The Best of the Holidays 2011

Happy New Year! My apologies for being MIA the past three weeks. The holiday festivities had me going from one reunion to the next, piling up calorie after calorie from all the delicious Christmas lunches and dinners. Despite the extra pounds, the great thing about all the holiday binging is that I got to try plenty of great dishes that I can share with you, my fellow gourmandes.

What follows is a compilation of some of the best dishes that I enjoyed during the break. This is just one of the reasons why Christmas is my favorite time of the year :) Enjoy!

1. Seared Salmon - The Stock Market, Bonifacio High Street

P650

My team and I celebrated our 2011 wins with our agency partners over lunch at The Stock Market in BHS. This, I would have to say, was my favorite among all the dishes we ordered. The Stock Market takes pride in serving dishes with only the freshest ingredients and their Seared Salmon did not disappoint. Just by its look and fragrant smell, I knew it was going to be delicious. The salmon was cooked very well, with no trace of that fishy stench. It was tender but they managed to keep the fish meat intact. The salmon's flavor was brought out even more by the caper tomato sauce. The garlic mashed potatoes had small bits of garlic inside, which was absolutely yummy.

2. Mozzarella Toast and Pizza Margherita - Green Tomato, Shangri-La Mall

Ever since my friend Avery announced that she's having a baby, we all cannot wait for the little angel to come! And so when she revealed the news, we all agreed to organize a baby shower for her. This meant months of planning -- over food, of course :) We had our first planning meeting a few days before Christmas (which doubled as a Christmas reunion, too) in Green Tomato.

The Mozzarella Toast was a great way to start our meal. Outside was a nicely toasted crust that was tasty and crispy. Inside was a delicious filling of mozzarella and tomatoes that went perfectly with the anchovy tomato sauce.

Mozzarella Toast - P195

Pizza Margherita is one of my favorite kinds of pizza because if its simplicity. Green Tomato's Pizza Margherita was delightfully simple, with generous amounts of cheese, fresh tomatoes and some pesto. The thin crust was just the right amount of crunchy.

Pizza Margherita - P190 for personal, P545 for large

3. Dimsum and Beef Curry - Choi Palace, Eastwood Mall

The day after Christmas, before my family and I went back home from our trip in Clark, we had a scrumptious dinner at Choi Palace in Eastwood. With the quality of Chinese food in this restaurant, it's like a more affordable version of Peking Garden. Below are, in my opinion, the highlights of our meal.

I enjoyed the dimsum in Choi Palace because I felt like we got our money's worth. The Pork and Shrimp Siomai and the Hakaw were packed and siksik, with no trace of extenders at all. Inside the Hakaw was a generously big piece of shrimp. Their Xiao Long Bao is one of the best ones I've tried. It was packed with meat and flavorful hot soup inside, and came with yummy black vinegar for even more flavor.

Pork and Shrimp Siomai

Hakaw

Xiao Long Bao

What I liked about the Beef Curry was that it had a very subtle curry flavor. The sauce was a lot more creamy than normal curry, which I think people who do not like the strong taste of curry would enjoy (like me and my dad). It also had a generous serving of beef, which again, I feel gave us good value for our money.

Beef Curry

Christmas season is always the perfect excuse to let go a little and feast on as much delicious food as we want. :) Best of all, it's the perfect time to spend meaningful moments with our family and friends, look back at the year that passed, be thankful for the many blessings we've received, and be hopeful for the many more blessings we know we will come our way in the new year.

Happy 2012, my fellow gourmandes. Cheers to more gourmandizing this year!

Be in Dimsum Heaven in Xin Tian Di

In the past 365 days that C and I have been together, we’ve come to realize that food has served as a critical foundation of our relationship. From the first few days that we started hanging out with each other, to our weekly “foodtripping dates”, our dating life has revolved around food. And so to celebrate our first anniversary together, we decided to indulge. And there’s no better way to do that than to treat ourselves to a delicious dimsum buffet in Xin Tian Di!

One step into the restaurant and we knew we made the right choice. The ambience was perfect for a date, with seats that have high back support that serve as dividers as well for a more intimate feel. And because we wanted to feel like we were in our own world for that meal, that was where we were seated.

Upon arrival, our very friendly server, Marlon, handed us the menu. It felt like we were on a dimsum shopping spree as we ticked our choices for the first round. C and I promised to reach until around round 4 to maximize the meal. What I appreciated the most about the service here was that Marlon was so attentive and would always check on us to see if we're ready for our next order. And he would advise against ordering too much for one round so we could try more dishes, which I found to be such a kind gesture :)

The menu had a total of 55 items that seriously made us crazy we had to fight the urge to tick everything in one go. Thankfully we mustered the discipline to choose wisely so we could try as many dishes as we could.

I won’t bore you with a long list of descriptions of each of the dishes we tried, but let me take you through the top 3 choices on the list that made this whole experience simply unforgettable.

 1. Raddish Cake

This was a very pleasant surprise for me because I haven’t really found a raddish cake that suited my taste. Xin Tian Di’s raddish cake resembled the texture of hashbrown – crispy on the outside but soft and warm on the inside. The spicy sauce that came with it complemented it perfectly.

Raddish Cake

2. Salmon Taro Puff

The Salmon Taro Puff was just an explosion of sweet and slightly salty flavors in my mouth. Combine that with the sweet and spicy sauce and you will spell a-w-e-s-o-m-e. The outside covering was also crispy, but when you bite into it you’ll feel a soft, juicy filling slowly being released in your mouth. The added layers of batter gave this dimsum a more interesting texture. This is possibly one of the best taro puffs that C and I have ever tasted.

Salmon Taro Puff

What a beauty!

3. Steamed Crystal Prawns Hakao

They certainly did not scrimp on the prawns in their hakao. It had a generous serving of fresh prawns inside, and was simply delicious combined with the trademark X.O. sauce. I wanted to order this again in one of the succeeding rounds but I was just too full already. But it’s okay, at least I’ll always have this in my memory. :)

Steamed Crystal Prawns Hakao

All in all, this was all the 19 dishes that we ordered. – 17 kinds of dimsum and 2 desserts.

1)      Steamed Seafood Dumplings in Superior Stock

2)      Steamed Crystal Prawns Hakao

3)      Steamed Siomai Pork Dumplings

4)      Steamed Xiao Long Pao Shanghai Style

5)      Steamed Glutinous Rice Dumplings Stuffed with Duck Meat, Mushrooms and Egg Yolk in Lotus Leaf

6)      Steamed Pork Ribs in XO Sauce

7)      Steamed Fresh Squid with Garlic

8)      Chili Dumpling

9)      Stone Fish Dumpling

10)   Raddish Cake

11)   Glutinous Pork Puff

12)   Crispy Wonton Teochew Style

13)   Salmon Taro Puff

14)   Deep-fried Buns

15)   Pork Dumpling

16)   Steamed Michael Roll with Raddish

17)   Pan-fried Shrimp Roll wrapped in Soya Wrapper

18)   Sweet Egg Custard

19)   Sesame Buchi

Check out the photos below for the entire “collection”, hopefully you’ll get inspired to try and experience dimsum heaven for yourselves :)

THE GOURMANDE'S SCORE: 5 out of 5 - You can never go wrong with unlimited dimsum :)

The meal cost P888 only from Deal Grocer (from the original P1,188).

Xin Tian Di is located in Crowne Plaza, Ortigas, Pasig. For reservations, call 633-7222 local 7240.