Tag Archives: Filipino dishes

The Little Man’s Aristocrat Birthday Lunch

foodie adventures, restaurants, Filipino dishes, Aristocrat, dining out

our birthday pancit of the day 🙂

We went to Aristocrat in SM North ~ The Block for the little man’s birthday lunch. Although this restaurant is well-known for their barbecue, we decided to skip it that day since the little man is not yet eating that. We opted for their friend chicken, instead, coupled with their pancit and ordered a couple more dishes. For our serving of vegetables, we had an order of fresh lumpia and laing. To complete our meal, we also had a serving of their beef caldereta.

foodie adventures, restaurants, Filipino dishes, dining out

foodie adventures, restaurants, Filipino dishes, dining out

The little man was preoccupied with his new toys, a pair of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figure, which we gifted him for his birthday. He only had a couple of spoonfuls of his serving of pancit before he went on to play with his new toys. The grown ups, on the other hand, had a really satisfying meal. I simply love the fresh lumpia and its sauce! Laing is something I do not eat quite often, since I do not know how to prepare it, so I really enjoyed this dish. It was just delicious with the right amount of spice in it. The crowd favorite that afternoon, though, will have to be the beef caldereta. It was tasty and the beef is so tender. I wish I can make my own version of this dish, I’d probably cook it every week if I know how to prepare it! 🙂

foodie adventures, restaurants, Filipino dishes, dining out

our new favorite, Caldereta 🙂

foodie adventures, restaurants, Filipino dishes, dining out

The food is sumptuous and everyone is all smiles after our meal. The crew is very friendly and attentive and the ambiance is just excellent. The only thing that puts me off is when we had our leftovers wrapped to be taken home. We found out the crew failed to include the leftover caldereta in our bag. It was quite a disappointment since we only get to eat a little portion of the dish and the leftover would’ve been perfect for dinner at home later on that night. Oh well, I am sure the crew did not do it on purpose.

foodie adventures, restaurants, Filipino dishes, dining out

Big thanks to our designated photographer of the day for the photos 🙂

Aristocrat ~ SM North EDSA, The Block
3rd Level, The Block, North Avenue cor. EDSA, Quezon City
Tel. No. 442-0149

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cooking with gata for the first time

food musings, Filipino dishes, home cooking

I really have a very limited kitchen knowledge and most of the dishes I can cook involves very simple food preparation: saute and fry. I was feeling rather inspired during our last trip to the grocers and grabbed one of these coconut milk cans with the hope of cooking something with it soon. I love dishes that has gata and back in the days, these were the dishes that I look forward to the most whenever my mama cooked. And I really miss eating those dishes, so mustering enough guts, I added a few vegetables that would go well with gata onto my grocery cart. I got a medium-sized squash and a bunch of string beans and decided to cook ginataang sitaw at kalabasa.

food musings, Filipino dishes, home cooking

I cooked the dish a few days ago and I must say it wasn’t so bad for a start, even my sister liked it. I just need to add in a dash of salt to taste next time around. What do you think?

Hopefully I would be able to cook more vegetables in my kitchen and I also hope I can get the little man to try them, too! I shall be looking for more interesting vegetable and gata dishes online as soon as I am done reading this interesting post about a carpenter’s toolbox and a gripper. 🙂