The Prawn Farm

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

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

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!