champorado

Today is Champorado day. It's been raining a lot lately and nothing beats a having a warm bowl of chocolate porridge. And by the way, "Champorado" actually exists in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champorado. Champorado is a Filipino-style chocolate porridge that I learned how to make when I was only about 8.

Champorado topped with powdered milk.

Leftover cooked white rice can be used or raw white rice if you choose to cook from scratch. To use leftover rice, here's the basic procedure:

1. Wash cooked rice to separate the grains and strain it.
2. Add water enough to drown the cooked rice.
3. Bring to boil and then add cocoa. Sweetened or unsweetened cocoa may be used whichever is preferred.
4. Stir occasionally until it has a sticky consistency.
5. Turn off the heat and serve with milk and/or sugar.

To cook Champorado using raw white rice:

1. Cook rice as usual but use an excessive amount of water. Rice cooker may be used.
2. Bring to boil and then stir the rice to keep it from clumping.
3. Add more water if the rice is soaking up all of the fluid. The key is to have excess water since since we'e making a porridge.
4. When rice is cooked, add the cocoa power.
5. Follow steps 4 and 5 above.

Some use glutinous rice in place of the regular white rice. In my case, I prefer regular white rice because the cocoa powder already makes it sticky. My favorite serving style is topping the Champorado with powered full cream milk. Sweetened condensed milk will also do the trick.

a taste of Singapore

My first visit to Singapore in July was in time for the Singapore Food Festival. A few days after my arrival, my sister and I headed to the nearest kopitiam so I can have some char kway teow. I first tasted this dish in a Malaysian restaurant in the Philippines. Here in Singapore it's a very common dish and anyone can get it at the hawkers. I won't be expounding on the differences between a kopitiam and a hawkers center but in my experience you can get cheap food at both but the latter is traditionally an open-air food court.

char kway teow

Char kway teow is like a mix of everything - sea food, rice noodle, chilli and more. I cannot tell what else is in there. It doesn't look pretty but the taste turns out to be mysterious but good. I'm not even sure how to describe it. Singapore identifies a lot with this food. The country is a mix of different cultures and has turned into something exciting and interesting.

Without a proper itinerary, we headed down to Clark Quay one night to see the lights by the river. To my surprise, the bridge has been converted into a huge food court selling just about any Chinese street food and other local delicacies. We bought a kopitiam card, topped it up and tried three items.

The first item was the carrot cake. This one is not the sweet dessert. Instead it is white raddish with egg and spring onion. This one cost us SGD 4.00 though we could have gotten it somewhere else at a much lower price. To me it tasted close to omelette but with more substance so I give this a score of 8/10.

carrot cake

Item number two was the deep fried prawn ball. This one was SGD 1.60 per ball. There was no dripping oil, and I love prawns so I gave this a score of 9/10.

fried prawn ball

The third item was the pork bun and is very similar to the Philippine siopao. It is locally called kong ba bao. Stewed pork is inserted in between the bun and stuffed with some lettuce. To me it is a complete meal, so I gave this a perfect 10/10.

kong ba bao (pork bun)

The night wasn't over after my last bite. The city was still filled with lights and people craving for more food for the soul.

Left: The author; Right: Clark Quay Food Street.

tea is everywhere

I am still overwhelmed with all the new things in this new place. Green tea bread and milk tea is everywhere. The first time I had milk tea in a bottle was in Shanghai and being able to get it at almost every corner is like a dream come true. Now green tea bread is not some specialty anymore. It's as common as rice.

The Singapore Food festival happened last July when I first came here. I've been eating a lot and talking about food less. The calories have added up and now I think I should start documenting before all the thoughts melt away into just pure fat. How I wish all the fat melt away instead!

Singaporean food has become part of my system for more than a month now and I've been eating local food at least five times a week. That however doesn't keep me from cooking or eating home cooked food. My sister's been feeding me a lot and that explains why I'm a little more worried about my midsection now. But as long as this blog exists, I'll be talking about food. :)

Casa Verde Cebu

Love for food is always proportional to the width of the waistline but right now this love is much stronger than my desire to trim the midsection.

The talk of the town is Casa Verde's Brian's Ribs which is not disappointing at less than PHP200.00. It is served with a healthy side dish of sweetcorn and chopped carrots. The sauce is sweet so that adds more flavor to it.

They're not just all about grilled baby back ribs though. Calamares is in the menu and it wasn't bad at less than a hundred pesos. I should have kept the receipts. I couldn't remember the exact figures.

It is not my first time to dine here but good food always keeps me coming back. The thing I love most was the Chicken Salad which affordable at less than PHP150.00 for its quality.

