"Unboxing" a Becky's Kitchen Blueberry Cheesecake

The term unboxing has usually been reserved for new high tech computer products.  I came across this term during the launch of the iPad where first buyers (those who usually waited in line for long hours for the store to open) made a vlog of their unboxing of the new gadget.  According to Wikipedia, unboxing has been labeled as a new form of "geek porn."

So now I am "unboxing" not a tech item but as I have promised in my review the Becky's Kitchen Blueberry Cheesecake which I have judged in my recent post as my favorite cheesecake by far.  http://execlunch.blogspot.com/2011/02/for-love-ofcheesecake.html

So you have to take out the tape off the tape on each side...

Are we ready for this?

And here you go my friends.  Our first look at a Becky's Kitchen Blueberry cheesecake.

Yup, I just bought a half cake this time since we are celebrating...uhm...err... Earth Hour!  That's right we are celebrating Earth Hour so that is why we are having blueberry cheesecake :-p

Ready to have a big slice...

Don't worry I am not having this slice just for myself I am sharing this with my wife :)

And the verdict, I really love Becky's Kitchen's Blueberry Cheesecake I believe most of the fine qualities of the cheesecakes that I have sampled in my previous blog entry were combined with this one.  And the price is very reasonable too.  Aside from the store located at Bautista corner Pablo Ocampo St (Vito Cruz) where I bought this cake there is a branch at Community Center Suha St Valle Verde I Pasig City so people from the Eastern Metro wouldn't need to travel that far to sample these.

Bon Appetit!

Tried Recently: Guilly's Island Buffet

Buffets has been a constant crowd drawer for us Filipinos. I have tried some of the best buffets in town (see my entry on-buffets here.) And in my recent trip to Davao, I have also learned that the buffets fever (much like the Bieber fever) has also hit that city with lunch buffets as low as P 145 pesos per person.

Well another restaurant has jumped into the buffet bandwagon following the footsteps of Cabalen, Hard Rock Cafe and Kamayan. Guilly's Island Resto Bar a known gimik place is now offering lunch buffets at P239 while the dinner buffet is at P300. The dinner buffet comes with a grilling station with choices of meat and seafood ready to be grilled and served at your table. The selection is not bad either with good filipino dishes like the sinigang na baboy, lechon paksiw and kare kare. There is also pasta, Mongolian barbecue and dessert stations. The buffet comes with a glass of iced tea too.

One the best part about Guilly's buffet is that there is still an ala-carte menu that is good for my little princess who is a picky eater. Although kids can also partake of the buffet for half the buffet price.

Try the Guilly's buffet in their Glorietta 5 branch.

For the Love of....Cheesecake!

I love Blueberry Cheesecake!  I first tasted this heavenly dessert about 19 years ago.  It was at Sugarhouse back when they have their good old branch at Greenbelt.  At times I ate this dessert at Cafe Rizal and if I am looking for a budget variety I would buy a whole box at Red Ribbon.

The landscape of GB has changed through the years, Cafe Rizal is now gone and Red Ribbon has stopped selling Blueberry Cheesecakes (a pity!  Bring it back!)  So here are a couple of restaurants where I have tried their variation of the blueberry cheesecake and my take on them.

This one is from The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.  This is quite good as the crust is just semi creamy which makes sure that the base is intact, the blueberries are whole and full and every time you take a bite each piece bursts with blueberry juice.  The downside is that this one of the priciest of the lot in proportion to the serving size.

This one is from Flapjacks.  It is not too creamy (more flour on the base) and the graham crust is not too sweet.  The serving size is proportionate to the price so it is best to have that special someone to share this cheesecake with you (yihee sobrang cheezy, lol!)

The picture above is Cheesecake Meliza's version of the blueberry cheesecake.  This cheesecake is also more flour based and what I have noticed is that the topping is too sweet.  And the whipped cream didn't really help the cause either.  For a cost of 76 pesos the serving is quite small.

Now this one is a bit of a sorry state as you can see in the picture.  I can not dare say anything bad against this though (c'mon this is cheesecake, if Friends' Joey loves sandwiches that much I consider it a sacrilege to say something bad about the cheesecake no matter what its condition is.  Save the Cheesecake!)   I would let this store to remain to be unnamed as well.  (What's that?  You can read the name of the store in the picture?  Oh well...)

