Filipino Food

I follow people on Twitter for specific reasons.  I try not to follow people just to gain followers in kind.  This sounds like the subject of a future blog post.

One of the Twitter feeds I’ve been following is @FilipinoFood.  The feed is interesting to follow, especially for me, because I don’t eat much Filipino cuisine.   My wife partakes in a broad variety of Filipino dishes, most of which I shy away from. I’m not sure why I haven’t acquired a taste for this cuisine.  I’m a standards eater: pancit, lumpia, and adobo.

The subject of adobo was on FilipinoFood awhile back.  A few years ago my mother finally showed me how to make her version.  I have, for the most part, been able to recreate it successfully.  But as with any recipe there are variations. One of those variations offered via FilipinoFood was cited here.  I’m anxious to try it because it calls for coconut milk, something my mom’s recipe doesn’t use.  I am interested how coconut milk will change the flavor.

Memories of Philippine Kitchens

The blog entry about chicken adobo also made me seek out the book, Memories of Philippine Kitchens. I found the book, written by Amy Besa and Roma Dorotan, at my local library. I want to try a few recipes from this book.

Ketchup with Pepper

I don’t know when Farrah starting putting massive amounts of pepper on her ketchup when we have fries, but now I can’t eat fries any other way.

When I met up with some friends at Yahoo! for lunch at the local In-N-Out, I notice Gloria did the same thing to her ketchup. I forgot to ask her where she got the habit from. I’m curious, who else do I know that does this? If you do this too please leave a comment and tell me how or why you started doing this? I’m just curious.

Tours: Our First Full Day in Bath

After a good night’s sleep, we headed down to breakfast, which started later than usual since it is a Bank Holiday. Our breakfast table is designated by room number. We had a choice of five different meals:

• A full all English Breakfast
• Scrambled Eggs and Bacon
• Fried Egg and Bacon
• Egg and Toast
• Beans and Toast
• Vegetarian

Farrah had the scrambled eggs and bacon and I had the egg and bacon. The bacon is cut much like a thin ham steak – nice and salty. There were also choices of cereals, fruit, and juices. Not a bad breakfast for a seemingly small bed and breakfast.

We looked outside while eating breakfast, seeing the wind and rain that were mentioned on the morning television forecast. We weren’t going to let the rain change our plans of taking the Bath CitySightseeing tour. After all, this is England and it does rain!

Bath CitySightseeing is broken up into two sections: The City Centre Tour and Skyline Tour. We took the City Centre Tour which took us through sights within the city. We sat on the top front covered section of the double-decker tour bus, sheltering us from the rain. It was difficult to see some of the sites pointed out by our tour guide through the rain drenched windows. By the tour’s end the sun was starting to try and break up the clouds.

We then headed in Roman Baths Museum. The museum was crowded since it was a holiday. We managed to take the full tour in about 90 minutes. Afterwards, we grabbed lunch at Sally Lunds, the oldest (tea) house in Bath. Farrah ordered the Bath Cream Tea with half of their famous bun. The bun, we are told, is created from an ultra secret recipe, locked in a safe and only known by three people. It came with raspberry and clotted cream. I had a roast beef sandwich which came with apple pie and clotted cream. Yummy on both counts.

After our fulfilling lunch, we jumped on the Skyline portion of the Bath CitySightseeing tour. We sat on the uncovered portion of the top of the bus this time, since the weather cleared. We had to dodge tree branches from time to time up there.

For dinner we decided to try Wagamama which received some good reviews. Wagamama is a nice clean trendy type place to eat Japanese food. Farrah tried the Miso Ramen and I had the Chilli Beef Ramen, both served with very fresh vegetables. The prices are high, considering the conversion rate, but we’re on vacation!

Steak and Tylenol

Its official: I got some kind of bug. Aching back. Runny nose. Hacking cough. Ugh, I hate this stuff.

Of course, I decided to go out yesterday after work and spread my germs! No, I had to pay a bill at the mall. So Farrah and I grabbed dinner at [Alexander's Steakhouse] – more on that later – and headed around the very dead Vallco Mall. I started to feel progressively worse. When I got home I knew I was just going straight to bed.

I break out the cold & flu medicine we have and check the label. Get this: “Tylenol Cold Nighttime with Cool Burst”? What the heck is ‘cool burst’? The box says Tylenol Nighttime with Cool Burst “gives you the multi-symptom relief you need to rest-plus an instant cooling sensation you’ll feel right away.” Well, it was like taking a mint for medicine but it was effective. It knocked me right out for a very good nights sleep.

But I still feel like s@!t this morning. I think I’ll be wiping my nose and coughing away all weekend.

This sucks.

Father's Day and Aloha Kitchen

Today we had Father’s Day breakfast/brunch at Aloha Kitchen in San Jose on 1041 East Capitol Expressway.. Uh, the food was so good. I had the Samin with BBQ Chicken and it was delicious!!! Farrah’s dad had Samin as well, her mom Portuguese Sausage and eggs, and Farrah had Hawaiian Pancakes.

Farrah’s dad struck up a conversation with another customer. The talk started off normal – How you doing? Where you from? The guy talked about what street he used to live on. Funny thing was that Farrah’s dad new exactly where that was and the neighborhoods’ residents specifically! So the guy would say, “Yeah, there is this short guy who lived in a house down the street…” and Farrah’s dad would reply, “Oh, you mean at 1084?” Amazing.

Later that day Farrah and I took my mom to visit my dad’s grave. It’s been over ten years, but still…