Category Archives: Food and Drink

The best Italian food in Manila

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What, you wonder, could possibly bring Super Sarap- a food blog so neglected I’ve stopped telling people about it- back to life?

How about Italian food? Not just any Italian food- the best I’ve had in Manila.

Time for full disclosure first: this restaurant is run by my stepdad. He’s Italian American and has been a restaurateur all his life. He knows food, good food. Food like this:

That, gentle reader, is Beef Carpaccio. The dish is made up of thin slivers of raw beef tenderloin, generous shavings of Parmigiano, fresh arugula, capers and a lemony vinaigrette whose memory has my mouth watering as I type this. It is swoon-worthy perfection on a plate, a dish they’ve simply gotten right. And in the five or six times I’ve been there, they’ve gotten it right every time (yes, I order it every time).

The restaurant is Casa Nostra, opened last June in Makati. They serve lunch, but the truth is that it’s absolutely lovely as a dinner destination: slightly out of the way on a quiet corner of Pasong Tamo Extension. The perfect place to have a love affair with food.

Speaking of which:

Behold the Linguine alla Vongole, a dish I’m too often disappointed by. Casa Nostra’s version is excellent. The clams are juicy, the noodles packed with flavor. With every bite, I think this is what Italian food is about – fresh ingredients, bold flavors, and portions that would make an Italian Mamma proud.

Casa Nostra is located on the ground floor of the Ecoplaza Building on Pasong Tamo Extension.

Website: CasaNostra-restaurant.com
Facebook: facebook.com/CasaNostraRestaurant

Happy New Year!

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We greeted the New Year with family last night, feasting on Roast Turkey, Mashed Potatoes, Spanish Green Beans, Baked Rigatoni, Cinnamon Rolls, Thick Hot Chocolate, Chilled Champagne, and ginger-scented Suman. The food was excellent, the fireworks short but spectacular, and the company wonderful.  I had so much fun, I lost my voice. I’ve been whispering all day.

For 2008, my resolutions are simple:

  1. Eat less junk food.
  2. Make Smitten Kitchen’s Red Velvet Cake.
  3. Participate in more Lasang Pinoy editions.
  4. Cook at home more, eat out less, and
  5. Spend more time outdoors, especially with the dogs.

Happy, Happy New Year to you!

Home for Halloween

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Trick or Treat

We celebrated Halloween at home this year, watching the kids in costume come and go, and RUNNING OUT OF CANDY IN 45 MINUTES. I’m not kidding, 45 minutes is how long our 151 bags of candy lasted.

Some of the family came over to enjoy some smoked sausages, sauerkraut, and potato salad (all made by my superstar husband), red candied apples (made by me!), and keg of beer (that’s right, a whoooole kegger!)

Naturally, I forgot to photograph the food and drinks, but here’s some of the candy:Halloween Candy

and a photo of our staff, dressed up and ready to scare the neighborhood kids:

Halloween Staff

We’re still recovering.

Delicious Food Blogs: He had me at “Kalamansi”

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It’s one of the things I love most about the web: a link here, a click there, a pop-up here, a splog there, and suddenly- you strike gold. It could be a photograph that captures your imagination, a social networking site that connects you to an old friend you miss, a search engine that makes you feel really lucky, or a blog entry that just makes you smile.

It was the latter that led me to first discover Burnt Lumpia, with his entry titled I Think I Shall Name Him… Kal!, wherein he- an American Pinoy named Marvin- searches for and finds a kalamansi tree to call his own:

“Pssst!” I heard him say to me as I walked past.

“Pssssssst!” I heard the familiar call again.

“Pssssssssssst! Hoy!”

And there he was, a lone Filipino hidden behind Meyer Lemons and Valencia Oranges. I had found the one and only Kalamansi tree in the nursery. Woohoo!

Since then, Burnt Lumpia has been one of my daily blog visits. His latest post, An American Pinoy in Paris, features, among other things, some mouthwatering gelato and- my all-time favorite, and what has to beone of the greatest inventions of man- french macarons. Mmmm.

This is my first post in a new category for this blog, Delicious Food Blogs. You can expect more features on other food blogs I love coming soon.

Disappointing Dessert

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To go
Recently, Louie and I decided we wanted something sweet and gooey- and thought that a slice of TGIFriday’s Chocolate Pecan Cluster would satisfy.

What a complete disappointment. It didn’t even come close to the photo on their menu- it was small, narrow and flat, and the accompanying cup of caramel was strangely… grainy.

Ordered as take-out from TGIFriday’s in Alabang Town Center.