happyfoodies.com – Philippines Food Blog

Dark Chocolate Orange and other tales at Haagen Dazs

It’s hard not to love Haagen Dazs. The texture is always creamy, smooth and velvety. The flavors are real and faithful to the fruits that inspired them. And what they say is true – the ice cream’s consistency is dense and full-bodied, not full of air, even when melted. True, the price is very premium but the quality you get is incomparable. We got invited to another Haagen Dazs event (always a welcome thought for any foodie) and got to try more flavors.

Tags: Desserts, Haagen Dazs, Ice Cream

Cooling off in Cabanatuan at Puno’s

While it was raining in the Metro over the weekend, your happyfoodies were following the hiking and food trail to the northeastern part of Luzon. One of our stops on the way home was Cabanatuan, and at the suggestion of a friend, we made a stopover at Puno’s Ice Cream and Sherbet to cool off the increasingly hot day. Our friend says it’s a must-visit place and we were just happy to oblige.

Tags: Cabanatuan, Desserts, Home Made, Ice Cream, Nueva Ecija

Chips go gourmet with Oishi

Our earliest recollection of Oishi was those pink prawn crackers. That was a time when local chips, most especially the potato chips, tasted differently from their foreign counterparts. Don’t brand us as colonial-minded but it was just that even blind-folded, we can tell if a potato chip came from a balikbayan box or the sari-sari store. It took awhile before the local chip makers caught up and boy, have they narrowed the gap. At the forefront of this is Oishi, now with a lot of other products apart from the still-growing strong prawn crackers.

For the next generation of chips eaters, Oishi goes a bold step forward with its gourmet series. And the flavors are not the usual variation of its existing lines. Your happyfoodies are just too happy to oblige to a taste testing and see what lies in every big bag.

Tags: Chips, Oishi

Want home-made tasting polvoron? Just HOP over

After years of hankering for food that bears the imprint of commercial kitchens, there really comes a time when one starts looking for home-made flavors. Such is the case for polvoron, one of the Philippines’ most popular sweets. This shortbread is relatively simple to make with the most basic of ingredients being flour, butter, powdered milk and nuts. But consistently getting the taste right is another thing. This is where House of Polvoron (or to be more hip, HOP in short) leverages itself, focusing on just this product and nothing but. We’ve tasted a lot of polvorons before so will this be another one of those commercial-tasting ones? That’s we’d like to find out.

Tags: Desserts, House of Polvoron, Polvoron

Simple, fresh eats at Unit 8 Café

It’s not uncommon for us to meet restaurant owners who venture into the food business because of one fact: the love of good food. For them, the restaurant becomes an extension of their home kitchen, with menus that include their favorites and reflect their preferences. Straying into Unit 8 café, we found this to be a fact. Tucked at the bayside of the Southeast Asia’s Mall, it promises unpretentious food with a simple philosophy: simplicity, elegance and freshness. Let’s see if the place lives up to that promise.

Tags: Dilis, Dory, Mall of Asia, Mango Torte, Pasay, Salad, Steak, Whitebait

A rainy day Binondo food trip

So what do we avid traveler-photographers do during the monsoon season? Hmmm, at times, we just brave the weather and go ahead with our trip. But sometimes, we’d wisen up and not push our luck, opting to stay in the city and find something else of interest. That is exactly what we did recently when along with two fellow foodie friends, your happyfoodies braved the Saturday monsoon rains to eat their way through a Saturday. Nevermind the overcast skies and intermittent rains, the muddy streets and damp air, but really, is there something more pleasurable than sniffing out the delicious smell of Chinese food wafting from shops and hole-in-the-walls and succumbing to the temptation?

Tags: Binondo, China Town, Dumplings, Fresh Lumpia, Mami, Manila, Pancit

Two desserts in one Custaroon

Two-in-one coffee mix. Two-in-one toothpaste and mouthwash. Two-in-one shampoo and conditioner. Two-in-one mobile phone and organizer. We live in a curious age when consumer products are marketed to be better because they’re essentially two products in one. But how about desserts? Sure, we’ve got cake a la mode but that’s about it. That is, until we heard of Custaroons.

Just what on earth is a custaroon? Well, it’s a mix of custard (or leche flan in more familiar terms) and macaroons (dessicated coconut and milk confection). It’s a term coined by its creator, Gigi Gaerlan, a self-confessed sweet tooth and leche flan fanatic. Hailing from a family of restaurateurs, getting into a hobby of baking sweet treats came naturally to Gigi. In a very competitive marketplace, she felt the need for a unique product she can call her original. So she mixed her liking for custard with her mom’s recipe for macaroons. At first, she just baked batches for giving away to relatives and friends. But soon, orders started trickling in. That was way back in 2000. At present, Gigi’s Custaroons are still home-baked in her kitchen in Sta Mesa. Happyfoodies samples custaroons and shares the experience.

Tags: Chocolate, Custaroons, Desserts, Leche Flan, Macaroons, Sweets