Bloggers' Event | California Pizza Kitchen's Make Your Own Pizza

Make Your Own Pizza Adventure
Bong at California Pizza Kitchen
Glorietta, Makati City

Nothing beats a freshly made thin crust pizza that came straight from the oven. Weeks ago, California Pizza Kitchen invited bloggers and media friends to embark on a culinary adventure by recreating the bestselling pizzas of CPK.

Each guest was able to make his own pizza from the dozens of recipes that were featured - Thai Chicken, Jamaican Jerk Chicken, Greek, BBQ Chicken, and a whole lot more.

"Our California-style pizzas are famous for their use of fresh ingredients sourced locally and around the world," said Archie Rodriguez, President of Global Restaurant Concepts, Inc., the Philippine franchise owner of California Pizza Kitchen. Wth the pizza I did, the Tricolore Salad Pizza, I can say that indeed their toppings are fresh.

You'll be amazed and think that you're pizza's just simple because of the ingredients (corn syrup and Parmesan) you have added to the dough before it went in the oven. But lo and behold, this was what my pizza looked like after it came out from the oven and garnished with the fresh healthy ingredients. I can eat this everyday. The mix of the salad and the cheese based pizza dough really complements each other. And since I am a salad person, this pizza's just perfect for me.

Tricolore Salad Pizza
1 TBL Corn Syrup
3 TBL parmesan

Pizza Garnish
6 cups tricolore salad mix
3/4 cup diced tomato
2 oz Dijon balsamic vinegar
1 oz shaved parmesan
Optional: 1 portion grilled shrimp

Reviewed by Bong.
Photography by Eric of Byahilo.

Bloggers' Event | Buhay Coke Party Part 2

Announcement of Buhay Coke Vlog Winners
Tiffy at Taste Asia
SM Mall of Asia, Pasay City



The first Buhay Coke Party left the attendees thinking about the vlog contest that will give vloggers (or even bloggers) a chance to take home a 32” Toshiba LCD TV.

So August 8 marked the day for announcing the winners for the vlog contest.

As was usual, this was held in Taste Asia in SM Mall of Asia. Having attended a lot of blogger events there, I was accustomed to the set up. You get in, grab some food, and find your niche. Simple, really! The waiters are ever so helpful in keeping you well-hydrated -- although frankly, beer is a bit dehydrating, don't you think?

The first time I ate at Taste Asia, I didn't much like the food. It seemed... bland. And not as yummy. But I'm thinking that they might have gotten the hang of it!

And here are the winners for the vlog contest:
4th Place - dcoyexo
3rd Place - CokskiBlue
2nd Place - komikero
1st Place - popazrael

Oh! And they were also serving this pulpy orange drink thing:

Photo from Jeric

After the announcement, Marcelle also announced to the people attending that they can help themselves to the juice. Not 5 minutes has passed when the display emptied out. Too bad for those of us too busy having our pictures taken! I liked the juice, but I think I would've liked it more if I wasn't drinking a lukewarm one. A friend of ours seemed to like it -- she took home a plastic-full!

Reviewed by Tiffy.
Photography by Tiffy and Jeric.
See more photos on Tiffy's Flickr.

Features | YOU Magazine

YOU magazine turns its eyes on our 5-month-old food blog in its feature "Manila Foodistas: Student foodies chronicle their campus food indulgences." Here's a photo of our feature in the magazine.

Again, thank you YOU magazine for having us. We're very humbled to be included in your issue.

Manila Foodistas represent!

Grab your copy of Sept/Oct 2008 Issue of YOU in any of your local magazine stands nationwide.

Contest | Delifrance Tray Couture

Delifrance
Tray Couture Contest
Branches listed below


Delifrance Tray Couture is French cafe Delifrance's way of presenting us with a French gourmet sampler. It is a tray of several small meals that can lead to an exploration of epicurean flavors.

In the 20th century, French food samplers offered people a wide range of flavors through small meals. In short, degustacion--a careful, appreciative tasting of various foods--instead of big meals which tend to bore you with their flavors halfway through.

Henri
A pair of Premiere Clubhouse and Shrimp Pesto provides a classic combination of meat and seafood

Philippe
A combination of Tuna Onion Mayo Clubhouse and Beef Stroganoff Pasta

Amelia
The Seafood Deluxe Clubhouse and Pomodoro Angel Hair Pasta

Cherie
California Chicken Clubhouse and Garlic Pesto Pasta

Which Delifrance Tray Couture item are you?