This my friends is Conti's, enough said. No just kidding, well the first cheesecake I tried was a bit frozen but it does taste good.  It has a cream base and the graham cracker crust blends well with the taste.  I needed to have another try before I can say that this is my favorite cheesecake so far so I tried it another time.

Now this one is not frozen at all so I can probably say that Conti's cheesecake is my favorite commercially available blueberry cheesecake thus far.

But wait, a challenger awaits...

This large tray of blueberry cheesecake comes from a friend of mine as a Christmas gift (I understand his brother who is a chef made this.)  The graham crust is not too sweet (a tinge of salt to counter the sweetness of the base and the topping.)   It was simply heavenly, I hope it does become commercially available.

And my verdict, the best place to get yourself cheesecake comes from this place.  

No explanation nor description can do justice.  You simply have to try it to understand why I believe they offer the best cheesecake in town.  And I would tempt you by not showing you the picture of the Blueberry Cheesecake just yet.  I would post my Becky's Kitchen experience one of these days.

Happy Heart's Day!

Kung Hei Fat Choi!

Welcome the Year of the Rabbit (or bunny, whatever.)  Los Luchador/Executive Lunch wishes everyone a wonderful year ahead.

I recently went to Singapore and they have already decorated Chinatown for the Chinese New Year.

Now this next picture is what I call "who the heck?"  See the girls at the background?

There are Chinese lanterns all around.

And of course, the reason why I posted these here in the food blog and not in Los Luchador (http://www.azicran.blogspot.com/) is because during this trip I tried the food in Chinatown.  And boy was I in for a gastronomic treat!

The place is basically point and cook.  Sa Tagalog, ituro mo at lulutuin ko!   That sounded like a song from VST and Company.

The place is quite packed being a Friday night and the only table we were able to sit on is beside the stall where we ordered.  Unfortunately, it is also near the kitchen so we smelled like barbecue all through out the meal.  But then again it is worth it since the food were really great.

These sauteed kangkong are wonderful.  See the red chili smothered together with it?

Barbecued shrimp, yup you can't go wrong with these barbecued shrimp. Yummy!

But are you ready for some fried STINGRAY!

Actually, stingray tastes a lot like tuna.  Don't let the garlic fool you, there are still more chili together with that brown layer.  And that red side dish there is their version of the atchara.

And of course you need a fire extinguisher for those hot chili.

Again our location was very good since we are beside the beverage store too.  so once we are settled down the lady arrives and offered us two bottles of beer.

The sizes of the beverages there are weird, this one is actually 650 ml.

The only downside is since it is al fresco dining you also attract the street peddlers who sell you wet tissue, candies and other stuff.  

Since this is in the heart of Chinatown the shops are just near by.  Here is a video of my walkabout in Chinatown.  I am not that tall nor the Singaporeans short i have to raise my JVC Picsio camera above my head since there are a lot of people.

It's been some time since I've been to Binondo but probably that would my next stop and the subject of another post in the future.

Favorites: Burgers!

One of the best sandwiches that was ever invented is the burger. Actually, I think it is a sacrilege to call it a sandwich, a hamburger is a whole different category all together.  That is just how I love burgers.  In fact, whenever I would go to a different country I would always try the McDonald's Quarter Pounder there just to compare.  And the results of my experiment is that there is no difference with the burger in the US, Singapore, Japan, etc. with the burger that our local "Mcdo" offers.

I usually have a burger craving that can not be satisfied with the offerings of the bee, the clown, the girl or the king.  So whenever I would like to eat a burger there is only one place that I go to fill that void.

I think that the stripes is already a give away on the what place this is.  Yes, for me the best burgers in town could be found at TGI Friday's.  Featured in the photo above is the Bacon Cheeseburger, it is served with yummy fries.  And it is best to pair this with a strawberry milkshake.

I like Friday's burgers because of the large servings and thickness of the patty.  It is really very filling that if you eat it in the afternoon you are still filled up till dinner time.  I like my burgers medium well which you really can't ask from a fast food chain :)  Sige, try natin minsan sabihin nyo sa Mcdo na gawing medium well ang chesseburger.

