Toast Box redux: Sampling real laksa

One evening, Mabie had dinner with her friends, so I had a couple of hours to kill around Greenbelt. I hadn't had any supper myself, so I spent most of the time walking around in circles and attempting to get gloriously lost. Most of the places I first considered dining in were too expensive, and at that time I was more interested in stretching my money due to the numerous expenses I'd had.

I ended up trundling back to Toast Box. We've sampled some of their wares in a previous visit, but because of an upcoming Singapore trip, Mabie and I had an interest in the stuff the hawkers there would sell. Also, I'd already sampled instant laksa before - I wonder how the real thing would play on my palate?

Nonya Laksa with hot barley - PhP245 as a set.

So off I went, sat and ordered a bowl of Nonya Laksa with hot barley. The latter is new to my eyes as well; barley is better known to most as one of the four key ingredients of beer. I got it as a set for PhP245, with the drink discounted.

The instant version just doesn't come with this many toppings

The main difference between Koka's instant laksa and the real thing is the noodles. Nonya Laksa has what you could call rice-based spaghetti. Also, the genuine article comes with a host of toppings: fish balls, shrimp, tofu, ground meat and some herbs. Koka's instant laksa is a good imitation, but Toast Box's version is much more filling and delicious. It tastes more like its own dish and less of a distant relative to tom yum goong.

Oh yes that's hot.

What about the hot barley? It literally is hot, served in a vessel that's the love child of a mug and a jar. A long-handled teaspoon is provided for scooping the soggy barley grains with. I was surprised by how sweet this drink tasted. It's not the kind of sweetness brought on by sugar, but a more natural, more pleasurable taste. Once it sufficiently cooled down, I gulped it down with gusto and fished the barley grains out as Toast Box slowly closed another business day.

This was a sufficiently satisfying meal, although I did get food allergies in bed that night - no fault of the restaurant. Of course, the next step for me is to try authentic laksa in its place of origin...we'll see how it compares.

The jelly-like barley grains waiting for you at the bottom!

I want my spaghetti and meatballs hot and fast.

Not too long ago, my uncle Butch and aunt Carole from South Pasadena came over for their annual homecoming visit to the Philippines. In a break from tradition, they took their children (my cousins) along for the ride as well. When Mabie and I had the opportunity to take them out to dinner in Greenbelt, we were pretty undecided as to where specifically we should be dining in. My cousin Czasha spotted the nearby Italianni's and we thought maybe that was a good option. It had also been a while since I had eaten at Italianni's myself.

How wrong we were.

The dinner started out in the usual manner, with a lady taking our orders at 8pm, as other patrons came in and sat down after our party of six did. Noticeable was her lack of a notepad. Instead, she was reciting our orders off the top of her head, as if to impress us. In the back of our minds Mabie and I smelled a potential point of failure, but kept our silence out of respect. When she went back, we had plenty of time to entertain our guests.

As the night went by and the hands of the clock passed the 9:20pm mark however, we began to notice that we had too much time on our hands to entertain our obviously hungry guests, still with no prospect of dinner arriving on our table.

We must have followed up our orders at least three times. Failure point number two: Noticeable too was how the waiters and waitresses kept their heads down, as if to ignore us. I have to wonder: How is it possible to ignore a seated party of six, when the other outside tables don't number more than three patrons each?

Even worse, remember the other patrons that got their tables after we did? Despite having ordered later than our party, they got their food first!

When our food finally came to our tables, disappointingly it no longer had much of its appetizing heat. Something had obviously gone wrong within the magical process of getting our orders, processing them and getting them to us. Now, I love Italian, and Italianni's food isn't bad, nor is it especially mind-blowing, but the lousy customer experience we had basically tarnished the whole evening more than any particular fault the food may have had.

Fried Calamari

Shrimp and Mushroom Linguine

Spinach and Artichoke Formaggio

Uncle Butch was being generous; he thought maybe it was a bad night for them and we just got the short end of the stick this time. This occurrence is not without its consequences, though. My other cousin JB will bring home memories about Italianni's being a byword for bad service when he goes back to South Pasadena. He was wondering why the service crew acted like they were on holiday - or being more generous, if it was the first night on the job for all of them.

Bistro Group of Restaurants, I offer you a tiny slice of my brain.

1. Let's not try to reinvent the wheel here, just for the sake of impressing our clientele. Human short-term memory is infamous for failure - this is why it's customary for waiters to carry notepads. It's expected, it's efficient, and it just works. Why would you fool around with a formula that works?
2. Be attentive to your clientele. Sometimes all this entails is checking the entire area if you have any clientele to serve, and checking up on the status of their orders (here's a hint: computers are not enough). Make them your priority - it is your obligation as service crew to do so.
3. To finish this post off, I offer you a quote I picked up from my days as a marketing management student, taking up service marketing: "If a customer gets good service, he/she is usually quiet, or will tell one person. If a customer gets bad service, he/she will tell ten people."

