menu to a culinary adventure Enter and enjoy. Sinful abandon is permitted. -- written on the menu at ZigguratIn ancient times, a ziggurat was a rectangular stepped tower in ancient Mesopotamia, surmounted by a temple, believed to be a stairway that linked earth to heaven. In modern times, a Ziggurat is a fantastically unique eating experience in a very out of the way place in the bowels of Makati. I wouldn’t say it’s a hole-in-the-wall place, because its interiors and menu belie that. Ziggurat interiors Upon entering, you have to quickly orient yourself to the smallness of the space. Seating is on pillows laid around low tables, so eating is done cross-legged and barefoot. It’s best that you wear something comfortable, especially in terms of footwear. Save the mini skirt and knee-high lace-up boots for another place. the "chairs" lie low. That's Kaie studiously studying the menu Ziggurat serves Indian, Mediterranean, African, and Mid-eastern cuisine. It seems like a culinary grab ...

Tita Cely is the one on the extreme left, enjoying her food. I wanted to write more about Tita Cely (Kalaw), the culinary genius behind the Bicol Express. That article only barely scratched the surface of what this cook can do. As I mentioned earlier, my Bin and I bought food from the San Lorenzo Sunday market last weekend. Tita Cely has a stall there serving the food that she offers in her store at Market! Market! She serves nothing but the most exceptional of home-cooked Filipino dishes: my Bin and I went home with generous servings of laing, longganisa (native spiced sausage), binagoongan (pork dish cooked with shrimp paste), and of course Tita Cely’s revered Bicol Express. an array of food at the Sinigang Bar Eating the food at home, my Bin and I couldn’t help but exclaim over how good the food was. There we were eating, our mouths ablaze from the Bicol Express and all I could think was, “Shoot, Filipino food is so good. ...

Fire me up Bicol Express is a fiery dish – and I do mean fiery – an explosive combination of green finger chilies and pork strips simmered in coconut milk (gata) until thick. I bow to Tita (Aunt) Cely’s culinary prowess, the genius inventor behind this dish; so adept is she in the kitchen that I’m sure she can make even chopped liver taste good (and she probably already has!). The chili pepper used here is what I know as siling pangsigang - the long green chili used to spice up our native sour soup – although I know some people know it as siling mahaba (long green chilies). Our local green chilies are really not that hot – I liken them to jalapeños (perhaps they even are). It’s the tiny red ones you have to watch out for. Bicol is a Philippine province known for its spicy dishes, most of which are cooked using gata. It’s mistakenly assumed that Bicol Express hails from Bicol, but it’s actually from Los Baños, a province just an hour’s drive away from Manila. The ...

Up until a year and a half ago, it seemed that every city had a weekend market except for Makati: the old Sidcor had been resurrected at the Lung Center in Quezon City, Greenhills had its own weekend market, and so did Alabang. Then in June of 2004, the Salcedo Saturday market sprung up at the parking lot on Tordesillas St. It coughed and sputtered a little at the beginning, but is now so popular that there is a waiting list of about 100 vendors itching to rent some real estate there. Hoping to share some of that love, the San Lorenzo (San Lo) Sunday Market has sprouted at the parking lot on Legaspi St. corner Herrera St. Because it’s only a few months old, there aren’t too many stalls just yet, but this weekend market boasts of an organic section, which includes produce, organic sweeteners and grains, and natural medicines to cure every ill. I may be wrong about this, but I think the San Lo market is where the Organic Market has transferred to from their previous digs at Greenbelt. Last Sunday, my Bin and I were road-testing our ...

French for “pot of cream,” this dessert is a luxuriously creamy custard. Some people describe it as the “ultimate pudding,” but somehow “pudding” seems too rustic a word to describe something so small and genteel. Indeed, practically any dessert baked in a ramekin somehow ups the fancy factor a notch -- and there are some people who are suckers for individually-sized desserts. Going through this month’s entry for Sugar High Friday, which is all about custard, I got a hankering for … you guessed it, custard. I decided to ignore it, but you know how cravings are sometimes; as Morrissey sang in his 1994 song, “The more you ignore me, the closer I get.” You get the picture. Oh, to be a slave to one’s cravings! I wanted something quick and not too involved, but I also didn’t want to settle for a pudding. My tongue yearned to be caressed by a texture so smooth. I finally decided on a pots de crème (POH duh krem) recipe from Richard Sax’s Classic Home Desserts, one of my most cherished baking books, a got-to-have for any baker. Pot de crème is ...

I was in such a bad mood yesterday, it wasn’t funny: I bit off the heads of everyone who spoke to me; driving around in my car, I took every honk from other motorists as a direct assault on my person; even my usual 5-kilometer run failed to flood my body with feel-good endorphins. By evening, I was convinced that the world was plotting against me. Sometimes, there are obvious reasons for why I get into a bad mood; at other times, I just can’t say why I feel like crap. Yesterday was one of those days. I was as grouchy as a hippo with a hernia (paraphrasing Zazu in “The Lion King.”) Most men I know would label this kind of ambivalent mood swing as “PMS,” but no, it wasn’t that. When I’m down and out of sorts, I make Butterscotch Pudding. The blending of butter, brown sugar, and cream has a way of lifting my spirit, making me feel sane again. My sister shops when she’s in a bad mood. I make butterscotch pudding. Butterscotch pudding from the box, (and any other pudding for that matter), cannot be ...

French toast was probably the very first thing I ever cooked by myself. I must’ve been about 9 or 10 years old, and I was entranced with the recipe that I found in one of those kiddie cookbooks.Fast forward to adulthood. I pretty much forgot about French toast once I hit high school and college. There just wasn’t time for breakfast, and when there was, it was usually of the rice-fried egg- and meat sort (tapsilog) or cereal. Now, almost ten – yes, 10! years since I last ate French toast, or what the French call pain perdu (pahn-per-DU: lost bread), I find myself cooking it at least once a week, usually on the weekends, when a big breakfast just begs to be had. The method for dipping bread into batter and then frying it is a French way of using up leftover bread. I have my preferences when it comes to bread, but I am no bread snob. Even supermarket-type/corner bakery square loaves have their place with me, and in a pinch they work well. However, for my ...

Animal crackers and cocoa to drink That is the finest of suppers, I think When I’m grown up and can have what I please, I think I shall always insist upon these. Christopher Morley – American author and journalistThis is the most charming little treasure of a book that I’ve come across in a long time. A book devoted solely to my favorite drink on earth: Hot Chocolate, which is also its title. Written by American restaurateur Michael Turback, the book is just 150 pages long, and contains 60 recipes from noted pastry chefs and preeminent chocolatiers. Hot Chocolate kicks off with a Chocologue, a primer of sorts on ingredients that go into hot chocolate as well as its tools and techniques. From there, it branches off into six chapters: Ancestral Hot Chocolates; European Classics; Modern Variations; Spiked Hot Chocolates; Nostalgic Hot Chocolates; and Hot Chocolate Pairings, a neat little chapter that wraps up the book by suggesting sweet treats to eat with this hot drink (i.e. beignets, cinnamon-dusted churros, chocolate cookies, etc.) The chapters include hot chocolate drinks spanning the range from the traditional to those spiked with cayenne and liqueurs. Since ...