Whenever my bro and I see a World Chicken stall, may it be in Trinoma, Gateway Mall or in Glorietta, we can’t help but wrestle with the idea of ordering their oh-so tender grilled chicken. If not for our hunger for something new to feature on this blog, we would’ve eaten there every time (I guess that’s something we’re actually thankful for ). In fact, my bro loved them so much that they were the inspiration behind his Creamy Pesto Pasta and Grilled Chicken recipe.

Ken’s pesto pasta is WAY more delicious than World Chicken’s,
but the ingredients are a li’l on the expensive side.

What is it about World Chicken that makes it one of our favorites? That’s a question that’s pretty easy to answer – it’s the tenderness of the flame-grilled boneless chicken they serve that’s very moist, and the wide variety of options for sauces, carbohydrates, and side dishes, PLUS affordability.

We got this flier from their Gateway Mall branch, explaining why a lot of people are flocking their branches in Glorietta and Trinoma.

• Fresh tomatoes used on their pasta sauces.
• Real potatoes with bacon bits on their potato salad, based on the photo.
• 9 different sauces to choose from.
• Freshly flame-grilled boneless chicken.

Buffalo Wings are considered American staple food, together with our favorite burgers and fries. They’re the kind of food people don’t ever mind getting down and dirty in eating because it’s best savored using your bare hands, licking all the crevices of your fingers clean of the delicious buffalo sauce and blue cheese dip.

Friday’s Buffalo Wings
(photo from here)

I had my first taste of the hot wings when some of my friends and I once dined at TGI Friday’s in Greenbelt. They ordered their usual nachos, burgers, and fries. One friend suggested we get the Buffalo wings, but another friend was quick to negate, saying that it’s too spicy for her taste. But since I love my food hot and spicy, 10 minutes later, we had two servings of Buffalo wings on our table, and they all agreed that I ate 2/3 of it.

After that dinner, the Buffalo wings flew straight up my all-time favorite food list, but it’s not everyday that I have the luxury to buy wings at Friday’s. So I decided to make some myself at home, and it’s a good thing that I have a very generous sister like Mhel, who shouldered the expenses for the ingredients.

My first attempt to make Buffalo Wings at home – all gone in about 15 minutes!

The Homestyle Buffalo Wings recipe I’m sharing with you are bits and pieces of different stuff I found on the internet. Not one recipe matched what I wanted to do because there is one requiring me to broil then bake the chicken wings, instead of simply frying them; another has a lousy breading mix recipe, but their instructions for doing the buffalo sauce was by far the simplest among all I’ve seen. And almost all sites had a recipe for blue cheese dip to accompany the chicken wings, but blue cheese is out of the question too expensive for me. But, we’ll try that, too, soon.

Since my family have been trying (take note of my choice of words ) to eat healthier, two of the proteins you’d usually see in our refrigerator are chicken meat and eggs. And I love making all kinds of dishes with them. So, when I was craving for McDonald’s McChicken sandwich, instead of spending almost Php 200 to have one delivered, I decided to make my own Chicken Fillet sandwich.

I’m on a low-carb diet, so I usually just enjoy a sandwich for lunch or dinner. My mother also loves sandwiches so we always come up with our own different sandwich spreads. And this one, I’ll keep on making. I know, there’s flour and all. But, c’mon. I’m on a LOW carb diet, not giving it up completely. Give me a break! Hahaha

Though this recipe is so easy, I still want to share it here for those who haven’t tried making chicken fillet or nuggets yet.

Chicken Fillet Sandwich and Chicken Nuggets
with Honey Mustard Sauce Recipe

INGREDIENTS:

• 3-4 chicken breasts, deboned and cut into cubes
  You will need a food processor or blender for this recipe. If you don’t have it, then, just skip the blending/grinding part of the procedure and just cut the chicken breasts into nugget-sized or sandwich fillet-sized pieces. But, you can also opt to chop them into really tiny pieces, if you’ve got the strength and time to do so.
• 1 tbsp. garlic powder
• 1 to 1 1/2 cup bread crumbs (click here to find out how to make your own bread crumbs, see step #1)
• 1 cup flour
• salt and pepper
• Optional: You can add your own spices or herbs for your chicken breasts. For mine, I added rosemary. But, you can add parsley and/or basil.
• Optional: 1-2 medium-sized eggs
  Half of the batch I made, I didn’t dip in the beaten eggs. But, if you prefer to include eggs, you can go ahead with this.
• 1 cup vegetable oil for semi-deep frying
• Lettuce for the sandwiches

Sandwich dressing: This is the mix that I used for our chicken sandwich.

