Tea Time at the Montage Beverly Hills

I have many friends and acquaintances. But  I only have a few really good friends that I consider my best friends. So few that I can count them in one hand. I only have a few best friends because only these few truly understand how busy life can be, being a wife, a mom, and a career woman. Sometimes life is just too busy to go out drinking, partying, going on trips, etc. And these friends understand that because they, too, have busy lives. They know that we all have different priorities. However, even though we have our own priorities, we still make it a point to hang out to celebrate each other's birthdays or just to hang out to be together because we hadn't seen each other in a while. And when we do go out, we go ALL out.

When I go out with these particular friends of mine, we like elegance and sophistication. Maybe because we're all big goof balls in real life and we like to change it up a bit and pretend to be sophisticated. lol! But its fun to pretend. Like pretending to be sophisticated ladies having afternoon tea. I never really got into having tea until one of the friends suggested we try it out. And now, we like trying out the many tea houses we have here in LA. Like the Afternoon Tea Time at the Montage in Beverly Hills.  

After much scheduling and re-scheduling, we finally decided to hang out this past weekend for afternoon tea at the Montage. You enter the restaurant that has the feel of an elegant living room. We were seated in the sofa area. We ordered the traditional tea and one kid's tea that we thought my daughter and one of my friend's daughter can share. Each serving consisted of your choice of a pot of tea.

(my daughter's Passion Fruit Tea)

As with any afternoon tea service, we were served with tiers of finger foods. The kids had their own finger grilled cheese sandwich, peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and nutella sandwich.

The adults had the usual cucumber, egg salad, and chicken salad curry sandwich. 

Everything was delicious. Everyone at the restaurant was real gracious and accommodating. Even better was the company I was in. I'm glad that I am able to share these little experiences with my good friends. I sure love them to pieces.

Let's introduce ourselves, shall we?

I've noticed from my Feedjit counter lately that I've been getting a lot of readers from all over the United States and quite a few international readers as well. Yay! What a great feeling to know that I've somehow touched the life of someone from a different place. I installed the feedjit to my blog because I was curios to know if anyone other than me was actually looking at my blog. To my surprise, people were actually viewing it. So, thank you so much for visiting my blog. Oftentimes, I feel like the only audience I have is me, myself, and I. And occasionally, I get a few hits from hubby.

I've always said that the intent of this blog was to chronicle recipes I've made for my daughter to refer back to when she's old enough to understand. But this blog has grown to be more than that. And now I can honestly say that its also grown to be a way to meet people from different places.

A few people I know in real life (IRL) have told me that they've tried some recipes from this blog and wanted to leave comments on the post but found it difficult to.  I have since fixed that problem and it is now much easier to leave comments. I would really love to hear from all of you, so please feel free to leave a comment on any of my previous posts or leave a comment here, even to just introduce yourself. Otherwise, I'm probably still just talking to myself again :)

Trip to the Mother Land - Philippines 2012

You've probably noticed that I've been incognito for the past month. Two weeks of that was spent packing and preparing for our recent trip to my homeland, the Philippines. The last two weeks was the vacation itself. And since I haven't posted in a while, this is a fair warning that this post will be a little long.

When I was single, trips to the Philippines was a yearly thing with my family. The last time I went back home was in 2005, when I brought the new hubby to our homeland. His first visit to the Philippines. Ever. Actually, he went there when he was 3 months old, but he said it didn't count since he didn't remember anything. Since then, we've had our ups and downs, then our daughter was born, and then we decided to put everything on hold until hubby finished school and found a job. My relatives have been asking and wondering when they would finally be able to meet our daughter. We wanted to take her to the Philippines before she started Kindergarten, which will be next year. So I figured now would be a good time to take her. Along with my parents and siblings, we headed back home.

We arrived in Manila at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) on a very early Sunday morning. We were then taken on a 2-hour drive to our house in the province of Nueva Ecija, north of the big city of Manila, where we were welcomed by many relatives. I was then told that one of my aunts will be hosting a Welcome Party for our daughter the following day. So we rested up to prepare for the festivities the following day.

The food was being catered. So there wasn't much preparation on our end, except to shower and get dolled up. We were able to watch the set-up of all the delicious foods. Especially the set up of the Roast Pig. No Filipino feast is ever complete without the the Roast Pig, or Lechon. Its similar to the Hawaiian Kalua Pig, except the skin is this yummy, crunchy goodness that is deliciously dangerous to eat. Can you just hear the arteries clogging up?

My brother and sister decided to purchase some cakes for the festivities, since it was also my parents' anniversary, and it didn't look like we had any desserts on the table.