Food for thought. We may have kept quiet and not escalated this matter to a manager, but we will protest by taking our pesos and dining elsewhere.

What's in the Toast Box?

I don't know if it was just me that I find it a little odd for the name Toast Box to be associated with Hainanese Chicken. Apparently it’s not the only thing on the menu! Oh how silly was I?!

The Hainanese Chicken was just the icing on top of the cake! They got lots of toasts, teas and coffees. Just by looking at the menu right there and then, I was sold. Toast Box for dinner it is.

Toast Box, under the BreadTalk Group, is from Singapore and has now expanded to this humble country of ours. If you are fond of visiting kopi tiams you may want to try Toast Box.

I was flabbergasted the first time I laid eyes on the interior of their shop. It was brilliant! The immaculately painted white walls give the restaurant a nice clean ambiance. Their chairs and tables are also cozy, just like a big version of a little tea party set.

Panoramic shot of the cafe

It is also a nice touch that they openly display how their TEH TARIK is made. Teh tarik literally means “pulled tea”. The pictures depict how the “pulling” of the tea is made. It's a little bit of showmanship and entertainment as you fall in line for your order.

Isn't she a star?

One thing we noticed about the cashier counter was that the staff there were coordinating orders in a foreign language. My best guess is they were talking in Bahasa Malaysia. It's a minor thing, but it added to the authenticity of the experience.

It’s a minor letdown that the positioning of the cashier counter is not conducive for the guests, due to the limited space. When you approach the counter, there will be instances that you are still undecided of what to order. Since the positioning of the menu board is in front of a small hallway where guests are queuing to order, looking at the menu may cause others to be irritated since you’ll blocking the hallway. A good suggestion is to handout separate handheld menus for guests to be able to decide before falling in line.

Now on to what we ordered:

We had whole Hainanese Chicken, which is good for 4-6 persons. Honestly, we’re a group of four and we were so full after we finished this meal. Hainanese Chicken is cooked by boiling the chicken in broth and ginger. It's a lot like our own chicken tinola but with almost no soup. It also comes with three types of sauces which are ginger, chili, and "rich" soy sauce.

What’s a good dish without rice right? Let me introduce the Hainanese Rice. This is a perfect example of the Filipino saying “Kanin palang ulam na!”

I also tried the Milo Dinosaur, which is basically an iced Milo with Milo powder on top. There is nothing special about this drink and you can easily try this at home.

JM tried the Kopi C: According to in-store literature, this is the product of a new way of brewing coffee, which adds sugar in the process to form a type of glaze. This supposedly reduces the bitterness and aids in releasing more antioxidants from the coffee beans than normal. True enough, Kopi C has a little less bitterness than normal brewed coffee, but is still strong and flavorful. It's certainly unique.

Milo Dinosaurs and Hot and Cold Kopi C

Price-wise I guess their toasts are a little more expensive compared to Kopi Roti, though it is still worth a try. We have yet to try their signature dishes (which they call the Treasures in the Box) especially the Peanut Thick Toast on our next visit!

Sugi: An old family favorite

My parents have been dining at Greenbelt's Sugi restaurant for what seems like years now. I remember it used to be in Greenbelt 1, but has since moved to Greenbelt 2 after the renovation. Since I share my birthday with their wedding anniversary, we usually get to eat here at least once a year.

"Sugi" may seem like a random Japanese word picked out from thin air, but a cursory search on Wikipedia will reveal that it's actually a type of cypress tree endemic to Japan, and it's actually its national tree, as well as Kyoto Prefecture's official plant. This is subtly alluded to in its current exterior decor, where the Sugi logo and name is embossed on stacked wood slabs. Incidentally the logo itself is shaped like a stylized drawing of a conifer tree.

Inside there are traditional paper lanterns hung from the ceiling with names of foods and ingredients written in the rounded hiragana script: ebi (prawns), unagi (eel), yakitori (an umbrella term for foods on a Japanese-style grill) and tenpura. No explanation necessary on the final item I believe. ;)

For this evening we reserved a room made up in the traditional tatami (rice mat) style. Purists may frown but the common Pinoy will rejoice, as there won't be any cases of tingly, sleeping legs and feet from sitting on folded legs for hours at a time. Sugi instead has a cavity dug into the floor, forming a footwell, then has the table set in the center. You may look like you're kneeling on the tatami mat, but you're actually seated and your tired tootsies can relax.

We started out with various types of sashimi and a dish of creamy spicy tuna, the latter of which my mom considers one of Sugi's signature dishes. Crispy flakes are added for a crunch. The spice isn't too strong but adds a distinctive flavor.

We went easy on the sushi selection this time around. We got a caviar-encrusted type of maki with mango and kani crabmeat. I'm no expert on sushi but this seems "inverted" due to the way the rice wraps around the nori seaweed wrapper, not the other way round.

Update: According to Tita Hedwig this was California maki. Thanks for the heads-up!

