Manila Diamond Hotel’s award-winning Japanese restaurant Yurakuen is proudly offering a totally unique Teppanyaki Eat-All-You-Can experience for all us buffet lovers out there. Instead of getting food from buffet spreads and cooking them on your table’s hot pot and griddles, Yurakuen lets you sit back and relax as you watch your personal chefs prepare food at your very own tables.

Available during lunch and dinner, enjoy the Teppanyaki Eat-All-You-Can with unlimited flow of local drinks, local beer, and Japanese Kirin beer, all for the price of Php 1,970++ per person. My sister, Mhel, and I got to experience it ourselves when they invited us to experience a Teppanyaki dinner. It may be a little pricey, but we can seriously say that it’s worth every penny! Not convinced? Let me walk you through it.

First, above are photos of the long lists of food you can order with the Teppanyaki Eat-All-You-Can promo (click to zoom), which include appetizers, soups, noodles, meat dishes, and even desserts!

There are many things I’m currently enjoying about Ken being in culinary school. First, of course, is everything he bakes or cooks at home so he can practice or prepare for an upcoming test or lab activity in school. I especially loved these cream puffs and éclairs he made for our birthday celebration weeks ago. Everyone loved them!

Secondly is shopping with him for ingredients and tools he’ll need at home. One of our favorite stores now is Chocolate Lover in P. Tuazon in Cubao, Quezon City.

If you’ve passed through their area in QC, we bet you saw the eye-catching design of their building. I mean, seriously. How can you miss this castle?

I never met a chocolate I didn’t like.

- Deanna Troi, Star Trek: The Next Generation

Who doesn’t love chocolates? I mean, seriously, we see anything with the word CHOCOLATE and we start drooling. Come on admit it!

Do you remember those days when a chocnut is just what you need to cheer you up? Nowadays, however, we are bombarded with a variety of chocolates. How, then, do you know you’re getting the good stuff?

First off, we need to know that there are two general classification of chocolates, couverture and compound.

(Image credit)

Compound Chocolates

Let’s start with compound chocolates. These chocolates are the supermarket variety – cheap and mass-produced. These products may or may not contain cocoa butter. Those that do not have cocoa butter are made with shortening and/or substitute fats.

The percentage that you see on the bar of chocolate indicates the percentage of cocoa solids, meaning the amount of cocoa mass and cocoa butter.

Couverture Chococlates

Now this is the real deal. Couverture chocolates must have a minimum of 32% cocoa butter in order to be considered as such. Some brands use only cocoa butter while others mix in a bit of shortening for stability. Some of the well-known brand of chocolates we normally find in the grocery have a bit of shortening mixed into it to increase their tolerance for warmer temperatures. Ideal storage for pure chocolates is 20ºC.

Chocolates, much like wine, have different subtle flavor notes. These flavors notes are best savored when the chocolates are at room temperature.

Different chocolate makers use different blends of beans to create their own flavor profile.

The 3 main kinds of cacao trees are

1. Criollo
2. Forastero
3. Trinitario

A few weeks ago, I got an invite from Greenwich for a pizza party with 10 of my friends. I immediately thought it would be a fun opportunity for me and my classmates from culinary school to finally bond. Sadly, the date we were supposed to have the dinner fell on the same day our school competed in WOFEX 2011.

Then a few days passed, I was invited the second time but was told to bring just 3 friends for a more intimate dinner setup. And I thought that would be even better because it would save me the hassle of gathering up a bigger group.

I asked my friend, Rhea Grace (watch out for her blog!), to tag along. She agreed and was very excited. Believe it or not, we haven’t seen each other for more than 6 years, so we had a lot of catching up to do. I missed her a lot for she’s one of my closest friends back in high school. We’ve kept contact through Facebook and Friendster, but nothing can really compare to the joy of “physically” enjoying a delicious dinner with people who are important to you.

Thanks to Greenwich for it was a wonderful opportunity for our reconciliation; and also for coming up with their Presyong Kaibigan promo which offers their mouthwatering pizzas and pastas at very affordable prices.  Now me and my friends can bond and enjoy nonstop without worrying about our food bill hitting sky high!

The Presyong Kaibigan promo presents a wide selection of very affordable pizzas and pastas. Enjoy Greenwich’s Double-size Overloaded Pizza for only Php 199 which comes in two flavors – Ultimate Hawaiian Overload and Triple Ham & Cheese.

One of our favorite snacks here at home is popcorn. Partner it with your favorite soda or juice and you’re good to go, whether you’re watching a flick or even playing an online game. And on top of our popcorn snacks is Kettle Korn.

I particularly love the Sweet & Salty and Cheese variants. Ken enjoys their Barbecue flavor. We can literally gobble up one whole big pack of each all by ourselves.

So, when we learned that they came out with a brand new line of snacks months ago – Kornados – we just knew it’s another quality snack from Kettle Korn.

Kettle Korn Kornados is a 3D corn snack shaped in cones. It comes in 3 different flavors – Original (red), Cheese (blue) and Barbecue (black).

Some may be asking why it’s called a 3D corn snack. It’s because of its cone shape. You can even place/wear them on your fingers and pop them in your mouth. Who said we can’t play with our food?

The cheese flavor reminded me so much of one of my old school favorites from way back – Kornets. Being a cheese lover, of course, I hogged the blue-packed Kornados.

For sure, you’re going to enjoy this one. Kornados is available at SM Hypermarket branches and other leading grocery stores nationwide so it won’t be hard to find.

Visit Kornados on Facebook for more info.

For the Love of Corn Snacks

There is a tight list of countries with dishes bearing “international cuisine” status, with the French and the Italian battling for top position. And sadly, our very own Filipino cuisine falls short in terms of popularity to even qualify for a place in the top 10. But the Sooo Pinoy food campaign is determined to change just that.

Pioneered by Unilever Food Solutions in 2010, the Sooo Pinoy: Promoting Filipino Cuisine campaign advocates to finally put the Philippines in the cuisine map by increasing buzz and appreciation of our local dishes.

Last year, with an online voting contest, they led the search for the best Pinoy Dish with the “Sinigang na Hipon” emerging triumphant. And for 2011, the Sooo Pinoy campaign is now geared towards naming the best food establishments serving the best Pinoy dishes nationwide.

To get the word out about their new project, Unilever Food Solutions organized the Sooo Pinoy Food Tour, inviting 15 bloggers to a one-of-a-kind food trip aboard a WiFi-enabled bus around various food places in Metro Manila. Thankfully, I was part of the lucky bunch who got to participate in the event.

Everyone met up on June 11, 2011 at Adarna Food & Culture along Kalayaan Ave. in Diliman, Quezon City, the first stop in our food tour where we also had quite an unforgettable lunch prepared by executive chef and owner Giney Villar.

For a chef her age, it’s very awe-inspiring that Chef Giney has taken a brave move of ignoring what the market dictates to earn easy money, like going for Italian or American food. Rather, she chose to start a restaurant business with aims of preserving and promoting the gustatory excellence of Filipino cuisine.

Lunch began with one of Adarna’s best-selling dishes, the Seafood Special (P485, pictured below), a mix of shrimps, scallops, and squids with several veggies all cooked in a tomato-based stew. I don’t usually get allergies when eating seafood. This time I did, possibly ‘cause of the scallops, but I think this delicious dish was worth a day of scratching.