• 1/4 cup mayonnaise
• 1/4 tbsp. lemon juice
• salt and pepper

Honey Mustard sauce: I don’t have any ingredients available to make barbecue sauce so I decided to make honey mustard instead. But, you can find ready-to-use barbecue sauce at the grocery.

• 1 tbsp. Dijon mustard
• 1 1/2 tsp. honey

A few months ago, my brother Kien and I went out to watch Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 at Robinson’s Place in Manila. When we bought our tickets, we were left with just about an hour to order food we could bring in while we enjoy the movie. So, we decided on just ordering burger and fries.

I was getting desperate quickly deciding where to order that I almost ended up dragging him to McDonald’s. Good thing we saw Kido Manga Burger Cafe just around the corner, near the cinemas. Kien wanted to try something new so I agreed.

When we saw Kido Manga, I was a bit skeptical because there were no people dining at their burger joint. But, the photos on their menu got me interested. I wasn’t feeling adventurous at that time so I only chose items on their menu that I’m familiar with.

Kien wanted to try their Takoyaki, but we just didn’t have enough time to wait and eat it before heading out to the cinema. It’ll be a mess if we bring it inside so I said we’ll just save it for next time. Besides, we don’t know yet if we’d be satisfied with the taste of Kido Manga’s burgers.

Have you ever had Tokneneng, one of the famous street food here in the Philippines? Tokneneng is usually quail eggs (itlog ng pugo) coated with orange-colored batter, deep-fried to crispiness. Some may say it’s actually chicken eggs and they’re bigger, but the tokneneng I know and love are the small ones.

I know how to cook tokneneng at home. It’s very simple, really. I mostly use sweet chili sauce with it, but I’m not that satisfied. The deep-fried eggs aren’t really flavorful since it’s just plain eggs, so the secret to good tokneneng is to enjoy it with rich, sweet and mildly spicy sauce.

Egg Station at Victory Mall in Monumento

My favorite store that sells tokneneng is Egg Station. We never fail to drop by their stall in Victory Mall in Monumento. I love, love, love their sauces. There’s even this one time that we took more sauce than we needed when we had tokneneng for takeout just so we can try to recreate it at home. *LoL*

Different choices of Egg Station sauces on the side

We discovered Egg Station one time when we were checking out the mattress sales in Monumento. I like their setup – you order and they have small plastic bowls covered with plastic bags for your orders. They have containers of sauces on each side of their stall. They even have this small table where customers can sit their bowls and eat away.

Egg Station Price list

Their prices are the cheapest I’ve seen. You get 4 pieces of tokneneng for only Php 10.00. You can order 1 piece of balut that’s also coated and deep-fried for the same price.

Egg Station sells tokneneng, kikiam, one day old chicken, balut, penoy, squid balls, siomai, etc.

They also sell penoy, one-day old chicken (awww… poor li’l things *LOL*), kikiam, squid balls, chicken balls and siomai. They have available drinks, too, selling at Php 12.00 a cup. But, we usually just buy tokneneng from them with lots of sauce. Hehehe.

Egg Station street food goodness

I’ll try to recreate their sauce here at home and I’ll share the recipe with you. Might come in handy when we finally open our own carinderia or eatery here at home.

Tokneneng from Egg Station

Do you have your own recipe of tokneneng sauce you’d want me to try? Please share them with me at the comments section. If you posted it on your blog, leave the link and will post it here. Thanks!

Enjoy!

I’ve had this craving for Vietnamese Spring Rolls like forever. The only place I know that serves it is a restaurant in Trinoma in Quezon City. We haven’t had time to go there again so I decided to make Vietnamese Spring Rolls myself at home.

Here’s a simple recipe of Vietnamese Spring Rolls with Peanut Butter Sauce that you can easily make at home. Some of you might not be comfortable using peanut butter for a dip or sauce, but, it’s actually good.

Recipe after the jump.