Casa Verde also has the enormous burger which I have tried once and willing to try again. You can visit them at The Walk in Asiatown IT Park or at The Terraces in Ayala Center Cebu, or at the original branch which I have never been to and cannot discuss at this point.

Before I forget, these two brances have nice wall decors too which gives an ambiance that is a cross between fresh and vintage. I should take more photos next time.

kitchen alchemy part 1

At least twice, we crashed at a friend's place and crashed her kitchen too. We all don't have the luxury of time so we all take advantage of using any spare time to cook anything that comes to mind. In this case, we cooked whatever was in the kitchen.

Without much preparation, we dug into the cupboards and the fridge and found a few ingredients that can still make a decent meal.

Here's what my friends found in the cupboard:

• garlic clove
• red onion
• ground pepper (black)
• iodized salt
• sugar
• pork chops
• squash
• tomato sauce
• fish sauce
• soy sauce

Most Filipino kitchens always have spices so it's almost always easy to make a flavorful dish with anything.

Here's a list of instructions of what my friend basically did:

1. Dice the pork chops and set aside. Chop one clove of garlic and one onion bulb.
2. Pour one tablespoon of cooking oil in a skillet. (We used palm oil since this was what was in the kitchen.)
3. Saute pork fat, garlic and onion together. 
4. Add the rest of the diced meat. Add salt and pepper to taste. Cook over medium heat until brown.
5. Add enough water to drown the cooked meat. Toss in the diced squash. Pour in some soy sauce and fish sauce. Add squash and bring to boil.  
6. When squash is tender, add tomato sauce. Sugar may be added to cut sourness. Add more salt and pepper if needed. Let it simmer until most of the liquid is evaporated.

Serve the food with steamed rice. Here's some photos of the actual experiment.

We'll talk about more pork chops next time. Happy eating everyone!

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Tip for the day: "Preparing Garlic" from startcooking.com

Fruits in Ice Cream!

Why does your ice cream melt so fast? There must be animal or vegetable fat in it. Not anyone knows that but it's true. Most ice cream use substitutes for milk fat. If you want to make sure you're eating ice cream that contains only milk fat, try FIC's Gourmet, Premium and Lite flavors. Who's FIC or what's FIC? I'm always asked that question when I talk about my favorite local ice cream stall in the mall. FIC stands for Fruits in Ice Cream.


FIC or Fruits in Ice Cream ensures quality in their ice cream. They're not the cheapest ice cream around but like everyone says, you get what you paid for. I learned about them when I was on a hunt for green tea-flavored ice cream. I wouldn't say I'm an adventurous eater but I love to try not-so-common flavors. FIC's green tea ice cream will not disappoint you and I'm very sure of that. Can you even imagine it? To taste is to believe.

The green tea flavor belongs to the Premium line. FIC doesn't just sell green tea flavor though. They serve almost every possible flavor you can think of. They have the Gourmet line which includes Black Sesame. This sounds like a weird jelly bean flavor but actually was very creamy.


The Pistachio also is quite surprising. It wasn't too sweet but it smells really good. It was like eating sweet perfume. Just heavenly.


Pure cream may not turn out so good so the texture plays an important role here. Also, their ice cream is not too sweet and it's not like your regular ice cream doped with tons of sugar. That's another good think about their ice cream.

For the health conscious or those who just cannot take table sugar, FIC offers Lite ice cream. The natural fructose from the fruits is what makes the ice cream sweet. It has lower fat than most ice cream so you can have too much without too much worries.

FIC also has the Pinoy Sorbetes line which imitates the local flavors that we love such as chocolate. This however is mellorine-based so that means vegetable fat is used alongside pure milk fat. If you're not too discriminating, go ahead and try it.


Uniqueness is the key that is why FIC's Cebu branch is offering their ala mode series soon. You may think it's very much like your favorite brownie cup but the ice cream is so much better than what they usually put on top of your brownie. Here's one called Molten Lava.


I had Raspberry ice cream from the Gourmet line on my cake. So why doesn't the ice cream look all pink? That's what makes it interesting. You can actually see the real bits and pieces of raspberry.

Soon to come are FIC's milkshakes. When I took a sip of my Green Tea milkshake, I felt the same feeling I had when I first had my milk shake. Oh it feels good to be a kid again.


Here's another one called Mocha milkshake which my fellow food blogger Jason tried. I had a sip of it. It was just irresistible.


I devoured too many ice cream today and I can do this all over again. :D (I can't help but put on a huge smile)

To all the ice cream lovers out there, this is a must-try. Visit their stall in Ayala Center Cebu on the 2nd floor, right outside Salon de Rose. FIC also has another branch in SM City Cebu. Guess I'll see you around!