Rustan’s Supermarket’s Ciao Italia ! was the best opportunity for to see a great chef in action. This time, Chef Carmine Pece shares with us his secret to delicious Tiramisu, without having to use mascarpone cheese.
There are quite a few restaurants that have not changed the way they cook and prepare food. One of these restaurants is Milky Way. According to one of their employees, several generations of the Gamboa family have gone to great lengths to maintain the taste and quality of their fare, which is probably why I dine at this restaurant every chance I get.
Most people, including myself, would love to go to a restaurant the serves fresh pasta. Not the one from a bag but pasta that has been made from scratch, that is, from flour to dough to sauce to your plate. I’ve only tasted fresh pasta once at a really expensive restaurant, which my sister paid for (lucky me).
Last weekend (June 15), I was lucky enough to witness Italian executive chef Carmine Pece of the Cafe Puccini at a cooking demo inside the Rustan’s Supermarket, Power Plant mall. It was father’s day and there were a lot of people at the mall and Rustan’s took advantage of the large crowd by celebrating Ciao Italia, an Italian food festival to be celebrated throughout June. Meeting chefs have always been a treat for me, not only because they cook well, but because I haven’t met a chef I didn’t like. They’re funny, witty, gracious and accommodating, always willing to answer every question, no matter how stupid or inane (can you make tiramisu without Mascarpone cheese? Apparently, this chef can!).
Bulalo is a dish of boiled beef leg, with the marrow included. Boiling usually takes many hours, but the job is faster with a pressure cooker, though I think it still takes more than an hour to get that fall-off-the-bone goodness. Compared to Nilagang Baka (literally translated also means boiled beef), Bulalo hardly has any vegetable accompaniments. Mostly just the leg and the soup, which when done right gives a “milky” taste mostly because some bone marrow mixes with the soup. Nilagang Baka uses mostly the upper beef shank and is usually very lean with small amounts of fat and collagen for flavor. Vegetables are added to nilagang baka for better sustenance. But the bulalo is just plain food hedonism. All the goodness of the beef and fat mixed with marrow in a delicious steaming bouillon. And I drove 45 kilometers to Tagaytay City in Cavite to sample this wonderful dish.
I apologize as this post has nothing to do with food. It is about Rhett Eala launching his My Pilipinas series of Collezione shirts. So what’s unique about it? Rhett Eala has given us the opportunity to be both fashionable and patriotic. Proudly Pinoy, the My Pilipinas series is the perfect embodiment of art meeting fashion.
The launch, held at the CAV wine bar and restaurant, was wonderfully hosted by Carlos Celdran, whose image I would love to share with mine on the same frame.
