Our Taste of Life

This was a long over due post (supposed to be up right after the holy week), but for another important reason my time for blogging is so hard to pin down these days. Finally, I had a whole day to spend with my family last holy week. We stayed at Hotel Kimberly, Tagaytay in Good Friday. We opted for this hotel for quite a number of reasons. First, it's very close to home yet, we can still have a relaxing "vacation ambiance" that Tagaytay never fails to offer. The hotel is very new (more or less two months old) and thus, you would expect the facilities to be clean which is an essential consideration if you have kids to bring with. It's not too small nor too big, just the right size to enjoy some privacy. Hotel room rates are mid range. With the size of the room and its amenities, I would say it's value for money.

Main Lobby
Reception Area

Room for Double Occupancy

Room for Single or Twin Occupancy

Room for Quadruple or Family


Function Rooms

Adult and Kiddie Pool

The r…

On to the practical side of the Basic Food Plating Workshop; we started the second day with the preparation and cooking of the food that we were assigned to plate. Yes, real food it was! Contrary to the usual food styling activity (specifically in photo shoots) where artificial stuffs are used to come up with inviting food shots, we styled nothing but real food. All participants were divided into teams of two members and each team was assigned a particular dish to cook and plate. We were given an hour to conceptualize, strategize and finish our work. It's an amateur Iron Chef show, that's how I would depict the fastest one hour of our lives as "cook and artist" at the same time. And heaven it was, seeing our creations oozing with culinary stimuli in all angles of the plate.
The banner photo in this article is of course, my team's work. We were assigned to cook and plate Pancit Canton Gambas. The second photo on top is the original food style that we made. After…

I've recently attended a 2-day Food Styling Seminar conducted by Chef Anna Limjap Park of Culinary Productions Inc. The culinary module involves basic food plating philosophy and techniques which are further segmented into 4 parts: a) basic food preparation, b) plating, c) styling and d) practical application. The workshop taught us how to transform a basic commodity into a desirable necessity via the added value of design and visual appeal. I would say it's a perfect training to let the creative juices of Professional Food Servants like us flow abundantly. We were essentially a team of Food Technologists and Chemists; in other words technically equipped people transforming foods into commercial food products to make them readily available and shelf stable for the consuming public. If the Chefs own the kitchen, we have our food laboratory as home base. Do I say this training is relevant and useful for my work? Definitely yes, what more to inspire and stimulate a passionate foo…

Unless there’s a need for a heavy breakfast, a perfect combination of hot coffee and bread is just enough to perk me up in the morning. For that reason, a side trip to Pan de Manila on my way to work is a normal thing for me. This bread store is home to a delightful selection of baked goodies, dips, spreads and coffee mixes. In here, the infamous Filipino bread (pandesal) is being baked the conventional way in a time-honored ambiance. Also, I noticed that new offerings come every now and then. Apart from my favorite gourmet pandesals such as cheese and pesto cheese, I found these two new items in their shelves. "Soft buttery dome-shaped bun, wrapped in a milk flavor crust", it is how its packaging described this product. When it landed through my sensory orifice, I found it having a nice blend of creamy and toasted notes. The sweetness is just right but short in milky character. As I munch and cut through the middle portion, I felt the texture too dry with a salty butter tas…

I'm getting tired of serving breakfast items such as scrambled eggs, hotdogs and other preserved meats to my kids. Even a macaroni soup, classic spaghetti, or pancit canton (chinese chow mein) sounds too satiating already. So, off, I went to my food magazine rack to seek for some rescue from this culinary dilemma. Fortunately, I found this Creamy Pasta Primavera recipe featured in Jan - Feb 2008 issue of Yummy Magazine. I just tweak the recipe to my own liking. Pasta Primavera is a hearty combination of pasta and vegetables that is too inviting to savour. Like I said in my previous post here, I'm facing the challenge of raising gourmet kids. Luckily, this pasta recipe glued the kids to their seats at the dining table. However, I never realized that I will be too.
Creamy Vegeroni Pasta Primavera
Ingredients:½ of 375g-vegeroni pasta, cooked according to package directions
300 g boneless chicken breast, cut into chunks
4 tbsps canola oil
2 tbsps butter
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 large c…