the steak and the artichoke. I am already planning my next visit in December when I go back from New York. The restaurant is definitely worth trying!

Indita

Delicious burger place where you can custom make your burgers! YAAY!

Super Duper is located across Neimann Marcus and very close to Union Square. It’s basically in the middle of the city; a very strategic place.

My friend was really excited to show me the place. I pretty much understand why; cool place, humorous signs, cute cashiers, cool decor, organic and cute cashiers.

This is the front of the brochure (sorry for the quality):

As you can see, everything’s supposed to be all natural and that good stuff.

I decided to order a burger with bacon, tomato, lettuce and caramelized onion, with fries and garlic on the side. For those of you on a diet, BEWARE!

Here’s a better quality picture I posted on Instagram:

Everything was served on a tin serve plate, as shown above, which may make it look barbaric when you eat it, but I don’t mind :)

The burger was good, but the fries were especially delicious! Other than garlic, I think it also has a little cheese. Although I’m not sure.

Another fatty order was the vanilla/oreo milkshake. Very creamy and fresh!

That was a really good day for my stomach!

Try it out!

Indita

Three reasons I came to this place: the name, the creator (Ismaya) and the SPIKED BUBBLE TEA (of course).

Overall, Fook Yew sells Chinese and Chinese fusion food. Since I was in a hurry, I only had the chance to order stuff to go, so I didn’t get to try a lot.

The ordering process was pretty cute; the waiter gave me a menu that has some sort of wheel so you can pick the drink at random, or just pick one you would really like. One drink costs Rp 69,000, which is about $8.

All drinks are named based on the Chinese astrology and, I assume, created on the personalities of each of the astrology. I decided to try the Rat, which has contents of thai iced tea and brandy. I have no idea what those stuff have to do with a rat!

The concept was interesting, but for this particular drink, the taste was too sweet for my taste. I think it was the mix of the sweet tea itself AND the brandy. Too much! The grass jelly actually helped reduce the sweetness. At home, I also decided to add a little bit more water and ice so the taste was up to my liking. So far, I prefer the one my sister ordered (not spiked), the typical Taro Pearl Milk Tea.

Just in case you’re wondering, the non-alcoholic bubble teas cost Rp 39,000, which is about $5.

Btw, this one’s funny:

Fook Yew is located at Gandaria City.

Indita

So I wanted to look at the pictures from my Shi Lin article, only to find out that I had never published it! Which I find bizarre because I just know that I wrote it ages ago. I don’t know. Maybe the interwebs swallowed it up. *sigh*

I swear I had written and published it! Or maybe it already is published and I just couldn’t find it, which would be embarrassing…but probably not. *sigh* Ok I’ll move on. So one of the places I went to when I was in Manila this summer was Shi Lin, which is a Taiwanese cuisine restaurant. I had heard about Shi Lin from the people at the agency I was interning at. I had my chance to eat at Shi Lin after a work thing one of my supervisors and I did and we had lunch.

Since it’s been ages since I actually took these pictures, I can’t remember exactly the names of what we ordered. Top left is the porkchop, which was delicious. And then you have the xiao long bao, steamed dim sum, which is like Shi Lin’s specialty or best-seller or something, and for good reason because it’s really good. This is how you eat it like a pro:

1. You put the xiao long bao in your soup spoon (like in the lower left picture) and if you like, you can include the soy sauce that comes with it. I suggest you should because it’s really good. In fact, that soy sauce was one of the highlights of my meal.
2. Poke a hole in the xiao long bao with your chopstick and then suck out the soup from within the xiao long bao.
3. Eat the xiao long bao!

Lastly, we have the vegetables, which for the life of me I can’t remember! I think it was spinach? I don’t know, I don’t know my vegetables. I’m sufficiently embarrassed now…But anyways, I really liked the spinach as well. I usually have only a bit of the vegetable dishes at the beginning of the meal and ignore them, but I remember finishing that spinach.

