Pan de Manila

We have church activities every night for this week. I took advantage of this feeding my soul and feeding my craving for pan de sal. It has been a long time since I had some, pan de sal, that is. Good thing Pan de Manila is on our way home.

For four nights already since Monday, we are regular customers of the bakery. The store servers already know us, as well as the parking attendant (the "barker" in other words).

The brick oven is said to taste better because it preserves and seals in the aroma of the dough. I have to say this is true. I was in the food industry for so many years. There are a lot of factors for a crust to be able to hold the heat. But talking about ovens, crusts were crunchier when the company was still using brick oven. It holds the heat longer compared to the automated oven that replaced it.

Customers can actually watch how the bakers load and unload doughs as the oven can be seen from the glass panel.


The doughs are ready for loading. I wonder how many minutes they stay there. This area is near the entrance and it's along the road - dusts and all. The heat inside the oven takes care of all the foreign bodies I suppose. :)


I have not tried all the other breads they offer. Next time maybe.


We tried their garlic butter and peanut butter. We bought the smallest bottles just to check if we will like the taste. We love them both! Garlic butter has parsley which adds to its flavorful aroma. It's more expensive than the peanut butter though.


My daughter loves the peanut butter! For three straight days, she brings peanut butter sandwich to school. Normally she tires of food easily.

We already consumed three bottles for four nights. The biggest bottle which we bought on Wednesday night will seem to last till today, Friday.


Our favorite peanut butter is Skippy and this one from Pan de Manila tastes as good. Creamy and the sweetness is just about right. You won't cringe from too much sweetness. My husband does not want peanut butter to be refrigerated. He wants them on room temperature for easier spreading. It's tastier that way too, a little melted.

As for pandesal, they are good while still hot which is about ten to fifteen minutes from the time we buy them. They come in two sizes, small and big. I'm alright with the taste but my husband is looking for the crunch in the pan de sal's crust.


Aside from the peanut butter, all of us love their Chocolate con Leche! According to its packaging, they use muscovado sugar. Aside from bringing back the feel of the old Manila (just look at their paper bag), they also adhere to all natural ingredients, no preservatices, which most of us, consumers, prefer.

Pan de Manila as I see it is successful in bringing all complementing products in one store, open for 24 hours, and adding in other product innovations - pan de ube, pesto and cheese bread, pesto wheat loaf, etcetera. The people manning the bakery are nice too, at least in the branch near our place. They have ready smiles, neat and very accommodating.

Have a feast on other Food Friday entries. Happy weekend! TGIF! :)

Milkfish Springrolls

Eats a Wrap for today's Lasang Pinoy, Sundays. Let me share what I recently cooked for our dinner.

One of my family's favorites is lumpiang shanghai but since we are abstaining from pork, I decided to use milkfish instead. Milkfish springrolls (lumpiang bangus) has basically the same preparation as shanghai's save for the main ingredient which is fish. I steamed then flaked the fish. I put in diced carrots and onions, a few cloves of garlic, a dash of salt and pepper, celery and egg to moisten the mixture.


Now comes the hard part. I have not mastered wrapping lumpia. I would have wanted lumpia wrapped seamlessly like how the cooks from Chowking do them, or how my aunts do them. Perfectly wrapped lumpia. Not that I let myself get too worked up wrapping them. Afterall, we're going to eat them as soon as they're cooked. But it's something nice to accomplish at least for me. :)


So far this is the best the best that I have done. I don't know if it's lack of creativity or patience or practice.


But I guess they are at par with the cheesesticks of Five Cows. :)


I don't know if I should feel elated with this, my daughter thought what I prepared is still lumpiang shanghai instead of lumpiang bangus. She loved it and she wanted more.

Pesto Crema with Prawns

Tender Bob's is one of the restaurants my family prefer to go to when eating out. We have tried a number of delectable dishes they offer. We just keep coming back there.

For today's Food Friday, let me share my daughter's favorite pasta from Tender Bob's - pesto crema with prawns. It's as creamy as it gets.

Napoli Pizzeria Ristorante

Our stomachs grumbled after my daughter and I had an almost-day-long-shopping for her dress and mine among other things. We helped ourselves with the food we ordered before I took pictures of them. That was how hungry we were.

She likes the seafood pesto pizza at Napoli. She likes pesto period. :D


I love their chicken carbonara. It's good for two to three persons. The first time I ordered this I was thinking of the usual presentation. Bits of chicken meat mixed with the sauce and pasta. Glad to note it's deep fried chicken, huge chicken meat.


I forgot what this is exactly called - it's fish and fries. I think it's dory fish. Delicious too, very tender and tasty.


Other than shopping, we also took time to have my daughter's photo taken at the special Valentine corner the mall created with red seats and colorful wall designs. You may check it out at The Mommy Zone's WS entry.

Chocolate (Tsokolate)

I have so many pictures with chocolates as my subject. I love chocolates to say the least - devouring them, looking at them. Lately though, it seems all chocolates taste the same for me. I don' know if it's just being too accustomed with the taste. Even so, chocolates never fail to get my attention. They are just so yummy to look at. A lot of times I just want to preserve them and not even touch them.

(Napakarami kong litrato kung saan tsokolate ang aking subject. Paborito ko ang tsokolate. Minsan lang parang iisa na lang ang aking lasa sa mga ito, parang hindi na espesyal. Maaari kasing sanay na ang aking panlasa kaya't parang wala ng bago.)

One of my favorite chocolates is Lindor Truffles. The round chocolate with a little depression in the middle where the chocolate syrup comes out and melts in your mouth. Heaven!

(Isa sa mga paborito kong tsokolate ay ang Lindor Truffles. Talagang napakalinamnam ng tsokolateng ito lalo na kapag natutunaw na sa iyong bibig. Heaven!)

But that's not what I am going to share for this week's Litratong Pinoy. I just want to share the chocolates I have encountered in my house today. There's a bag of mini Toblerones inside the refrigerator when I checked to get something. I didn't know hubby bought some. There are times he craves for them.

(Ngunit hindi iyon ang ilalahok ko sa linggong ito kundi ang mini Toblerone na nakita ko sa loob ng aming refrigerator kaninang umaga. Nag-uwi pala ang aking asawa dahil minsan ay gusto niya ng Toblerone.)

The mini toblerones and chocolate crunchies kept our daughter company this afternoon while she was reviewing for the last batch of mastery exam tomorrow. The table was quite a mess as you can see.

(Ang mga mini Toblerones at ang chocolate crunchies ay kasama ng aking anak kaninang hapon sa kanyang pagrereview para sa kanilang mastery exam bukas. Pasensya na sa kalat. :) )