My daughter's cake was this yummy Dulce De Leche cake, with its cake so soft and airy, I couldn't stop eating it.

The next day, we had to wake up really early to drive back to Manila and spend the night at the Marriott in the Resort World Manila because we had an early flight heading to the island of Boracay.

And yes, that is the bathroom on the other side of that see-thru wall.

Prior to our trip, I had been reading up on what restaurants to visit at the Resort World and the Red Crab Alimango House caught my eye.

Specializing in, what else, crabs, I ordered the Crab Maritess which was a huge crab, sauteed in lots of garlic. Messy but delicious.

Of course, I had to order something for our daughter, and she loves nothing more than pasta. So we ordered their seafood pasta.

My meal is never complete without the rice. So I also ordered the Crab and Shrimp Fried rice, which was also delicious.

We turned in early after dinner and got ready for our early flight to Boracay the next day. I didn't realize how long of a journey it would take to finally get to Boracay: a 45 minute plane ride from Manila to the Kalibo airport, then a 2-hour drive to the jetty port, a 15-minute boat ride to the docks of Boracay, and finally a 10-minute cab ride to our hotel. By the end of it all, we were exhausted and hungry and it was lunch time.

After checking into our room and exploring the hotel, we decided to walk down the beach path, crowded with tourists/foreigners, vendors advertising their business of a beach activity (island hopping, scuba diving, helmet diving, ATV, Zip Line, etc.), and lots of restaurants. We decided to have a quick lunch and headed to Don Vitto's, an Italian restaurant at the Boracay Mandarin Island Resort.

When entering the restaurant, I was a little confused. I thought we had entered a Chinese restaurant with its Chinese decor. I soon realized that it was decorated as such because of the theme of the hotel. Looking beyond the decor, we decided to order our lunch.

Everyone knows how much I love spaghetti, and so its what I ordered.

We also ordered a Meat Lover's pizza, which didn't look too meaty. But we were hungry and we were in a rush to finish lunch because hubby and I had a spa appointment. So we basically engulfed the pizza.

After our quick lunch, hubby and I headed to our couples massage. So relaxing. However, later in the evening, I soon regretted ordering my plate of spaghetti because I had a serious case of food poisoning that lasted 24 hours. It ruined my trip as I stayed in the hotel room the next day. With no energy and an empty stomach, I managed to get out of the room and took a stroll on the beach to view this Boracay sunset:
                            

This was probably the best part of my island trip.

The following day, we had a breakfast buffet. Everyone ate breakfast while I ate dry bread, for fear that my stomach problems would return. We walked around the beach some more before we packed it up for another long journey back to Manila: 10 minute cab ride to the jetty port, 15 minute boat ride, a 2 hour drive back to the Kalibo airport, then the 45 minute plane ride. And to finally get back to our house in Nueva Ecija, we took another 2 hour drive home. I don't know if the trip to Boracay was worth all this. But at least I can say that I've been to Boracay.

We spent a couple of days at our house before heading further North to my mom's province of Pangasinan. Every visit to Pangasinan always begins with a visit to the shrine of Our Lady of Manaoag to say a prayer of thanks for the many blessings we have received. Once finished at the church, we visited one of our aunts and stayed for the night.

Back to Nueva Ecija we went and spent a couple of nights before heading back to Manila to prepare for our return to the states. During those 2 days, we managed to take hubby on a quick tour to historical sites such Intramuros, which housed Fort Santiago where the Filipino National Hero, Dr. Jose Rizal was imprisoned. We also managed to do some shopping in the many, many malls that the city had.

We stayed at Crown Plaza Galleria which was connected to the Robinson's Galleria Mall. Before entering the hotel, I saw the sign for Bonchon Chicken, said to be the best chicken in America. A Korean Fried Chicken. I actually did see them being featured on one of the shows on either the Food Network or Cooking Channel TV. Unfortunately, there isn't a branch near us here in Southern California. So I was really excited to try them out.

However, I was very disappointed, in fact quite upset, with their service because they were very slow. Aside from their famous chicken, we also ordered the Bulgogi beef plate, which we were warned would take 15 minutes. We had no problem with that. But it took almost 45 minutes to get our order. Keep in mind that we ordered before the lunch rush. When the lunch rush came, our order kept being pushed back and I observed patrons who came after us being served with their food.

In all fairness, their chicken was delicious. Its a fried chicken drenched in a sweet and sour sauce. Even with the sauce, the chicken remained crunchy. It might actually have been worth the wait. At another branch.