Anyhoo, it was a great meal. Our total bill was around P500, which at the time I thought was affordable but right now having absolutely no money in my pocket, I realise it’s actually a bit pricey for having only ordered three dishes and a bowl of rice for each. However, you can just go for the xiao long bao because it really is that good. Plus it’s fun poking at it and stuff. :D

Shi Lin can be found in the Commercenter Building, 4th Ave. corner 31st St., Bonifacio Global City.

Later tater!
Patricia 

My aunt gave us a box of really fancy-looking chocolate truffles, and because they were really fancy-looking we didn’t eat them right away *insert goofy chuckle*. But then we came over to her house and she gave us a really great tip. And it’s: make coffee and melt in some truffle.

So that’s basically just mixing in chocolate with coffee but these truffles are really good so it makes the coffee fantastic. I usually use sweet and/or creamy coffee because these particular truffles are dark chocolate, but it goes really well with stronger coffee, too. Half a truffle is enough for one cup of coffee. If it’s a small cup, use half of half a truffle. Some people might say “use a quarter of a truffle” but I think my way is better. But anyways, it’s personal taste so if you wanna use more or less truffle, go right ahead.

So far we’ve never eaten the truffles by themselves.

Later tater!
Patricia

P.S. The truffles are Chocmod Truffettes. Here’s a picture of ‘em so you have something to look at in this article *insert goofy chuckle once more*.

On days when there’s nothing particularly good on TV (which is, let’s face it, almost every day), we usually turn to the channels with cooking shows (Lifestyle, Food Network, Discovery Travel & Living, AFC, etc.). So today, we switched to Lifestyle and there was this new cooking show.

To be totally honest here, at first it served as background noise to whatever conversations we were having. There was a Caucasian host-slash-chef, and he was in Batangas, which is in the Philippines, which was interesting but not really interesting enough.

I first started to get excited when I found out that the chef, Hylton le Roux, was preparing kinilaw which is just one of my favourite Filipino dishes of all time. And so our chef starts prepping the food, and then The Killers’ “Mr. Brightside” came on the show and I was like what the hell?! (but in a good way) and then when he got further into the cooking process “Under Cover of Darkness” by the Strokes came on. And then The Kooks. And then the Hoosiers.

I was like “seriously, did I write this show without knowing it?!”

So basically the point of this post is to encourage you guys in the Philippines who are subscribed to the Lifestyle Channel to watch Market to Master, Mondays at 8 PM and replays on Saturdays at 3:30 PM, because it’s awesome.

The show, “Market to Master,” is hosted by Professional Chef Hylton Le Roux. Hylton will take his audience into the market place to teach the quick and easy ways to spot the freshest goods as well as stopping to showcase some of the local market workers undiscovered skills. Once Chef Hylton has his ingredients he heads to the kitchen to begin the cooking lesson. Each episode ends with guests enjoying the food that Hylton has prepared. Audiences will also get to see Chef Hylton in real action as cameras follow him and his catering company, Pi catering, on special catering events around Manila.

So it’s kinda like Jamie Oliver, which is great because Jamie Oliver is great. Here’s what else is awesome: there are webisodes available for those who don’t have the Lifestyle channel! Check them out here (check out the “My Kinilaw” episode). Chef Hylton also has a personal blog and, hey, it’s on Tumblr! For more information, visit the Market to Master website here.

A cooking show with legit good music.

Later tater!
Patricia

My sister heard about this place last week and we looked it up online, and then my mom got crazy excited because she’s currently obsessed with Vietnamese iced coffee. Needless to say, we were all itching to go to Cilantro. I like how everybody in my family is into food.

My mom and I had already had dinner and were just really there for the iced coffee, so we only ordered the Pho Bo, Goi Cuon, Vietnamese Iced Coffee and fried spring rolls.

This was the Pho Bo, which is beef noodle soup. I didn’t eat much of it because I was still full, but my sister ate more than half of the bowl (big enough to serve a family) so I’m guessing she really liked it. Personally, I would have preferred more seasoning but that’s just my personal taste.