Last on the appetizer list is kaiware salad, made out of radish sprouts and bonito flakes with vinegar-based dressing. The sprouts have a peculiar, strong taste. I'd best describe it as halfway towards the signature sinus-busting heat of its close relative, wasabi paste. The vinegar does soften the punch, but you'll have to apply a lot of it. I noticed it only at the end where the dressing pooled at the bottom of the bowl and soaked into the remaining sprouts.

My dad and I have recently started sampling beers from around the world. Sugi does oblige the beer enthusiast with cold cans of Asahi Super Dry, made out of the traditional recipe of hops, water, yeast and a grain - in this case, cornstarch. Each can has 5% alcohol per volume, which isn't too far removed from local brewskis.

All I can say is it tastes so much like our beloved San Miguel Pale Pilsen. It's not an exotic beer, so if you were expecting a new flavor to your beer you might be disappointed. Then again, if beer for you is equivalent to San Miguel and absolutely nothing else, you'll enjoy it.

Our alternative drink was genmaicha. This is a type of green tea that's been passed through crisped or malted rice, and it's a personal favorite because of the added "toasty flavor" notes. It's so good, it can be enjoyed by people who normally despise drinking tea of any kind.

Of course, what Pinoy-consumed dinner of Japanese cuisine would be complete without tenpura?

Next up are two dishes most people will enjoy: chicken teriyaki and beef teppanyaki.

This may seem like a harmless dish of tofu and mushrooms, but be warned! The sizzling plate it sits on should alert you. It may look just a bit warm on the outside, but on the inside it's very hot and a few of us were taken by surprise. Best to poke or crack the surface of the tofu first to let the pent-up heat from the insides escape. Very delicious and tasty if you can get past the heat, though.

I have no idea what this dish is called but the white, finger-thick noodles are definitely udon. (Thanks to my cousin Czasha for identifying them correctly!) It has vegetables, oysters and scallops as topping, and is quite tasty. This was one of the final items served, and it's a gut-buster because of the thick udon noodles. If you weren't full before sampling the udon, you definitely would be afterwards.

A word of caution to chopsticks users: The noodles can be slippery and hard to grasp. Some of us had to poke and stab at them with the chopsticks to pick them up!

As a birthday treat they served coffee jelly a la mode with a lone candle on top. Sugi's kimono-clad waitresses will flock around your table or room and sing a little birthday ditty as they serve it. :)

That was a lot of food. It was a good thing I had a few hours free so I could work out beforehand.

Coffee + gelato = love?

I had my curiosities and doubts about this new place that opened recently in Greenbelt 5 called "Caffe Ti-amo." It sure generated a buzz when it opened to lots of fanfare and featured local celebrities not too long ago...but is it any good? We decided to find out.

The draw of this place is its gelato, or Italian-style ice cream, supposedly sold with 90% less fat. How much less the fat content of its gelato is, we probably will never know unless nutrition facts are published, so we'll move on to other matters.

When you think about it, Caffe Ti-amo's strategy of selling gelato and coffee makes perfect sense. Many of the popular drinks of high-end coffee places like Starbucks or The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf are actually the cold, blended ones, with dollops of whipped cream and other decadent, calorific toppings. Nutritionally speaking, they might as well be made out of ice cream...so why not offer the real thing? :p

The signature offering is something called "Affogato." Pictures of this exotic-sounding featured concoction are displayed all over. Essentially it's your choice of vanilla- or tiramisu-flavored gelato with a shot of piping hot espresso. Maybe next time. We'll try them separately for now.

I had ordered a regular mocha coffee, with a packet of brown sugar and some cinnamon, while Mabie had a regular-size gelato. At this size serving you have the option of two flavors, and she picked coffee and tiramisu.

Mabie's gelato: Tiramisu on top, coffee at the bottom

Their coffee is...surprisingly good. There are cafes that will sell you mocha that tastes like hot chocolate with just a hint of coffee in it. Caffe Ti-amo's is the other way 'round; it has a lot of brewed coffee's punch with just enough cocoa taste to remind you of its "mocha" moniker. Fans of full-bodied coffee, I think you have a new haunt to call your very own.

How about their gelato? It was also pretty good, actually. Previously we had tried tiramisu-flavored gelato from another shop. While it was good, this place's tiramisu gelato trumps it. Even the coffee-flavored variety was also pretty strong yet creamy.

The funny thing is, while technically we did not order the affogato, we had ordered a combination of coffee and gelato that, for all intents and purposes, might as well have been affogato anyway. Mabie was feeding me little spoonfuls of tiramisu gelato in between coffee sips, and I could already imagine how their signature creation must taste.

As I end this post, you might wonder where on earth Caffe Ti-amo came from. Judging from the name, is it from Italy? Spain? Looking at their stand of add-ons might provide a clue. The little table has, among other things, tall sachets of white sugar that indicate its origins from Korea.