[718] Cooking

My mother-in-law gave me her secret recipe for chicken inasal. That's Ilonggo style barbecued chicken, if you ask me. I haven't cooked it in a long time, but I've been having this urge to cook again.

So maybe this weekend I'll try to experiment and make a somewhat healthy chicken inasal. Instead of using the usual breast, leg, thigh, or drumstick I'll use exclusively chicken breast and thigh fillets with no skin. Sacrilege, I know. But I've been curious how something like that would taste for the longest time.

Also instead of grilling it over hot charcoal I will use our electric grill. Again, sacrilege. Again, I don't care. I want to experiment.

Cooking was an outlet for me before, I'd like it to become an outlet again. An outlet for stress, an outlet for creativity, and an outlet for whatever it is inside me.

I should turn cooking into my hobby.

Out.

[717] Restaurant Review - Nadai Fujisoba @ SM Aura

We've only eaten twice in Nadai Fujisoba at SM Aura. The first time we ate there I was shocked. Shocked why we never tried eating there before! Not only is the food really good, the price is very, very reasonable too! Oh, and did I mention they have free tenkasu (the deep fried  bits of tempura batter) to sprinkle to your udon / soba dishes as you please?

I can't find the official website (because I'm too lazy and the internet is so darn slow) but here's a link to Nadai Fujisoba's menu. You can find the prices of the items pictured below there.

Before I go on with the positives, just one quick negative. The service. Yes the crew are attentive. Yes they are pleasant to talk to. There are times when they get your order they forget something when they repeat your order. Probably because they don't write down orders. I have no idea why they don't write it down though. They sometimes have to be asked more than once for a spoon and fork set for my daughter, who still hasn't mastered using chopsticks. Basically very minor issues, nothing that would stop me from eating there again.

Again, the food there is good and the price is very reasonable. Just by the strength of these two points I am willing to go there again. And again. And again.

The first time we ate there I had the Yasai Kakiage Ten Tama Soba. It's basically a soba dish with a gigantic piece of kakiage on top. The kakiage has the usual onions and green leafy vegetables and carrots. It tasted great. The broth was light and not too salty. The soba noodles were firm. And the kakiage, good God, the kakiage. It tasted great with the broth, and it tasted great dipped in tempura sauce. It tasted great without any of the two either. It also had an egg, I thought it would be an ajitama egg but it wasn't. It went well with the soba though.

Yasai Kakiage Ten Tama Soba

Speaking of kakiage, they also have a side dish called Kakiage Mori. It consists of three different kakiages. The one on the dish above, a shrimp kakiage, and the best one of all (for Maica and I) one that has pickles. According to the menu it is called the Beni Shoga because that is the ingredient used in the kakiage.

Kakiage Mori Set (clockwise from top - Yasai Kakiage, Ko-ebi Kakiage, Beni Shoga (our favorite of the three)

After some quick research online, Beni shoga is a type of pickle, or tsukemono, made from ginger. You usually encounter this type of pickle in other restaurants that serve gyudon. Interestingly Nadai Fujisoba also serves gyudon and I may try it the next time we eat there.

This lunch (Easter lunch!) I ordered the Kitsune Soba to try something different. Another quick search on the internet tells me that the tofu product on top of the soba is not yuba as I originally thought, but aburaage - a deep fried tofu. The broth and soba noodles were the same as the one on the Yasai Kakiage Ten Tama Soba so I don't need to describe them again. They were good. That's it.

Kitsune Soba with Aburaage topping

Quick aside, whenever I eat there I add generous helping of the chili powder they provide. After checking my dear internet again, this chili powder is called Shichimi Togarashi. And yes, they make an already delicious broth come alive with some subtle heat.

Maica ordered the same dish both times we visited Nadai Fujisoba. The main reason for this is because they have the Teisyoku Set, that offers a rice bowl dish with a noodle dish. She's ordered the tendon (shrimp tempura) with kake soba (soba noodles with scallions) both times so she and Martina could share. Trust me, the teisyoku set is not only worth it, but it is good for two people. She says the food is good, and I believe her. Even Martina loves the tempura.

Teisyoku Set consisting of Ebi Tendon and Kake Soba

So there you have it. I highly recommend Nadai Fujisoba at SM Aura! Be patient with the staff because the food is worth it. Taste-wise and money-wise.

Out.

[716] Internet Speeds in Metro Manila

The internet speeds at home are really slow now. I can't use my laptop to browse facebook or blog. It takes ages to open either Google Mail or Yahoo Mail.

So how can I blog right now? I'm using the Blogger app on my iPad. For facebook I use facebook lite on the Nexus 5X the office assigned to me.

That's how bad the internet is at home. I don't know if it's because there are plenty people connected to the wifi (I hope not) or if my laptop is just old. Or maybe the number of broadband users increased in the area hence the significant decrease in internet speeds.

Pretty sure it ain't my laptop since despite being four or five years old it still is an i7 with 8GB RAM.

Out.