This was the Goi Cuon or steamed spring rolls, served with peanut sauce. I actually really liked this. It’s more of vegetable than shrimp, and could be a bit flavourless but coupled with the peanut sauce it’s really good. I don’t recommend it for the people who aren’t into vegetables.

Finally, we have the Vietnamese Iced Coffee, which is the number one thing we went to Cilantro for. So you have this glass with condensed milk at the bottom, and on top of it is a filter filled with ground coffee. You then pour hot water over the filter, and hot coffee will then drip into the glass and onto the milk. Then once all the water-turned-coffee has finished dripping, you can mix the coffee and milk together. It’s still hot so you should wait a bit before transferring this ‘mixture’ into a new glass filled with ice. Et voila! Even if you turn out not to like the coffee, it’s really fun and worth experiencing.

My mom liked the coffee fine but she said it wasn’t as good as the one she had back in Jakarta. Oh well. As for me, I did like it! Plus, it’s only P45.00. Our collective favourite was the fried spring rolls, which I actually forgot to take a picture of. The fried spring rolls actually only came as an afterthought, when, after biting into the Goi Cuon, my mom and sister felt like they needed a fried version. *shrug* I’m not sure how much each individual dish cost because, like an idiot, I forgot to take note of them, but our total bill was only around P300 so all in all, Cilantro is very affordable.

Sorry about the pictures. These days bringing my camera around is such a burden, so I used my phone.

Cilantro can be found on Jalandoni St., about a minute (walking distance) away from Fine Rock Hotel and EON Centennial Plaza. This is also quite near the University of San Agustin gym. Oh, and also really near Pizarro! The Molo-Timawa jeep going to Iloilo Doctor’s Hospital/College passes right in front of Cilantro, so you can take that jeep and keep your eyes peeled ‘coz Cilantro is actually sort of easy to miss.

Later tater!

Patricia

If you are looking for the perfect brunch place in NYC (especially the Soho area), then this is the place to be! The food is not your typical brunch, but it’s not odd at all! The place is also really modern, but industrial. It doesn’t have a window, but it has an indoor feeling.

As my friend and I got seated right by the side of the restaurant, which perfectly overviews the Soho pedestrian area, we were greeted with tiny cookies.

The night before I came to this restaurant, I decided to open its website and take a look of its menu to plan what I wanted to order. I was really happy to find out that many of Public’s food is classic, but with a little twist, like the coconut pancake with ricotta cheese and the tea-smoked salmon with poached eggs and yuzu hollandaise sauce. 

We shared a really fresh salad, made of lentils, green beans, avocado, pecans and pomegranate (This was my favorite!) and also lamingtons stuffed with strawberries and cream. So delicious!

Another one that we shared was the turkish eggs. I didn’t really like it because I think it tasted really bland, but I’m just posting this for your viewing pleasure.

Price-wise, I think this restaurant is pretty fair. The lamingtons cost $3.50 and the salad $10. I say that you would probably spend around $20 if you pair one meal and a side with a good drink. Definitely try it out!

Indita

Like Fatty Crab, this has become one of my favorite restaurants in New York City. Also like Fatty Crab, Momofuku Noodle Bar is an Asian fusion restaurant, which means that the food is mainly inspired by Asian food, but altered into a more modern and Westernized approach.

This last trip was my third time in this particular Momofuku (there are about three Momofukus in NYC, including the Milk Bar), and the taste and quality of the food is still as exceptional as my first visit!

I went here with a friend and we decided to share everything. The first thing we ordered was the Pork Bun, which was really moist and juicy! I don’t care how unhealthy it is, it’s DELICIOUS!

Then we shared the chicken wings with some crack sauce and also a soft-shell crab, which was pretty okay. I think we scored big when we found out that our crab has eggs in it!

The last thing we ordered was the ramen noodle. It was amazing!!! It had a mix of pork cutlets, medium-cooked boiled egg, seaweed and other sorts of goodies.

My friend and I found out that we share the same taste in light beer, so we asked the waiter for a recommendation of a local beer. White Rascal was a really good one made in Brooklyn. It was so good that we even ordered another one!

Try this one out!

Indita