Foods & Dining in Bohol

Calamansi Juice

2008-09-05T08:42:00.000-07:00

At home, we always have fruit juices. It seems never complete without having them. Sometimes we have the Del Monte canned juices. Our favorite flavor is the Four Seasons. Recently, our favorite is the Tropicana orange juice. My husband's all time favorite is the fresh carrot juice.

This morning, I saw the almost ripe calamansi fruits in our kitchen and I decided to make calamansi juice. My mom taught me this recipe of calamansi juice which always results a very good consistency. I would like to share this with you.

How to prepare Calamansi Juice

Ingredients:

20-25 medium-size Calamansi fruits
1 liter of filtered water
5 tablespoons of brown sugar (you can add more to suit your taste)

Procedure:
1. Wash the calamansi fruits and slice in half.
2. Squeeze the sliced calamansi fruits unto a small saucer.
3. Remove the seeds from the juice, using a teaspoon (I prefer this way because I want to keep the juice pulps)
4. Pour the juice puree unto the juice container filled with purified water.
5. Add sugar and stir the mixture.
6. Pour juice unto glasses with ice (also made of purified water)

Done!

Lato Salad

2008-08-31T06:58:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, me and my husband had a chance to go to Manga Market, a public market in Tagbilaran City known for fresh fish and other seafoods. We bought "kitong" fish (for chargrilling), fresh lato (seaweeds) and shellfish.

Lato is one of our favorite seaweed foods. These seaweeds look like small green grapes. We love to eat these. We always prepare these into salad. And it's so simple and easy to prepare this salad dish.

How to make Lato Salad:

- Soak the seaweeds in clean water and cut-off extra "branches" from the seaweeds.
- Transfer the seaweeds to another bin of clean water and soak them for little while more.Drain seaweeds, put drained seaweeds in a platter.
- Prepare the dressing:slice red tomatoes (2-3 pcs); slice and pound fresh ginger (about 2 tablespoons); slice 1 pc of onion; put these into a large deep bowl.
- Pour vinegar into the bowl with all the stuffs, add a sprinkle of salt, dash of black/white pepper.
- Serve the platter of seaweeds and a bowl of dressing.

How to eat the Lato Salad:

Just dip the Lato into the vinegar dressing and savor the delicious and nutritious Lato Salad.

How much this would cost:

Lato - P 40 (for two saucers-full)
Tomatoes - P 6
Ginger - P 3
Onion - P 3
Vinegar - P 5
TOTAL - P 57

Above preparation is good for 9-10 persons.

The Prawn Farm

2008-04-27T10:00:00.001-07:00

It's always our pleasure to try out newly opened restaurants and other eating places. I always find it amusing also to critique the foods, the place and the services.

One of our recent favorite restaurants is the Prawn Farm, located at the Island City Mall. The restaurant is owned by the owners of the mall too and it is managed by the former manager of my sister's restaurant.

The Prawn Farm serves mostly seafoods and traditional Filipino dishes. One of my favorites there is the steamed pampano fish. Everytime we eat there, I always order this fish dish.

Since I know the manager personally, I feel so open to tell him what I think of the foods we ate, the kind of service the staff did to us and just anything. And I am glad that he will also heed to our suggestions. Some of these suggestions which were taken and given attention to were:

- Putting a sign inside the restroom because their door lock is so confusing. The user wouldn't know which way to turn the lock to open or lock it. The next time we went there, a very comprehensive label is attached.

- The Kare-kare was too dry. The next time we ordered the dish, it tasted and looked much better.

When you are in Bohol, don't miss to try-out dining at the Prawn Farm.

Ensaymada

2008-04-18T11:40:00.000-07:00

We discovered this very delectable snack item - ube ensaymada, only available at Lola Lilia's Cakes and Flowers at the Courtyard infront of the "simbahang lingin" along Airport Road, Tagbilaran City.

It looks like a regular torta, but actually, it is an ensaymada. Sugar are sprinkled on top and when sliced you can find the ube filling inside. And when you eat it, hmmmmmmmm.. it melts in your mouth. Very delicious indeed. For those who are sugar conscious, the sweetness is just enough.