                           

Ever since we arrived in Manila, we always saw signs and billboards advertising Mang Inasal Restaurants. And so my brother and I had been dying to try an Chicken Inasal. However, because we were down to our last days in the Philippines, we settled for another restaurant in the mall that featured Chicken Inasal, Bacolod Inasal Chicken.

I ordered a Pork BBQ stick.

                            

And shared my daughter's plate of Chicken Inasal. Dipped in a mixture of soy sauce and the local lemon/lime fruit, Calamansi, the chicken was delicious. The BBQ stick wasn't bad either.
                           

We had visited a few other restaurants such as Max's Restaurant, which we have here in the states, and The Aristocrat Restaurant which my dad and I always love to go to for their Pancit Canton. Unfortunately, I had forgotten my camera during those visits. And we ordered a lot of food from them.

Overall, I had a wonderful culinary experience, as always. I always love eating foods that are not served here in the states. So I often miss real, authentic Filipino meals. I especially miss meals prepared by aunts and uncles at home. Those are always the best. Aside from delicious foods, its always great seeing family we haven't seen in a while. So my goal for the next few months is to try to re-create some of the meals I've had during our trip. We'll see how they compare.

The Battle of the Shave Ice: Matsumoto's vs. Aoki's

Whenever we're in Oahu, we always make it a point to visit Matsumoto's for their famous Shave Ice. Shave ice is a common thing to have in Hawaii. And Matsumoto's is so popular that they always have a long line forming out the door. For this trip, my brother suggested we give another Shave Ice shop a try, Aoki's, which is ironically right next door to Matsumoto's. So I had this brilliant idea to give BOTH a try to see who had the best Shave ice.

First we went to what we were familiar with. Matsumoto's. The line was long, but the service was pretty quick. You can order a plain shave ice, or shave ice with ice cream, or shave ice with Azuki beans (sweet Japanese beans), or shave ice with ice cream and Azuki beans. Then you decide what flavors you want for your shave ice.

My daughter asked for a plain shave ice with blueberry and pineapple flavors. Hubby and I shared the Hawaiian Special (pineapple, coconut, and banana) with ice cream and topped with condensed milk. We enjoyed our shave ice on the benches outside the shop.

Adding the condensed milk and ice cream made our shave ice so creamy and full of flavor. I think shave ice tastes best with them. So yummy. Unfortunately, my daughter dropped her shave ice. But they were kind enough to replace hers for free. I guess this must happen a lot. After enjoying our shave ice, we went back inside the shop and do some shopping. Hubby always buys a souvenir T-shirt from here, as well as gifts for some folks back home.

Next day, we decided to check out Aoki's. The line at Aoki's was equally long. They have a similar way of ordering: plain, with ice cream, with Azuki Beans or both. They also had a shop inside where they also sold souvenir t-shirts and other nick-knacks. But we opted out of those.

Hubby and I shared the Tropical flavors (which I forgot what flavors they were) with ice cream and topped with Li Hing Mui (the sweet and salty flavoring found in a dried salted plum). The Li Hing Mui gave a great balance to the sweetness of the ice cream and shave ice.

Our daughter asked for a plain cherry flavor. 'Nuff said.

The verdict: Though the flavors were both equally good, it all came down to the texture of the ice. Operating for 60 years, Matsumoto's really knows how to shave their ice. Maybe its the old machine that they've used for 60 years. But their ice is so much finer than Aoki's. There really is a difference. Matsumoto's ice literally melts in your mouth. Aoki's tends to have the crunch factor in theirs.

One might say that Matsumoto's is where all the tourists go to, so they go to Aoki's. Others just like Matsumoto's for the mere quality of the ice. I guess its a matter of preference. But whatever choice you make, make sure to eat your shave ice with a holder. Its the best advice anyone can give whenever eating shave ice. Its the best 50 cent investment you'll make :)

Ted's Bakery

In the 8 years that I've been going and back and forth to Hawaii, I have always wanted to go to Ted's Bakery. I first heard about Ted's from an old co-worker of mine who raved about their haupia pie. She said you have to get to Ted's early in the day, or else they run out of the haupia pie. Okay, well what's haupia, I first thought. I came to learn, from one of the luaus we went to a few years ago, that its a coconut custard-like Hawaiian dessert. Not a huge fan of it, but when in Hawaii you gotta try it at least once. So, I had to try Ted's haupia pie at least once. However, we always seem to miss their shop when we drive up in the North Shore.

