Foodies’ year ender

T’is the season to be merry indeed, that is what December brings every year, no matter what. It isn’t the season to get stressed from work and politics, so let’s leave all that behind and feel the holiday spirit. And because good food is always a part of the Christmas season, we are bringing you here some good tidings from the hyper-active local restaurant scene. For this column and the next, I shall be bringing you a dozen of the restaurants we have chosen for 2012 for the twelve days of Christmas before the Nativity. Let’s start with three of the food parks our roving B&L team discovered. In January, we featured the Merkanto in Mayaman St., UP Village, Quezon City, one of the many food parks that have sprouted in the metro. The good thing about food parks is they bring you a wide array of options and at Merkanto, they tour you around the world via some internationally-known popular cuisines. They have Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese,

India, Jamaica and the like. They are also in big open-air locations so their participating outlets are spared the big overhead costs of fancy set-ups and air-conditioning. Merkanto’s Brazilian stall features pork belly churrasco, among many others, and their Moroccan fare has their popular Chicken Tajine. They offer authentic Indonesia fare with their Nasi Goreng and Chicken Sate. If you’re thinking British, what can be more Brit than the quintessential Fish and Chips and from India, the ever-present Roti and Mitha Kjaha. For their Philipppine stall, however, they chose to offer only craft beer, but a good selection of the artisan beverage.

Another good find that falls under the food park category is Happy Tables, but the owners, Oye and his wife

Marissa would rather call it a restaurant hub. They maintain the casual atmosphere of a food park but took it up a notch higher with an air-conditioned second level, spending more for a happy food court experience than the competitors. Their international locators include their Japanese outlet which specializes in Katsuro; their Butcher’s Snack where they prepared a hearty snack of sautéed sausages with caramelized onions for the team; Tod, Nick and Pau (named after the couple’s three children) where they happily made our crew sample their carbonara loaded with bacon, mushroom and garlic as well as their fall-off-the-bone baby back ribs in succulent barbecue sauce; Wings Central where you can have your fill of wings done more than a dozen ways; their slow-roasted prime beef that was roasted no less than 10 hours in the oven for that juicy, mouthwatering goodness; Mo and Belle’s that makes exquisite desserts for special occasions like weddings, debuts, etca and everyday desserts like authentic French apple pie and Tira Misu, and cocktails like their heady Tequila Sunrise.

Happy Tables can be found at Congressional Avenue in Quezon City. And the third food park is Montare Events Place in

Marikina, which the proprietor Kaye Tano also calls a food hub because of the many food stalls they have in this beautifully landscaped establishment. The food stalls were made from re-purposed wood by Big Manila, each one of them themed. It is also a popular events place in Marikina for weddings, debuts, etc. They have hearty burger steaks, popular Mexican fare like their huge Nachos Grande; the

Wings Hub for a wide selection of chicken wings; the Fish & Chips with malt vinegar; the popular Pinoy Pares; the

Tempura Hub; and their various milk shake varieties. They can make mean Margaritas and Tequilas too. They are open daily from 3 p.m. to midnight.

One of the more remarkable strictly carnivorous dining places we discovered is Meat Slut in Lilac St. in Marikina City. People have started discovering the place by word of mouth and the owners, one of them Chef

Ryan Ganzon, is apologetic about the traffic they are causing in the area. They have made the art of cooking steaks down to a science through their precision cooking technique. The meat is first vacuum-packed, then cooked sous vide (hot water bath) in controlled temperature of 54 degrees (half of the boiling point of 100) for hours before it is torched for about two to three minutes to caramelize the outside. Voila, it is ready to serve with a seasoning of simple sea salt. Their 72-hour short plate, one of their best sellers, is so called because it is cooked slowly for 72 hours in the water bath. And then we have the Japanese fusion restaurant called

10 Ronin. Ronin is a Samurai without a master in the 12th century, and because the restaurant is owned by five couples, there is no one master in Ten Ronin. All of them are masters because they are all hands-on with the operations.

10 Ronin offers food that is Japanese-inspired but cooked Pinoy-style. Their best-selling ramen is their Tinola

Ramen, for instance, the perfect comfort food especially on rainy days. Others include their Sukiyaki Beef belly done tapa style, their Yakitori dishes that include their very own Ronin UFC chicken which is marinated in, yes, UFC ketchup before it is cooked. 10 Ronin is located at Montoya St., Brgy, Sta. Cruz,

Makati City. They are open from 5:00 p.m. to 12 midnight seven days a week. It is not air-conditioned but the ventilation is excellent and the food servers are friendly and efficient. Price range is also well within the affordable zone.

And we would like to close this first part with a coffee shop owned by no less than seven medical doctors at the Medical City. Two of the owners, Drs. Eugene Ramos and

Raymond Munoz, top-notch cardiologists who are certified filtered coffee lovers live and swear by coffee and its benefits. They caution those who are non-coffee habituated, though, to go easy and not go more than five cups. Their brewed and artisanal coffee, a batch of which is called Healer’s Potions like the apothecaries of old, are called Elixir (with white choco and milk) Flash of Hysteria, and other eye-catching names. They go well with their cheesecakes (New York and Raspberry), Cerveza Negra Dark Choco Cake, ensaymadas, paninis and pastas. Not envisioned as a serious business at first but simply an extension of the lifestyle they have embraced, Soma Café has gone beyond that and is now profitable enough to warrant more branches in the near future. Catch the Part two of this series next week.

Mabuhay!!! Be proud to be a Filipino. For comments & inquiries (email) sunshine.television@ yahoo.com