Lato Salad

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

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.