Authentic Filipino Lunch @ Laguna Filipino Bar & Restaurant, KL

 

We spend our first lunch of the year 2023 at Laguna Filipino Bar & Restaurant after attending Sunday Mass at Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, KL.

Location: #2, Jalan Gereja. It's located within walking distance from Muzium Telekom and Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist at Jalan Bukit Nanas, Kuala Lumpur.

Laguna Filipino Bar & Restaurant KL serves authentic Filipino dishes.

We ordered Beef Sinigang. Sinigang is a type of Filipino soup characterized by its sour taste. The sourness comes from tamarind.

 

This hearty bowl of Beef Sinigang is packed with generous chunks of beef and loaded with vegetables such as eggplant, tomatoes, green chilies, white radish, long beans, and kangkung.

For dessert, we ordered Halo Halo. Halo Halo looks similar to our local ice kacang, which is also a dessert characterized by multi-layered mixtures of shaved ice, evaporated milk, and lots of other goodies.

 

There are a lot of ingredients in this Halo Halo - let me try to remember what I had. There's shaved ice (of course!), red beans, jackfruit (I think it's more like cempedak), banana, sago-like jellies in different colors, nata de coco, sweet potato, cincau, cereal flakes, evaporated milk, and a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.

This restaurant also sells some products from the Philippines, so we bought two bags of chips, a can of corned beef, and beef-flavored instant noodles.

0

Pancakes, me gusta!

I love pancakes! Bribe me with pancakes, anytime.

Since I haven't tried making my own pancakes, I satisfy my cravings for pancakes by creating a Pinterest board named Pancake Craze and of course, go to Pancake House!

Pancake House says, "We're more than just great pancakes."

These are fluffy blueberry pancakes served with a dollop of whipped cream and maple syrup in a mini porcelain jug. Oh, the satisfaction that comes from sinking your teeth into nothing but fluffiness and sweetness!

Well, since they claim they are more than just great pancakes, we try their Halo-Halo, a kind of sweet dessert famous in the Philippines. Halo-Halo is shaved ice topped with milk, sweet corn kernels, sweet potato, sweetened banana, fresh jackfruit strips, and custard. I had my first Halo-Halo when I was in Manila a few years back.

1

Lunch @ Cagayan's, Centre Point, Bandar Utama

Update: This restaurant is not operating any longer.

Cagayan's in Centre Point, Bandar Utama is a restaurant famous for its Philippines cuisine, especially pork-based dishes. I've been there before.

Windy, Naoko, Jason, and myself tried their set lunches, priced between RM6 & RM10. One set consists of a main dish, a drink, and a dessert.

Windy's Stir-fry Pork & Vegetables, served with white rice is a decent dish.

I choose Curry Pork Ribs Rice. Actually, the curry pork ribs comes in a claypot. I scooped some out and poured it on the rice for this photo.

Jason goes for Curry Pork Ribs & Cagayan Pork Fried Rice. This is how the curry pork ribs looks like in a claypot. Truth to be told, I love the curry. It's not as rich as the Malays' or Indians' and not as sweet as the Japanese's. It has a distinctive flavor that leaves us to yearn for more. :)

Naoko's Baked Pork with Cheese & Rice is what we voted as the best dish. Pork cutlets baked with cheese is sensational!

0

When September Ends...

I've some gut feelings, feeling very intuitive at this hour at night. So, I put them into words before inspiration vanishes. In fact, early midnight is the best time to compose darkness-inspired blog posts.


24 September 2009

Movie: Tsunami in Haeundae

... This Korean disaster movie becomes "watchable" when the coastal town of Haeundae was struck by mega-tsunami as predicted by one of the marine geologists and the Koreans tried to survive by all means. Continue...




Real-life calamities as below.

28 September 2009

Rivers of tears

People wade in the chest deep floodwater in suburban Cainta, East of Manila, Philippines. Rescuers plucked bodies from muddy floodwaters and scrambled to save drenched survivors on rooftops after a tropical storm tore through the northern Philippines and left 75 people dead or missing in the region’s worst flooding in more than four decades. (Photo: Mike Alquinto / AP via the Chicago Tribune)


29 September 2009

Central Vietnam deals with storm Ketsana

On the evening of September 29, strong winds tore down 22 houses in Song Cau town, Phu Yen province and heavy seas sank 12 fishing boats that were berthed. Continue...