Because our favorite foods are the best indication of who we are, cook up a short line and tell us why your choice of Delifrance Tray Couture item best describes your personality.

Are you a Henri?
Or perhaps an Amelia?
Or even possibly a Cherie?
How about Philippe?

The top 10 comments with the most creative answers will each be given a free Delifrance Tray Couture coupon (valid until October 31). You can drop in your creative comments until the 30th of September.

Winners will be announced online by October 01. They may claim their prizes at GeiserMaclang (c/o Joyce Pogoy) Unit 7C, 114 Tuscan Bldg., V. A Rufino St., Legaspi Village, Makati City Tel: 812.8828 or 812.9199, 0917.523.4624


IM Conference Center | Insular Life Bldg, RCBC Plaza | SM Makati | Ayala Tower 1 | Valero Makati | Zeta Building Legazpi Village Makati | Robinsons Place Manila | U.N. Avenue | Festival Supermall | Alabang Town Center | SM Mall of Asia | The Podium | C5 Libis | St. Luke's | Greenhills Theater Mall | Roosevelt Greenhills | Philippine Heart Center | Shell SLEX Southbound | Shell SLEX Northbound | Shell NLEX

Restaurant Review | Heaven N' Eggs

Heaven n' Eggs
Level 1, Space 1140, TriNoma Mall, EDSA cor. North Ave, Quezon City
Type of Cuisine: American
Average cost per person: Php 200 to 300 (US$4.34 to US$6.50)
Overall Rating:

Joey was originally wary of eating here because she wasn't very fond of American cuisine or enticed by the idea of having breakfast all day (or, at least, the idea of having breakfast all day with the sorts of breakfast with fried eggs and fried anything in it). But every time we go to TriNoMa, Harrell would suggest eating at Heaven n' Eggs and, figuring that she ought to at least try it, Joey finally agreed.

We're happy to say that Heaven n' Eggs did not disappoint. The interiors of the restaurant were warm and inviting and reminiscent of charming diners and while we didn't quite understand why they had them, we were tickled by the TAXI signs that adorned the top of every bench/seat. Their service, we are very happy to report, was excellent. Our server, Arnold, upon our entering the establishment, swiftly ushered us to our table and handed us our menus. He was very helpful and attentive: helping us select our meals and generally made our dining experience that much better because of how comfortable and attended to he made us feel, even while also tending to other tables.

Since Heaven n' Eggs is famous for their meals of steak and eggs, their pancakes, and, well, their breakfast meal offerings, in general, and since we didn't think we could stomach their meals with larger servings, we decided on having two of their, according to Arnold, more popular non-breakfast dishes.

Heaven n' Eggs is definitely a place we'll be going back to one day. Maybe next time we'll have appetites enough for their (what we hear are) delicious Steak and Eggs. :)

Manila Spare Ribs (Php 195, US$4.23)
Delicious!! Joey initially had her reservations, since she's not one for sweetly marinated meat, but she was taken from her first bite. The meat is perfectly cooked and flavored and sits on a generous serving of java rice. The serving is quite large, but not a bit of it was wasted -- definitely a dish to try!


Roastbeef and Rice Skillet Slammer (Php 275, US$5.96)
This dish was not bad, but not excellent. The serving was enough, but the roast beef could have been a bit more tender. It could also have been more flavorful, as the dish seems to get rather monotonous after finishing half. Harrell liked Joey's dish more.

Reviewed by Harrell and Joey.
Photography by Joey.
See more photos on Joey's flickr.

Bloggers' Event | UCC Coffee Sampling

UCC Coffee Blends with All Day Breakfast
Bong at UCC Café Terrace
TriNoma, Quezon City

The Ueshima Coffee Company, or more commonly known as the UCC Coffee, sampled its famous coffee blends to bloggers in its newly opened Café Terrace located at TriNoma.

UCC prides itself with being the Total Coffee Company and its farm to cup quality control in pursuit of the best coffee in every cup of coffee they serve.

Each cup of gourmet UCC coffee is carefully siphoned brewed, one individual cup at a time. UCC rigurously train its baristas to master the technique that ensures each cup brings "Good Coffee Smiles."

