FOOD FINDS at the EASTWOOD SPICE SOUK WEEKEND MARKET

Was pleasantly surprised that since Friday, the Eastwood Mall has a Spice Souk instead of their regular Weekend Market stalls.

Found some tasty stuff from Whisk.

Taste tested these locally made honey fruit flavored mead, an alcoholic drink fermented with honey. My favorites were the Passion Fruit, Marang and Chili Honey.

Will be coming back for the Santol Bicol Express at Aling Dory's. That one ran out early on.

The Spice Souk at Eastwood Mall will run until today, Sunday and next weekend, on 21-23 August 2015.

Eastwood Mall
Eastwood City, E. Rodriquez, Jr Ave (C-5), Bagumbayan, Quezon City
Telephone: 709-9888/ 709-0888

Adobo Connection at the New Eastwood Mall Food Junction

 I have always said that adobo will always be the hardest recipe to give any restaurateur success. Any adobo you make will always be compared to the home-cooked version every paying customer will associate with good memories at the family dining table. That's very hard to compete with.

So I was Amazed to find Adobo Connection at the Eastwood Mall's Food Junction. 

This relatively new food court looked promising. A second floor walkway from New Eastwood Mall leads to the well-lit dining place. Going inside, one will find only a hand full of food stalls.

Adobo Connection looked like the most promising food court stall.

 From more than a dozen adobo recipes, I picked the Mestizang Adobo,

which I discovered was just a starchy version of Lechon Paksiw.

A. picked the Modern Adobo...

which he described as vinegar-laced afritada.

The P100 peso meals were filling but you still end up missing your mom's home-cooked adobo.

.

Food Find: RegRub Burger

I thought, this Metrowalk burger stall...

was owned by this guy.

REG RUBIO of GREYHOUNDZ

Photo by Kevin Cayuca for Party Pilipinas

Until I realized hat the stall name was just 'burger' spelled backwards and that Reg Rubio of Greyhoundz, Greyhoundz, who gets 20,000 FB impressions when he says good night to his fans,  is too cool to put up a burger joint.  Silly me.

Just so I could ask the kuya who was in-charge of the joint if the rocker owned it, I bought a burger. (No need to tell me about my stalker fan habits). I got the Pesto Cream Cheese Burger.

The P95-peso burger was flame grilled 

and topped with cold pesto cream cheese.

The burger was just hot and juicy enough and not heavily marinated, the cold pesto cream cheese a great add-on flavor.

It was a filling answer to my fan curiosity. Like Reg Rubio, this flame-grilled burger rocks!

O' Sonho- Wishing I Was Somewhere Else

Once had dinner at the Portuguese restaurant, Osonho, in Eastwood.

I don't know much about Portugal, except that it's in the Iberian Peninsula and that Ferdinand Magellan, the explorer who stumbled upon the Philippines was originally from there but sailed the world to discover lands for Spain.

I had always wished to go to Spain for a culinary tour but it never crossed my mind to go to Portugal. As I don't have an idea of the cuisine of this country south of Spain, eating at O'Sonho would give me a preview of the culinary treats that await me, if my dreams do come true.

The restaurant promises Portuguese fusion cuisine. The word "fusion" should have been my cue to book a table at the next door "Kitchen Cookbook". Restaurants that brag about 'fusion' cuisine usually end up with experimental meals that leave the taste buds unfulfilled. But I am getting ahead of myself.

As a meat eater, I had expected, that due to its proximity to Spain, the meat dishes would not only be an excellent source of protein but also a source of gustatory joy.

For tira gosto (appetizer), I had the sizzling Chourico Sisig. the  hot and crispy meat almost jumping out of the hot metal plate. 

Part pork bits and part sausage (also made of pork bits), it was swimming in bubbling oil and had a good amount of chopped onions and red chili on top. It was disappointingly bland, though. Only the seasoning and the calamansi (native Calamondin) could be tasted aside from the heat of the chili.

Dinner was the enticingly described Todos Paella De Carne, an all-meat Paella with a "heavenly mix of bacon, beef, chicken, lamb and chourico-carefully spiced and specially cooked to satisfy the most demanding meat craving."

I was reminded that the wait for the Paella was  30 minutes. And wait I did,  sipping  the refreshing Peppermint Iced Tea.

I guess, the wait just heightened my expectation. After all the menu did say "Allow 30 minutes for paella perfection." 

It looked perfect. The saffron colored rice topped with an assortment meats was plated in a paellera, a flat round pan with two handles. Traditionally, the Paella would be eaten straight from the pan. But since I was trying to look urbanized, I ate the dish on a plate. With a knife and fork.

The meat portions were generous but the spices were not. The lamb was a little tough and the bacon lacked the saltiness common in preserved meats. 

I did not get to finish the Paella because the serving was good for three persons. The unfinished portion, I took home in a doggy bag, along with sad memories of dining in a restaurant that was full of promise. I guess, Portugal will have to wait, until another restaurant redeems it in my eyes and taste buds.

Johnny Rockets New Eastwood Mall, Libis

Last night was a date night with A. We watched the brilliant  Joseph Gordon-Levitt  swap spit  with the wide-eyed Zoey Deschanel in 500 Days of Summer.

Then we strolled around and A.  let me  slobber over the window displays of the shoe stores within the mall. Before we called it a night, we decided  to snack at Johnny Rockets, a 50s-style  Diner.

The server, Jeng, was a darling-- attentive and all syrupy smiles. The place was well-lit and the music, powered by a jukebox in the center of the resto, appealed to my old soul. And if, like us, you got seated in a booth with a mini jukebox, you can key in your song request via the contraption. And it costs only a peso! The Johnny Rockets franchise has the nostalgic ambience blueprinted well. It reminded us of  similar food joints that were considered a novelty in our heydays...Sam's Diner  at Quezon Ave and Rosie's Diner in Malate.

The food, however, sent us tumbling down cafeteria memory lane. As it was a midnight snack we decided not to order any of the burgers which were the specialty of the house.

A. got the egg salad sandwich which he found bland.

I shared his side salad which I found boring.

The snack was getting depressing.

And the  melamine dishes on which they were served only reminded us how much the resto was overcharging us for food that was fit to be served in a hospital cafeteria.

It was truly a sad moment when my onion rings and fries combo was served. Jeng's seemingly sincere smile couldn't wipe away my disappointment with the six pieces of dry onion rings and one dozen sticks of fries she placed in front of me. It was a sorry, overpriced excuse of a snack. Tsk... tsk.. tsk... 

Maybe we should've just shared a burger. Maybe we should've just stuck to the fastfood joint across the street. Maybe there will be no next time for us at Johnny Rockets.

I am not one to usually complain. But  really, these international franchises should know better! Good ambience and service will not make up for lousy food (unless it's served on top of a naked Joseph Gordon-Levitt).

I'm not angry, just disappointed. I do hope their burgers taste better than the sucky stuff we got served because it would be doubly disappointing for Jeng to lose her job because the owners didn't do theirs.