My un-posted favorites. Mostly Manila but also Shanghai.

YUM and YAY! Here you go!

Oyster omelette (so many "combinations" in such a simple dish!): Ordered this probably 4-5 times in the same restaurant during my trip to Shanghai because my aunt goes to that restaurant a lot. It's a Southeast Asian restaurant, where they have Malaysian-Chinese, Malaysian and Singaporean food (although I've been told by my aunt's Malaysian friends that there is no such thing as Singaporean food really). Anyways, this falls under the Malaysian-Chinese category, and since there a lot of people from the Fujian province (in China) who immigrated to Malaysia, like in the Philippines, this dish was exactly how I remembered eating it in the Philippines. It's pretty simple conceptually--it's an omelette with oysters, salt, soy sauce, Chinese wine and pepper, but the addition of tapioca starch gives a chewy texture to the oyster omelette that goes nicely with the fresh cilantro that they sprinkle on top (crunchy-chewy combination). Eat with ketchup or sweet-chili sauce for the sweet-salty combination.

Nasi Lemak with Chicken Rendang: According to my aunt's Malaysian friends, this is served on the streets of Malaysia as breakfast food wrapped in a banana leaf, where you can pick what viand you want with your rice. But let me break down the components of the dish...

rice=pandan rice (which is why it is green), fried egg, fried small fish (called dilis in Tagalog and ikam bilis in Malaysian) with peanuts, raw cucumbers, sambal sauce (spicy chili pepper based sauce) and the chicken rendang--which is chicken boiled for a while in coconut milk and spices until its sauce is reduced and very flavorful. Overall, this dish was pretty spicy (from the sambal and chicken rendang) but not overtly so--the complexity of flavor from the spices+coconut milk was still there.

Mochi...is one of my favorite dessert-type snacks because it is chewy and not too sweet (AND they're colorful). When I saw these little stalls called Mochi Sweets around Shanghai (and apparently other Asian countries as well), I was pretty happy and knew that I just HAD to go and get a mochi (or two), even if they were a bit overpriced for mochi (around 6 RMB for one mochi--close to US$1). They had a LOT of flavors--many of them non-traditional (traditionally it's sweet red beans) flavors, like dark chocolate, chestnut, taro, sakura, and etc.

What made this mochi different from other mochi was that it is a cross between normal mochi (that does not need to be refrigerated) and mochi ice cream (which obviously needs to be frozen). The mochi from this store was frozen, but had some type of custardish/cream thing along with the respective filling; this custard cream thing made the mochi filling a lot...smoother than normal--both texturally and taste-wise.

Also, I liked it so much that I made it "kind of birthday cake," since I didn't really have one on my actual birthday (although I did "wish" on an egg tart). But yes, I wished on the mochi as well.

Buko juice: I really love drinking fresh coconut juice; it brings back memories of hot summer days in Manila when I would open my fridge and see pitchers of fresh coconut juice with chunks of coconut meat which was cold, refreshing and sweet. It's harder than you think to get a good coconut--if it's too old, the meat cannot be scraped off from the shell, and if it's too young, the meat is clear and jelly-like, without much flavor to it. Mmmm. I had this 3 times when I was in Manila and once in Shanghai. The nice thing with coconut juice is that it has no recipe--it always tastes exactly like you remembered it.

Taho: I would say that it's quite difficult to describe this dessert/snack in an appetizing way to a non-Asian person, because it's basically hot soft tofu with brown sugar syrup and tapioca balls--yet very delicious. Taho was my after-school treat during elementary and middle school, where a taho vendor would be outside the school gates, and my mom would buy a cups of hot and fresh taho for about 20 pesos (probably US$0.50). I used to not really like eating taho at times, especially since it was hot and the weather was already hot and humid, but I was craving this a lot when I was in Shanghai and Manila. It's hard to find this in the US, so I was happy. :)

Filipino Taho...with brown sugar and tapioca balls

Chinese Tou Hua (literally "bean flower")...normally served with white sugar+ginger syrup and does not necessarily have tapioca balls

Kare-Kare (picture from internet): Yayy. One of my favorite Filipino foods that I had the last day I was in Manila. It's basically a peanut stew with tripe or ox tail with string beans, Chinese cabbage, eggplant and banana heart served with fermented shrimp paste (bagoong) on the side. Like all Filipino food, this dish is subject to interpretation, so the vegetables vary at times, and other people use goat meat instead of tripe or ox tail. On the Wikipedia page, it says that the name probably came from the Japanese word "kare" (curry) from pre-colonial times, but I've also read things saying that this dish may have its roots in Africa. In any case, it's been around for a while, and is one of the non-Spanish-inspired Filipino foods.

Texturally, it's a pretty thick stew which goes perfectly with a big mound of white rice. The meat is generally gelatinous (especially if you're using ox tail) or a bit chewy (if you're using tripe). As for the sauce, it has a mild peanutty flavor--think of peanut butter where the strong peanut flavor is mellowed out with soup stock, garlic and onions. The bagoong served on the side with this dish (which you mix into your own portion of kare-kare and rice) adds the saltiness to the mild sauce, with the strong, slightly pungent flavor of dried, fermented shrimps.

Turon: This was a snack that they often served in the cafeteria of my elementary, middle and high school for recess or after school. The basic turon concept is simple--turon is basically bananas (and sometimes jackfruit) wrapped in an egg roll wrapper and fried until the turon is a crispy golden-brown. Some variations include: putting brown sugar syrup on it before frying it (resulting in a caramelized flavor), eating it with ice cream (turon a la mode), or eating it with a pureed mango syrup--which we are shown with below. Freshly-made, hot turon is delicious--Philippine bananas are a lot sweeter (and less starchy than American bananas) too.
Filipino/Spanish Hot chocolate: Thick and slightly bitter, and served in a demitasse cup. Even by itself it is delicious. :)