On this short trip, since we were staying in the North Shore, we had a chance to finally explore this part of the island and stopped by the famous Ted's Bakery for some lunch. Its pretty easy to miss this "mom & pop" shop because it has a small, hard-to-see store-front. But it was only a few blocks from the famous Sunset Beach.

As you enter this old school shop, you can't help but think that you just stepped into a liquor store. The interior was as drab as a corner liquor store. But when you look to the left of the store, you'll see a refrigerated case where they displayed their desserts. It was as if a ray of sunshine shined over this area.

Because our stay in Oahu was brief, we didn't want to buy a whole pie. But we did want to try as many varieties as possible. So we decided to pick up slices of a couple of pies. Then we proceeded to the counter to order our lunch. We ordered Ted's Bento, which consisted of fried chicken, fried mahi-mahi, teriyaki beef, a slice of spam and a few scoops of rice. Delicious. And huge. Enough to share. Which is what we did.

We also decided to order another plate lunch to eat for dinner later in the day. So we ordered the Combination #2, which included BBQ short rib, BBQ chicken, and breaded shrimp. This plate was equally delicious and huge.

Because we were full from both meals, we didn't get a chance to taste the slices of pie we bought until the next day. We ended up buying a slice of the Pineapple Macadamia nut cheesecake and their famous Chocolate Haupia Cream Pie.

The Pineapple Macadamia Nut cheesecake was pretty good, but my unexpected favorite was the Chocolate Haupia Cream Pie. Its a chocolate cream pie, with a hint of coconut flavor from the Haupia. It was a great flavor combination and pure genius.

I'm so glad we were finally able to find Ted's and stop by to try some of their specialties. Can't wait to stop by here again. Now that we know where it is.

Liliha Bakery

*cue the theme song to Hawaii Five-0*

We recently got into watching the newer series of Hawaii Five-0 and absolutely love it. Maybe it was because it somehow takes us back to the islands. They feature a lot of the scenery we're quite familiar with around the islands. Specifically in Oahu.

On one episode, Chin Ho and Danno were eating some Coco Puffs from Liliha bakery. The scene featured their famous grey carrier box full of cream puffs, and Danno devoured them and raved about them. We had to have some of that. So off we went in search of Liliha bakery.

I expected the place to be packed. There were a few people, but service was pretty quick. So I was pleasantly surprised. As you walk into the shop, you'll notice that it isn't just a bakery. They also had a coffee shop serving, what else? Plate lunches. But we weren't there for a plate lunch. We were there for these babies:

Four different varieties of cream puffs: regular cream puff, chocolate cream puff, green tea cream puff, and their famous coco puff. I ordered 3 of each to make a dozen. And they all came in their signature grey carrier box as seen on Hawaii Five-0.

Hubby also asked for the haupia stuffed malasada which was quite yummy.

Not long after we got back to the car, I opened up the box and had one of each.

Danno was so dead-on about these. And thank you, Chin Ho, for introducing these to him. Because they were to die for. My favorite was the green tea cream puff: green tea custard filling with a green tea topping. The "tea-ness" didn't overpower the cream puff at all. And the topping had a slight saltiness that balances out the sweetness in the custard so well. My next favorite was the coco puff, which had a chocolate custard filling and a creamy butter topping. So yummy!

As we walked out of the bakery that day, we encountered their freezer that displayed frozen specialty items. Perfect to take home to eat later. They had frozen pancake batter, various cakes, and of course their famous cream puffs. I wish I had found the freezer sooner, before we ordered. I would have packed them to take back to the mainland. But I didn't want to get back in the long line. Now I'm going to regret that decision until my next trip back to Oahu. Liliha bakery, I'll definitely be back

Rainbow Drive-In

A plate lunch is the quintessential Hawaiian meal. Its a plate with a little bit of this, and a little bit of that. And if you're in Oahu, specifically in Waikiki, Rainbow Drive-In is the place to get your plate lunch fix. My brother raves about this place, and it was also featured on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives on the Food Network. So during our quick trip to Oahu, we had to make the drive and brave the traffic in Honolulu to try Rainbow Drive-In.

In business for 50 years, their philosophy has always been hearty portions of great food, at a reasonable price for the working class. This still stands true and I can certainly attest to that when we ordered our food at the walk-up counter in Kapahulu. We ordered our food and it came out in quick minutes. I think it took longer trying to figure what to order, than when we actually got our food after we ordered. But hey, we weren't complaining.

I love beef BBQ served Hawaiian style, so I ordered the BBQ Steak, served with 2 scoops of rice and a side of macaroni salad. The beef was so tender and macaroni salad creamy. This was definitely ono kine grinds.

