Food round-up: do gooders, new chocolates, and artisanal bread

A FAVORITE Filipino restaurant of many, Romulo Café is introducing familyand friend-favorites as part of its offmenu buffet choices.

Among the dishes now available for small orders is Lola Virginia’s Chicken Relleno — an original recipe from statesman Carlos P. Romulo’s wife Virginia Llamas — a roast chicken stuffed with ground pork, raisins, chorizo, and peas.

“It’s one of my grandmother’s specialties,” said Sandie Romulo-Squillantini, the restaurant’s owner and granddaughter of the Romulo couple.

She said her grandparents usually served their guests special food, including the chicken relleno.

“People are saying why don’t you serve it as special? If you want to order it, yes, you can. The US Angus bistek (beef steak), the cochinillo (roast suckling pig), the relleno (stuffed chicken), ginataang laing

(taro leaves cooked in coconut milk), the pako (fern) salad in the buffet [right now], they’re all off-the-menu,” said Ms. Squillantini during a media tasting on Oct. 10.

Romulo Café is offering those dishes and more as special buffet food for functions that cater to 20-30 people.

The off-menu choices include everything from appetizers to desserts. PAN DE SAL is a staple on Filipino breakfast tables. With the onslaught of rising prices though, families have had to scrimp and save. Mondelez International’s Eden, a processed cheese food, kicked off its #GiveGoodness campaign on World Pan de Sal Day (the country’s counterpart to World Bread Day, which fell on Oct. 16). The campaign’s launch took place at Quezon City’s Kamuning Bakery Café which participated in giving away Eden goodie bags to guests and the local community together with 50,000 pieces of Some of the campaign’s beneficiaries include Metro Manila’s urban poor families, Quezon City residents, public school teachers and students, among others.

The event is auspicious on two counts: while it helped give a meal to the community surrounding Kamuning Bakery, it also served to announce the bakery’s reopening. The bakery, which was razed in a fire last February, has been in the neighborhood since the 1930s, and was known for its traditional recipe for

*****

Who knew that the Cadbury bar, a staple in supermarkets, has a royal pedigree? Founded in the 1800s by John Cadbury, Queen Victoria awarded a royal warrant to the Cadbury family as manufacturers of chocolate and cocoa to her person. Her descendant, the current Queen Elizabeth II, also awarded a royal warrant to the company.

As a provider of chocolate to royalty, Cadbury knows indulgence, and has released a new line, Cadbury Dark Milk, a combination of dark chocolate and milk chocolate, all in one bar. It comes in three flavors: Perfectly Blended Chocolate, Crunchy Salted Caramel, and Roasted & Caramelized Hazelnuts.

The bars will be available at leading department stores, supermarkets, and

For starters, there is crispy squid coated in a chili-honey-garlic glaze; a chorizo empanada (pasty); and tinapa (smoked fish) roll with red egg and tomatoes in a lumpia (spring roll) wrapper.

There’s also the shrimp pasta with generous servings of aligue (crab roe) in the sauce. The spaghettini has sautéed shrimps in garlic and olive oil.

For the main courses, besides the beloved chicken relleno, there are cochinillo, ginataang langka ( jackfruit cooked in coconut milk), and pesang apahap which is a fish stew made with barramundi.

To end the meal and to seal the deal are mango pavlova, a meringue-based dessert, and suman sa latik (glutinous rice with caramelized coconut cream) served in a shot glass. convenience stores by the end of October. It comes in 160 gram bars with a suggested retail price of P155.

*****

International flair and a heart for Asia is the concept behind Baker Brothers Manila, which opens this month in SM Aura.

Baker Brothers is the brainchild of Swedish-born chef Robert Lilja, who moved to the Philippines more than 27 years ago. Since then, he has worked as a culinary consultant for hotels and restaurants and private chef for prominent Filipino families. He is currently the executive chef of Maria Luisa’s Garden Room at the Makati Garden Club.

Mr. Lilja’s new restaurant offers unique pastries, Asian-European comfort food dishes, and a wide array of classic breads. He labels his signature dishes as “Progressive Filipino Cuisine.” He has created his own versions of Filipino baked classics like Honey and Calamansi pastry, a rich Native Chocolate and (purple yam) Pie, Native Hot Chocolate with

(chili), and even milkshake. He also combines Asian and European flavors and techniques to create modern comfort food like Swedish Meatballs served with local sweet potato and cranberries instead of mashed potatoes and lingonberries; or his Korean Beef Lasagna, house-cured corned beef in (sour soup) gravy, and Asian Chicken Schnitzel or Boneless Pork Short Ribs — both served with kimchi fried rice on the side. There are vegetarian, gluten-free, and keto-friendly options in the menu. While the restaurant is not yet 100% green, it is the team’s goal to continue looking for more sustainable replacements to common restaurant items in order to reduce its carbon footprint. Every day from 8 p.m. onwards, selected breads and pastries are offered at 50% off.

Asked about how the current state of inflation has been affecting the Romulo Cafés — there are three branches in the Philippines, in Makati, Alabang, and Tomas Morato in Quezon City, and one in London — the owner told BusinessWorld that they have no choice but to keep up.

“The [cost of] vegetables are so high now [but] we need to have certain price points so there are times when you cannot do anything about it. You just have to suck it up and take the loss. No, we didn’t increase our prices — it’s hard. We have a certain market and we cannot raise our prices [ just] like that and expect people to understand because they also have a hard time buying. We just hope that prices will stabilize in the future,” said Ms. Squillantini. —