Second honor goes to a gourmet burger place that has been in existence through the years - Hotshots!

Hotshots uses only flame grilled burgers which is great if you want to be sure that there are no lards used to fry the burger.  There are also other variety of burgers to choose from like the Garlic Cheese, Chicano and Mozzarella.  Good thing that Hotshots is back in Ayala Center.  They are now located at Food Choices 3rd floor of Glorietta 4.

So I just indulge in burgers over the weekends since I go to a strict low carb diet on weekdays.  And when it is weekends as I say on my tagline above the mantra is "the diet starts (again) tomorrow."

Favorites: Japanese Food

This year, I was able to sample a lot of good Japanese food being employed in a Japanese company.  There is (in order of preference) Tsukiji -which I have featured a few months back, Saisaki (still one of the best buffets), Isshin (where you can find great ramen,) Teriyaki Boy, Tokyo Tokyo and Chote Shop in Little Tokyo.  I have even tried Japanese burger in Sango! The Burger master. (No, I was not yelling that is how they call themselves.)  The burger is not exceptional though, mas gusto ko pa ang Hotshots.

But my favorite Japanese Restaurant is not entirely Japanese - it's actually Euro-Japanese and this place is called Mr Kurosawa.

Named after acclaimed director and Asian of the Century - Akira Kurosawa, this restaurant is a fusion of Eastern and Western cuisine.  They pay tribute to the exemplary works of Kurosawa the artist by making the menu cinema inspired like I'm The King of the World, Crunchy Hollywood and The Poseidon Adventure.  There are also those named after famous celebrities like Beef Di Caprio, Denzel Tuna Sashimi, Coppola Couscous, Smoked Salmon Spielberg Pizza, and Wild Mushroom Tarantino Salad.

Do you think those frames are hanged on the wall? Nope they are actually attached to the ceiling!

The branch where my family and friends had our Mr Kurosawa experience is at Resorts World Manila.  We came in early which was a good thing since the place was packed by lunch time.

The Iced Teas are in a variety of Red, Green and Blue (yup, the RGB color model.)  I was faithful with my Red Iced Tea while the ladies in the picture above had the Blue Iced Tea.  Except for my daughter who enjoyed her favorite Mango Shake.  There was even flavored Yakult! but I dare not try since Yakult gives my tummy an oil change :-)

We had the Tuna Sashimi to start off and while waiting for our entrée.  The sashimi was quite ok though I may say not the best sashimi I had tasted.

My daughter being a fan of cheese based pizza had the Four Cheese Yamamoto which is Pesto based and composed of 4 cheeses (mozzarella, che-vital, provolone, parmesan) we had the jalapeno and nori strip taken out which the unsmiling waitress faithfully complied.

But the one that took the cake is the big platter named "I'm The King of the World" which is composed of Tuna and salmon sashimi (again), green chicken (deep fried bite-size chicken, sprinkled with aonori seaweed,) chicken and ebi japaella (japanese-paella rice,) mixed tempura, oyster teppan and house salad.  Everything we ever wanted to order!

There is one dish that stood out from here and that is the Japaella.  Mr Kurosawa have hit a home run with that one.

We didn't have dessert there as we need to walk off all the calories gained first.  Next time, I might try their ramen.

All in all, good food and even greater concept!  And to our waitress if this post reaches you, please try to smile :-)

P.S.

Tip: For me, one of the best if not the best Ebi Tempura in town can be found in Buma Seafood Market and Restaurant at the Hobbies of Asia right there in Macapagal Blvd. Pasay City (you'll pass by it when going to MOA if you come from Buendia.)  Just choose from the fresh large shrimps at the mini market and ask the server to have it made to tempura.  Best partnered with Sinigang sa miso with mustasa and big bowl of rice.  Yum!

Welcome 2011

Happy New Year!


As 2010 comes to an end and a new year unflods, let us cherish the blessings we received and thank God for all that have been and all that we would be.


May this year bring us all more blessings, prosperity and good health.


Happy Eating.


From:
Executive Lunch