Random Cravings: Binondo Treats

Exploring Binondo was a blast, and we got to take home a few treats from the Chinese pastry shops in the area to boot. This post is all about those treats, which we are actually planning on coming back for soon. Our stash ran out within a couple of days -- well, we got some for family too, we didn't keep everything we bought -- but it was all just so good. Here's a rundown.

Custard Hopia from Eng Bee Tin
I had no idea this existed until my friends opened the cooler at Eng Bee Tin and I saw hopia packets labeled custard and ube. Hopia is a sweet filled pastry. There are a ton of varieties and fillings, but the custard one is new to me, and let me tell you, it was insanely addictive. The husband and I just loved the cold custard filling. It kind of reminded us Camiguin's pastel, but with softer pastry.

Random Cravings: Foodie Discovery - Vom Fass

My friend Geli and I met up last week for lunch and tea. We wandered around Shangri-la Mall's new East Wing a bit and ended up making a foodie discovery. It's a new store called Vom Fass, which looked like a wine store from the outside but had so much more on the inside.

Vom Fass actually sells wines and spirits, but it also offers vinegars and oils. The unique thing about the store is that you can choose your own poison in a very personalized way. The place is filled with casks of hard liquor; earthen jars full of vinegars and oils; and flavored liqueurs in big, clear, bottles.

Random Cravings: For the Love of Soba

I love food and have quite a lot of favorites, but soba is one of the few things in the world that give me an instant jolt of happiness. Yes. Seriously. It's an incredibly simple Japanese dish, but it is also one of the tastiest, yummiest, most scrumptious, delectable things I have ever had the pleasure of eating.

Soba is what the Japanese call buckwheat, and also refers to the thin, grayish noodles that, in my opinion, are one of the best things to come out of Japan. It is usually served with soba tsuyu - a sauce made with  shoyu-based (soy) dashi broth with mirin (rice wine) - along with a variety of condiments.

I first tried soba on a trip to Tokyo, Japan back in 2007. Here's a Tumblr entry about it:

It was actually aboard Japan Airlines on my way to Tokyo in 2007. My flight tray came with a teeny bowl of soba noodles and a cute bottle of soba sauce. The rest of the meal consisted of shrimp salad, a bread roll, butter, Kikkoman sauce, beef with veggies, and an ube dessert. The soba noodles were truly the highlight of that meal. I couldn’t believe noodles could be so good plain! It wasn’t even proper soba at that since it was instant airplane soba. From that day on, soba became one of my favorite foods.

Since then, I've been obsessed. Unfortunately, soba is hard to find in my home country, the Philippines. There are so many Japanese restaurants here in Manila, but only a select few offer it on the menu. Sure, it's probably available at the more high end Japanese places, but I don't want to have to do fine dining every time I want soba. What I'm saying is, it's here, but it's not readily accessible. This is why it's the first thing I check whenever I try a new Japanese restaurant. I'm always on the hunt for it, and I'm totally thrilled whenever I find a place that has it.