These ube ensaymada are available in small and big pieces. The big ones are priced at P46.00 per piece and I don't know how much the small ones are because we prefer to buy the big ones.

Jumping Shrimps

2007-11-30T23:06:00.001-08:00

Here in where I live (Bohol, Philippines), I consider myself lucky because I can still enjoy getting real fresh seafoods to cook for our favorite dishes. One of these simples joys is being able to buy these 'jumping shrimps' in the wet-market.

Few days ago, me and my husband were lucky to be able to buy 1 kilo of 'jumping shrimps' at P300 / kilo. Quite expensive at this price though because we we bought the shrimps, it was the morning after a typhoon. Normally, this kind of shrimps are priced at only P180 - P250 / kilo.

They are called 'jumping shrimps' because they literally jump because they are live shrimps. Real fresh.

Preparation

Using a pair of scissors, the whiskers and the thorny tip of the head of each shrimp are cut. The shrimps are washed and cleaned thoroughly. The batch is washed at least 3 times, until the water turns clean.

Cooking

The batch is tossed to a pre-heated wok. I placed the cover on the wok right away to prevent the shrimps from jumping off the wok. Due to the heat, the shrimps kept on jumping inside the wok and it sounded like I was cooking popcorn.

Once the shrimps stopped jumping, I sprinkled salt & pepper and squeezed 3 pieces of calamansi. The shrimps are left to cook until the shells looked separated from their meat already or the color turns dark orange already. I didn't add water anymore since the batch has enough water content to cook the shrimps. I took out some of the excess water and added about two tablespoons of Anchor butter and tossed. Cooking is done in less than 15 minutes!

Wet Market Visit

2007-06-14T06:15:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, my family drove to my mother's hometown in Ubay, Bohol. We always look forward to going there for its fresh seafoods, available in the public market. Minutes after we arrived town, me and my husband were already at the wet market,trying to find some good deals of the fresh seafoods. And indeed we were lucky to buy at least a kilo of blue crabs and another kilo of mud crabs.

Few years ago, these kinds of crabs were sold at P80.00/kg. However, since there are already commercial buyers of these crabs in this town, prices has gone up.

Current prices of these crabs: P150.00/kg for both blue and mud crabs.

I Scream ! ( Ice Cream)

2007-06-12T06:26:00.000-07:00

I am not so much of an ice cream fan but I discovered this very delicious ice cream flavor recently. It's Nestle Chunky Choco Mocha.

My usual ice cream flavor favorites are : mango, ube, macapuno, rocky road and quezo real only. However, this new flavow is really amazing!

I first got a taste of this when I dropped by my favorite beauty parlor to chat with the staff there and they were eating ice cream and of course, they offered me a cup full of ice cream. I said "no, thank you" at first, but I ended up eating the whole cup-full of that ice cream and never hesitated to check what flavor was that. It was something new and it was very good.

That same night, I checked at the supermarket and it was available! My husband wanted fruit salad flavor ice cream but I wanted to try my newly discovered flavored too. So, I ended up paying one half-gallon of each flavor.

This Nestle Chunky Choco Mocha is just so yummy. I love the texture of the ice cream. Not so sweet. The choco bits in it is just lovely. The chopped nuts mixed in the creamy mocha flavored ice cream is just nuttylicious! Hmmmmm. I love it.

Try it and let me know if you like it too.

Cozy Jojie's Cafe

2007-05-21T20:17:00.000-07:00

During the height of the election campaign period, me and my husband got a chance to take a little break, after a speaking engagement. We finally tried this new (not so new though) cafe which is located along B. Inting Ave., with a 360 degree view of the Dauis channel.

I have passed by this place a countless of times already, even dropped by a few times, but not to sit and dine in the cafe, but only to buy baked goodies at the bakeshoppe outside it. I have been wanting to try dining in this cafe long time before. And finally, I get to try it this time.