"We at UCC have positioned our coffee as a ''Comfortable Solution'' and we aim to provide as many people as possible with the ''comfort'' and ''amenity'' that they seek through our coffee. Imagine the smile spreading across someone's face when they smell the rich aroma of coffee. Their smile intensifies when they tastes the delicious beverage. Smile after smile, connected by coffee. Now imagine this ''Good Coffee Smile'' repeated in scene after scene from your daily life. This is the responsibility of UCC, and it is our mission." - Tatsushi Ueshima, UCC President

The coffees we tasted were the House Blend, Sumiyaki Coffee and the Blue Mountain #1

UCC House Blend

Developed by UCC specifically for coffee house use. The UCC Blend is a mixture of different beans from around the UCC estates and a mixture of different roasts of beans from dark, medium, and light. It is a full bodied coffee with perfect levels of acidity, aroma, and smooth flavor intensity. This is the real perfect cup of coffee.

Sumiyaki

Sumiyaki, Japanese for "charcoal roast" is a mixture of different beans roasted until charcoal color. Espresso lovers, this is a strong dose of coffee. It has a deep rich aroma and smooth flavor minus the bitter taste.

Blue Mountain No.1

100% pure Jamaican blue mountain coffee, meticulously picked, sorted and roasted evenly to perfection. This coffee has been graded as the top coffee bean in the world.

After the coffee tasting and the breakfast, which has a different menu altogether from the lunch and dinner menus, we ended our meal right with the Sumiyaki Coffee Jelly, fresh homemade jelly cubes made from Sumiyaki coffee topped with vanilla ice cream served with coffee cream, and hefty servings of very rich portions of different kinds of cakes by Karen Young.

Part-and-Parcel (Trivias):

• All the servers are HRIM graduates and are trained in rotation.
• The uniforms they use are designed and custom made by famed Rajo Laurel
• UCC now serves its All Day Breakfast Menu

(L-R: Macadamia Cheesecake, Kit-Kat Mousse, Blueberry Cheesecake)

Reviewed by Bong.
Photography by Bong.
See more photos on Bong's Flickr.

Recipe | Joey's Banana Cookies

Joey's Banana Cookies
Servings per batch: Makes around 40 cookies
Total preparation time: About an hour and a half
Difficulty: Another experiment -- I've yet to actually follow a recipe. So I suppose you can say this is relatively easy, if I managed to cough it up haha :)

These are like banana cake in cookie form, but not as sweet and definitely much, much healthier than your typical banana cake. My cookie experiment #1 came out soft and quite fluffy :9

These have absolutely no butter in them (just 2 tablespoons of canola oil that I put in as a "safety measure") ♥ I think these cookies are very healthy, as far as cookies go.

This is my first baking experiment. I'd have to say it went better than I thought it would :9 Considering that my baking experience is a total of one cookie, I wasn't very confident about how the cookies will turn out, since I still only have a vague idea of the "proper" proportions and what sort of ingredients you have to put in to make the cookies come out tasting and resembling cookies.

I'm glad these came out okay tho. Not quite what I wanted, but my brother says he likes these more than my apple cookies (but, personally, I liked those better). And, to be honest, I wasn't planning to post this recipe since I still want to tweak it a bit, but talking to a few of my friends who got to try it (and apparently loved it), I decided to share the recipe anyway and, should I ever find time to try it again, just update this post with the improved recipe.

In any case, I hope you guys enjoy this! :) It's really quite simple to make, and it's healthier than most baked goodies ;) (Most of my cooking tends to be on the healthy [and tasty!] side -- Hannah says it's my niche.)
Happy baking~! ♥

• 1 cup mashed bananas (~5 bananas)
• 2 tablespoons canola oil
  
• 2 eggs (or egg substitute, the equivalent of two eggs)
  
• 2 and ¾ cups flour
• 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon salt
  
• 1 and ½ cups brown sugar
  
• 3 tablespoons cinnamon

Mix the mashed bananas, eggs, canola oil, and brown sugar together in a large bowl. Combine the rest of the ingredients together in smaller bowl, then add the dry mixture into your wet mixture. Mix well.

Preheat your oven to around 250°C (480 °F).

Line your baking sheet with parchment/wax paper. Spoon dough to the sheets, leaving at least a ½" gap between each cookie. Bake for about 20-30 minutes. The cookies should come out soft and a bit airy/fluffy.

See more photos on my flickr.