Known for their Loco Moco, hubby decided to order this specialty. A Loco Moco is a hamburger steak on top of 2 scoops of rice, all dredged in their house gravy and topped with eggs over-easy. I've had other versions of Loco Moco before, where the gravy used is the typical brown gravy. Rainbow's version was almost like a chili flavor with a slight sweetness. I guess its an acquired taste, because hubby loved it and I wasn't huge fan of it. I stuck to my BBQ steak.

Our daughter is not a big meat eater yet, so we had to pick something up for her. On the day we we visited Rainbow's, their special for the day was Spaghetti with wiener. Sounds like Filipino spaghetti to me, where the spaghetti sauce is slightly sweet and always has slices of hot dogs. This shows how big of an influence Filipino cuisine was to Hawaiian cuisine. Well, unfortunately, they ran out of the spaghetti, and so we ordered the next best thing. Saimin, which is basically Ramen.

The authentic Japanese Ramen, I've had the pleasure of eating and enjoying. Other Saimin dishes, I've also had, which were pretty good. Rainbow's, however, was pretty disappointing. It tasted more like it came from a packet. You know the one. The instant Ramen. Yeah, I guess they put more effort into their plate lunches. Luckily, our daughter can't tell the difference between instant ramen and a good ramen yet. And she needed to eat. No complaints from her.

I look forward to returning to Rainbow Drive-in someday, if only for their BBQ plate.

The Gathering Place, Oahu

After 3 days on the beautiful island of Maui, we continued with our Hawaiian vacation and headed off to Oahu, the Gathering Place. I don't exactly know why this island is called "the Gathering place." Maybe because anyone traveling to the islands first land at Honolulu, Hawaii's capital. And many probably end up residing in Oahu, which is why it is the most populated island in Hawaii. But being that it is the most populated, makes it the island to visit whenever its your first time in Hawaii. There's lots to do on this island. And because there's lots to do, you'll encounter more tourists.

Its been about 6 years since our last trip to Oahu. But whenever we visit, we always stay at a hotel in Waikiki. On the beach, of course. But on this trip, we wanted to have a laid back kind of vacation. Away from all the crowds and tourists. So we decided to rent a beach house on the North Shore of the island.

Our beach house was located on the beach in the quiet town of Waialua. And we had the beach all to ourselves, with occasional people passing by for a walk.

(our own private beach)

The beach house had all the comforts of home. So I was able to cook breakfast every morning and saved money on food. A nice change of pace, since everything is a little pricey in Hawaii. Every morning, I cooked a typical Hawaiian breakfast consisting of rice, scrambled eggs, and Portuguese sausage or Spam.

And we always ate our breakfast (and all other meals) next to the bay window in the living room to have this beautiful view:

(this is also the view in our room)

Typical visitors we had at the beach throughout the day was a family of sea turtles that swim pretty close to the shore where you can practically swim with them. I don't swim well in the ocean, so I kept a safe distance.

The thing to do in Oahu is visit the pineapple plantation at Dole.

When there, we always swing by the shop and pick up their famous Dole Whip. Our daughter had a sample of their sweet pineapple after we took the train ride around the plantation, so we decided to pick up some fresh cut pineapples at the shop as well.

A common pupu (or appetizer) in a Hawaiian meal is poke (poh-keh). Its chopped up pieces of ahi tuna with seasonings. It tastes best when served with taro or sweet potato chips. We visited a local supermarket when we took a trip to Waikiki one day and found a service counter dedicated to poke. So hubby and I decided to pick up a couple of different versions of poke and a bag of taro chips. I ordered the avocado poke that was super ono. It had a mild spice and the creaminess from the avocado. I'm gonna definitely try to replicate this.

Hubby ordered the the plain poke which he said tasted too plain. He liked my poke better.

Where we stayed in the North Shore, food trucks are pretty common. I guess you can say that Oahu was the first in the food truck movement. Shrimp trucks is the thing to do up in the North Shore. And the most famous one is Giovanni's Shrimp Truck.

You can't visit the North Shore without having some Giovanni's. So we decided to pick some up on our last day in Oahu.

Their most popular dish is their Shrimp Scampi. Its a plate of their sweet and succulent shrimp, heavily seasoned with butter and garlic, then served with 2 scoops of rice and a wedge of lemon. I could eat this meal everyday. It was that good. It was bomb dot com.

We were able to visit many other places in Oahu, which I will feature in the next couple of posts. This post was just about random things in Oahu. We definitely enjoyed our own private beach. And we'll definitely miss seeing this everyday:

I wish I could take this with me. Aloha. A hui hou (until we meet again).