The place is very cozy and a very good place to bring someone for a chat or just to relax and dine. The foods are reasonably priced. We orderd halo-halo, which was yummy. We ordered 'palabok' , which is priced at P75.00 per order and which tastes good and I could say it's one of the few best tasting 'palaboks' availabe in town. We also ordered pizza (the cafe also is a franchisee of Chez' Andre pizza)and it was very good. We were not able to consume the whole pizza though and just took the rest home.

I like the place. I would recommend this place to my friends and family. However, their kitchen seems to be too slow because foods you order took a little longer than the usual, to be delivered to you.

If you are not in a hurry and not too hungry, but just want to keep it easy,enjoy the place and the good food, then you should try Jojie's Cafe.

Hmmmmm....Scallops..

2007-03-24T20:12:00.000-07:00

I love to eat scallops. Do you too?

Yesterday, we were lucky to be able to buy fresh scallops in the local wet market at P90.00 per kilo. My husband bought almost 2 kilos of them.

How we cook them?

First they are washed and cleaned. The dark parts of the scallops are removed and only the big round white "muscle" and the orange part in each scallop are left. The other side of the shell is discarded too.

Once cleaned, they are stored inside a closed plastic container, placed in the freezer and take them out when we are ready to cook them.

But we can't wait another day to have them. So, we had them for lunch and the rest for dinner.

Out from the freezer, we sprinkle a generous amount of toasted chopped garlic and grated quick melt Magnolia cheese over the fresh, cleaned scallops. Then, they are tossed to the over-toaster and get toasted for 10 minutes or until the white meat is done.

And that's how quick how these yummy scallops are prepared!

Eating-out in Bohol (Part I)

2007-02-11T01:18:00.000-08:00

I and my family are fond of eating out. It's been a habit for us to check out new eating places here in Bohol, particularly in Tagbilaran City.

This blog is intended to provide readers an overview or a few information about foods and dining here in Bohol, based on my and my family experiences and points of view.

For my first blog for this section, I'll post about Shiang Ma Nou, a Chinese restaurant here in Tagbilaran City.

Shiang Ma Nau

Shiang Ma Nou is a new restaurant here.It opened some months ago. It is located just across the Lourdes Parish Church, along Gallares St., Tagbilaran City. The owners of the restaurant are our friends.

Me and my husband ate at the restaurant for the first time after it opened only two days earlier. And of course, what can you expect from a new restaurant? Service is not that smooth yet. But it was fair enough for a newly opened restaurant.

Service

The service is much better now since we first dined there. Waitresses and attendants are already familiar faces and me and my husband sometimes make joke with them. But they still forget to give me a knife everytime I'm ready to eat my meal and I always still has to ask for it.

Food delivery is now faster unlike during their early days that it seemed forever to wait for the foods you ordered.

I am just curious why they have so many people working there. Another one to open the door, another to take the order, then another one to bring in the foods, another one to set the table, etc...and not counting the number of people in the kitchen and behind the counter. I am no expert in restaurant management, but I just think there are just too many people to pay.

Food

Foods served there are of course, Chinese foods. The restaurant employed a real Chinese cook (chef?)and that must be the reason why their foods there taste like real Chinese food. hahhahaha.

The other day, me, my husband and my eldest son had lunch there. Everytime we eat there, we always ask for the "secret menu" (which used to be un-published) and pick our favorite meal from there. I ordered my favorite fish sweet & sour meal, my husband and my son got a bowl each of chicken wanton soup plus an order of chicken feet.For our drinks? We just got water (we seldom drink soft drinks). I am on diet too (I want to loose a few pounds). And how much we paid for our lunch? Only P195.00 including tax. Such a cheap price to pay for good and filling foods.

Place

The place is nicely located on a corner lot. The orientation is good too. Parking is no problem (we can park on the side street if the their parking space if already full). There are tables set outside for diners who might want to smoke or for those don't want the air-con. The main dining area is clean and cool. However, the management must do something with the noise inside. Once you are inside voices and sounds are all mixed up with some echo and sometimes it gets irritating. The management must do something to soften the sound inside the dining hall.

Well, for me and my family. Shiang Ma Nou is still one of our favorite restaurants here. We will still keep on going back there.