Market Manila

A friend of ours had warned us NOT TO MISS the cistern, and she was absolutely right! This amazing ancient water tank is impressive not just because of its planning, engineering and implementation, but also because it has lasted some 1,500 years! Built around 500 AD, this was meant to store water for the use of the royal family in the nearby palace. Today it is a major tourist attraction and for good reason…

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Here is an ultra-easy recipe for chocolate crinkles from the book “The Essence of Chocolate” by John Scharffenberger and Robert Steinberg. I don’t think I have ever made chocolate crinkles before, and I wasn’t a great fan of most chocolate crinkles as I often found them to be airy and overly sweet. I prefer a more substantial cookie. But the kid happens to love these cookies and if made with good dark chocolate, they are pretty good!

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It’s bazaar season again in Manila, and despite my panning the bazaar at the tent at the Fort last weekend, here are two bazaars which may be of interest to you… many thanks to reader Alexie for reminding me about these…

The Negros Fair at the Rockwell Tent. I rarely miss this bazaar which has so many goodies, that I always leave with several bags full. Unfortunately, I am out of town and may get to this bazaar late… I hope it doesn’t run out of the good stuff. It tarts tomorrow, 30 September and runs through the 5th of October. I am guessing they open at 11 am or so.

The Pink Kitchen. A bazaar for the benefit of breast cancer causes. I went to this last year, and despite my issues with their first event, I still think it is a worthy cause that deserves support. I hope they noticed some of the issues that cropped up last year and have figured out solutions to the crowding, lack of food, etc. October 18 - 19, also at the Rockwell Tent, go to this link for a list of participants…

Finally, here is your chance to plug a bazaar you may be participating in from now until Christmas. Please leave a short comment on the items you will be selling and at what bazaar and on what dates… think of this as Marketman’s public announcement service for readers who are also bazaar addicts. Happy shopping!

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A Southeast Asian based television food program is thinking of doing an episode on Manila and street food, and they asked me to identify particular dishes and places to eat them. I told them I wasn’t a huge consumer of street food, more of a market person, so I thought I should put the question out to all of marketmanila’s readers instead. This is a different show from the Taste Matters program that Marketman appeared in a couple of weeks ago… as far as I am concerned, the more exposure Filipino food gets in the international realm, the better. So how about it, care to share some of your favorites and where to buy them? The first time I wrote a post on this blog regarding street food, it was a “fruity” entry to the Lasang Pinoy III series, featuring green mango and other fruits and vegetables one was likely to find for sale on Manila’s streets, link here. If you read the round-up of that Lasang Pinoy topic, there are more than 30 posts from Filipino bloggers around the world, featuring some 30+ different types of street food, coordinated by Kai from bucaio. I also wrote a post on street food during a political rally, which featured over a dozen, mostly snack type items… The recurring theme, at least on this blog, is that most readers grew up wary of street food, and were often discouraged from indulging… though many did anyway. Today, I find a lot of street food is fried and incredibly greasy… but what do I know? Your comments and suggestions of what to eat and where to eat it are greatly appreciated!

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Going out on a Sunday “paseo” with Dad at the wheel of the car was considered a huge treat for us as kids. Maybe we would drive down Dewey Boulevard and end up eating lunch in Chinatown, or up “Highway 54″ and watch with fascination as chefs prepared pizza dough at the Village Inn, in Makati. My dad was a huge car buff, so “paseo” also meant we got to ride in whatever his current pride and joy might have been, which typically meant we were sitting on real leather seats (I can still remember the smell of those seats)… On one of those drives, Dad spotted a Ford Cortina and suddenly we were on this cloak and dagger chase, following this unsuspecting driver and his Cortina home to a residential village somewhere, taking us 60+ minutes out of our way. Turns out it was the exact same Ford Cortina stolen from us just three years before, now repainted, and Dad had noticed a dent or marking on one of the wheels, and hours later, with police in tow, and engine number confirmed, he was able to reclaim his stolen property… Today, the Sunday excursion with Mrs. MM and The Kid is more likely to end up at a mall or a nearby restaurant or bookstore… we don’t wander as far (don’t waste gas driving aimlessly around), but we do still get those several hours together as a family on a Sunday on first gear…

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The stunning, architectural quality of the roses at the foyer of the Four Seasons in Istanbul, in this earlier post, is classic Jeff Leatham style. Mr. Leatham shot up to floral fame when he became the head florist at the George V Hotel in Paris and later, the Four Seasons Group of Hotels (owned by the Saudi prince who also owned Gucci, parts of Citibank, The Raffles Group), and he revolutionized the fresh floral arrangements in hotel public spaces. His pieces are simple yet opulent, using hundreds if not thousands of the same or similarly colored blooms to create living canvasses ad out of flowers. I like his work because it is clean, stunning and frankly, very easy to replicate in a home setting…

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The Four Seasons Hotel Istanbul, at Sultanahmet, to distinguish it from their newer and possibly more sumptuous property at the Bosphorous, is one of the most highly rated hotels in Europe. Ever since it opened some 10 plus years ago, I promised myself that when we finally got to Turkey, we would splurge and take temporary residence there. Hahaha. That is, until I checked the latest room rates, and at some USD1,200++ a night, it just didn’t seem to fit within our travel budget. :) And better yet, they were fully booked, so even when I tried to book just one night in their least expensive room, and stay the rest of the trip in smaller more modest accommodations, it was simply impossible, and thus my personal quest to stay there is now only considered “temporarily thwarted”. But I still wanted to see the property, so one day we decided to have brunch at the Seasons Restaurant, recently voted the best hotel restaurant in Turkey…

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Adobo is often quoted as being the national dish of the Philippines, at its most basic, it is almost a pork confit with fatty pork, salt, pepper, bay leaves, vinegar, and garlic. But there are probably hundreds of variations of adobo across the archipelago and each home has their own preferred concoction. One of the ways I try to eat less while on a diet, is to cook lots for everyone else. When I come home from a grocery raid, I usually cook up several meals worth of food for us and the crew, so that it can be put away in the fridge or freezer for later in the week. I find this is an extremely efficient way to cook, and one doesn’t have to defrost meats, etc. during the rest of the week as we are often likely to do. Today I cooked up a batch of chicken and pork adobo as I might normally prepare it on the stove (as opposed to the palayok version), but decided to go a little lighter on the vinegar and soy, and the crew threw in some onions(?)… After 30 minutes of simmering, I decided to add some extra chicken livers I had from a batch to be used for another round of lechon liver sauce experiments.

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