Food Experience: From a Birthday Party

Parties and celebrations are always the best time to try new foods.  Lots of people gathered to celebrate the 19th birthday of our neighbor’s daughter. It’s the most recent birthday party I have attended. It was very simple, yet fun. I enjoyed tasting different kinds of food.

Now, as promised, let's start tasting them again, one by one! 

First, let me introduce the birthday cake. It’s made by Goldilocks®.
This cake is very sweet with a hint of lemon. I ate most of the icing candy that’s there. They’re very sweet!!! Overall, the cake just tastes sweet, very sweet in fact, that your mouth ends up sticky. You need to make sure you have water with you when you eat this cake. I must admit, though, that the decoration is nice.

The main courses:

This is the fish I cooked with sumac. It’s a little bit salty and sweet. It was finished before the day ended.

Boiled veggies paired with tomatoes, mixed with sweet shrimp paste. The natural taste of these vegetables; okra, eggplant and string beans, a taste of tomatoes and sweet shrimp paste makes it very interesting. It’s delicious with rice.

I was told that this is Pork Adobo. It tastes good but it doesn't taste like Adobo to me. The Adobo I know is rich in flavor, dry, with lots of peppercorn, lots of soy sauce and vinegar and a hint of sweetness. This one is bland with a little bit of soy sauce and vinegar, salt and no peppercorn, and that’s it. I’m not criticizing the food negatively, or being ungrateful of some sort. I just promised to make a review so I did. When it comes to food, I try to be as honest in my description as possible so that my readers will experience the same food experience I had.

This is Tilapia in coconut milk. It’s cooked with pechay (pak choi), ginger, onion and a bit of salt to taste. I prefer this with a bit of vinegar.

This is called Adobong Kangkong (River Spinach). It’s a dish made of Kangkong (River Spinach) vegetable cooked in soy sauce and vinegar just like pork adobo. It’s a very famous dish in the Philippines.

This is bitter gourd sautéed with small shrimps, tomatoes, garlic and onion. It has a hint of bitterness, just enough salt and a little bit of sourness from the tomato. It’s also very good with rice. 

This is bihon, it’s one of the Chinese noodles mixed with assorted vegetables, like chayote, green beans, cabbage, lots of shrimps, and abundantly sprinkled with cheddar cheeeeeeese! I loved this.  This is sometimes eaten with kalamansi (calamondin). All you need to do is squeeze one or two kalamansi (calamondin) on it and you’re ready to eat it.

This is dish is called Palabok. It is one of the variations of noodles that were introduced by the Chinese. It’s mixed with salt eggs (the ones with red-dyed shells). It was also served with lots of cheese, crumbs of chicharon (dried and fried pork fats, or skins). It’s also eaten the same way as Bihon. You can also squeeze some kalamansi (calamondin).

This dish is called Lumpia (loom-pya). You can stuff it with anything but this one is stuffed with mongo sprouts with a little bit of sweet potatoes. Cooking mongo sprouts is a bit tricky because it overcooks very easily. When you cook it, make sure to remove it from the stove as soon as its own juices boil and remove it from the stove, cover it with a lid to let its own steam to cook it thoroughly. Otherwise it will overcook. I think that’s what happened with this lumpia. It’s overcooked. Lumpia is best served with vinegar with a hint of sweet. The vinegar can be spicy but it depends on your taste.  

Now this is what I have been talking about, the kalamansi, or calamondin in English. You can squeeze it on any kind of noodles and everything will taste interesting.

Side dish:

Peeled cucumber salad with onion and vinegar, a bit of sugar and dashed with ground peppercorn.

Hotdogs and marshmallows on a stick for kids!

Now, let’s go to desserts!

This one is called Biko. It’s made of glutinous rice cooked in coconut milk and brown sugar, dashed with anis. I loved this!!!

This cake came last. It’s from Red Ribbon®. It’s a chocolate cake covered with mocha icing, sprinkled with chocolate chips and decorated with chocolate-covered marshmallows.

Okay! Those are the foods that I have tasted. I hope you enjoy! 

Next, I will be sharing with you my My Doña ElenaTurkish Cuisine cooking class adventure, so stay tuned! :)