30 September 2009

South Pacific tsunami: Dozens missing after waves from massive earthquake pound Samoa islands

A massive tsunami hurled by a powerful earthquake flattened Samoan villages and swept cars and people out to sea, killing at least 99 and leaving dozens missing Wednesday. The toll was expected to rise. Continue...


30 September 2009

Quake in Sumatra, tremors in Malaysia

PETALING JAYA: A powerful earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale struck off the city of Padang off the coast of southern Sumatra at about 6.17pm on Wednesday, killing at least 21 people, trapping thousands of others and causing tremors as far away as peninsular Malaysia and Singapore. Continue...

Yes, Malaysians did experience tremor and vibration.

Ironically...

Movie: 2012

This disaster film is inspired by several theories with references to the ancient Mayans' predictions of doomsday's occurrence in 2012. Continue...


Coincidence? I don't think so.

Please pray for the afflicted ones in the Philippines, Vietnam, Samoa, and Sumatra.

0

Let's try the Filipino cuisine~

Update: This restaurant is not operating any longer.

After watching a Filipino movie, I think I want to try Filipino food again. I have tried authentic Filipino dishes when I went to the Philippines in June 2006. By the way, there's no such word as Philippino. It should be Filipino. Check here.

Effortlessly (meaning I just need to google once and got it straight away), I found this restaurant - Cagayan's, G107-108, Centre Point, Bandar Utama, PJ. More about this restaurant.

Bwahahaha... So near my house. I couldn't believe my luck. Thank God I do not need to go to KL or Cheras or Kajang or any such place outside PJ.

Enoki Mushroom with Bacon (RM9)

Pinakbet (RM8)
This is a vegetables dish with kangkung, pumpkin, bitter gourd, long beans, ladies' fingers (okra), eggplant, and chicken slices, fried with shrimp paste.

Chicken Sinigang (RM9)
This is tamarind soup with tomatoes, chilies, chicken, long beans, eggplant, kangkung. Quite sour and a bit spicy. If Thailand has Tom Yam, the Philippines has Sinigang.

Halo Halo (RM5)
Just like our very own ais kacang but Halo Halo has slightly different ingredients. This one has frozen banana slices, sago, red beans, and nata de coco. I think it has evaporated milk and something else that distinguishes it from the local ais kacang. And I don't know what is it. I've blogged about Halo Halo before.

This is how it looks like before you mix everything up.

And this is how it looks like after you mix everything up.

2

Don't play with Ouija

Here's another one from the Philippines - Ouija.

This 2007 movie is considered very mild for me. The scary moments were predictable and the ghost was not scary at all. The story was about a group of girls haunted by the spirit whom they summoned with the Ouija board but unfortunately, did not send it back to where it came from. So, the kesian spirit was, so-called trapped in the human world and began to haunt them one by one.

So, you know, as usual, they gotta find out who was it and where was it buried before they all got killed. Two of the four girls died. Oh well...

Watch it if you are looking for a not-so-scary horror movie :D

0

Halo Halo

My biggest birthday present that I ever treated myself with was a 5-day trip to the Philippines in June 2006. Thanks to AirAsia. The air ticket was RM0. I only paid for the airport tax and brought enough pesos for traveling purposes.

But... I won't be documenting in details about where I went or what I saw because my blog is neither a travel blog, a photo blog nor a food blog. My habit is to publish things that caught my attention, delighted me & made me happy.

So, I love this dessert named Halo Halo (Tagalog), which is translated as mix-mix, a multi-layered mixture of shaved ice and evaporated milk, coconut flesh, boiled red mung beans, kidney beans, garbanzo beans, sugar palm fruit, jackfruit, plantains, sago, nata de coco, purple yam, sweet potato, sweetened corn kernels or pounded crushed rice, flan or custard, and gelatin. It is served cold in a tall glass or bowl. Actually, it's almost similar to our own country's "Ais Kacang or Air Batu Campur, ABC).

I got this picture from Wikipedia.

And...

How to Make One!

Hmmm...

0