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from “The Spur of the Moment Cook”

3 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 large leeks, trimmed of all but 2 inches greens, cut into a fine julienne,
well rinsed
1/3 cup chicken bouillon (I use ¼ of a knorr chicken cube in water)
Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper
½ cup heavy cream or crème fraiche
3 to 4 tablespoons finely minced fresh dill
4 salmon fillets (6 to 7 oz), with skin on
4 tablespoons clarified butter (see note below)
Sprigs of fresh dill for garnish

1. Melt 3 tbsp butter in a large skillet over low heat. Add the leeks
and bouillon, season with coarse salt and pepper, and simmer, covered for 10
minutes. Add the cream or crème fraiche and cook until it has been absorbed
by the leeks. Add the minced dill and keep warm.

2. Dry the salmon on paper towels and season with coarse salt and
pepper

3. Heat the clarified butter in a nonstick skillet over high high. Add
the fillets, skin side down, cover loosely with foil and sauté for 2
minutes. Reduce the heat slightly and cook for 4 to 6 minutes longer or
until just opaque. Turn the fillets over and cook for 1 minute if you want
them to be browned on top. (Don’t freak if the skin looks burnt it will be
nice and crunchy like fish chicharon )

4. Place the braised leeks in the center of a serving platter. Top
with the salmon fillets, skin side up, and garnish with sprigs of dill.
Serve at once.

Clarified Butter – melt unsalted butter in a heavy saucepan over low heat.
As soon as the butter has melted and is very foamy, remove from heat and
carefully skim off the foam. Strain the clear yellow liquid through a fine
sieve and discard the milky residue at the bottom of the pan. Can keep for
2 weeks refrigerated in a tightly sealed jar.

I’m supposed to be writing a graphic design proposal but I can’t seem to get my head straight. I’ll do a short spiel on one of the restaurants in Manila I have been meaning to write about.

When J visited Manila last September we decided to take the mothers out for a nice dinner. We were thinking of Lolo Dad’s, Je Suis Gourmand, or Parallel 45 — in that order. Lolo Dad’s was just a tad too far from Katipunan (where we were coming from) and the week was extra rainy so we decided to scrap that because we didn’t relish getting stuck in about 2 hours of heavy traffic on grumbling tummies. Je Suis was, sadly, fully booked.

So Parallel 45 it was. P45 is located at Samat Street in Mandaluyong. Just a short walk away from that hellhole place our office used to rent (a shoddy basement in an old house with a dwarf arrogant landlord from hell….but that’s another story). I never noticed the place before so I assume it is a newly built structure, and it’s quite pretty really. Good parking space, well lit, and not hard to find.

We spent some time looking through the menu which had enough choices to make picking your dinner difficult, although some items just jumped out at you and said “order me! order me!”

Side comment lang - I was browsing through their wine list and they had a bottle of something (champagne?) that was priced at PHP 280,000. Grabe imagine ordering (or dropping eeek) that bottle. Holy fuck the families of kurakots have something to order heehe.

We had 2 appetizers, 4 entrees, and 1 dessert. Sorry no photos it was a formal dining setup and we were right in the middle of things so it was too awkward to take photos.

Four Dances of Foie Gras
Seared with caramelized Maui onions, poached with truffled creamed potato, torchon with Concord grape jelly and praline with glazed apple.
The food of the gods cooked 4 ways and served on a long plate. I wish I could have had this all to myself. IMO the seared version was the best.

Escargot
With herb butter and fennel confit with pastis.
Yummygarlickybutterychewy goodness. Served with toast so you can sop up all that butter.

Crispy Fried Shiraz Braised Pig Trotters
Set on mushroom ragout, served with seared foie gras and watercress-walnut relish.
This was quite different. The trotters were shredded and formed into patties which were then coated with a crumb mixture and fried. Once you took a bite you could feel the crispness of the breading and then your teeth would sink into the resilience (some tendon maybe?) of the trotter filling. I would maybe share this with 3 or 4 people but it was a bit too much taste and texture for me.

Vanilla Bean Glazed Roasted Rack of Spring Lamb
And lamb hash, ratatouille tart with goat cheese.
Well, it was about 3 lamb chops really. Quite good and not overdone at all. I liked the hash, which was tasty crisper strips of lamb.

Fruitwood Grilled Chilean Sea Bass
On cassoulet of chick pea, mushrooms, wild tomato, and sweet corn.
The mothers didn’t like this too much, they said it lacked taste. Could have been to subtle for our prole tastebuds.

Macadamia Nut Crusted Mahi Mahi
on some greens with pasta on the side
I didn’t get to taste this but the mothers said this was way better than the Sea Bass

Just Chocolate and Hmmm….
Dark Felchlin chocolate pudding with molten peanut butter and tropical fruit.
Pretty good, but not may diyos.

With 2 glasses of Crane Lake Cabernet, and a glass of Trivento Shiraz, the bill came to PHP 7,300 and change. Quite pricy, no? IMO at those prices we should have gotten excellent everything…so you could say I am not that impressed (although J paid really). I still long to try Lolo Dad’s.

Well, not SF per se, but Petaluma.

A few weeks ago J and I went with his friend RJ to pick up this beautiful yellow 1973 Porsche 911 Turbo he bought from a dealer in Petaluma. It’s a real beauty and you can take the top off if you want to freeze to death on the freeway hee. And you should hear the engine. No sedate purr here, you get the full VROOM VROOM VROOOOOMMMMMM of power.

We began the day at the dealers showroom, where the Porsche was displayed. Cool place, this showroom. They had a sexy red 1968 Stingray (yours for only 68,000 — because it didn’t have the same engine that came with the body, otherwise that beast would have gone for 110,000). A testosteroney Cream Mustang, and a whole lot of other goodies.

Next stop was one of those towns with outlet shopping malls, where we picked up coats, gloves and a couple shirts (Gap shirts for 1buck and change, pwede nang pambahay diba?) J went into the Jelly Belly shop and when I followed him I was amazed at the variety (toasted marshmallow, strawberry daiquiri, buttered toast, booger, ear wax….turns out they had a special Harry Potter line hehe). I liked the toasted marshmallow best.

We tried going to a couple vineyards in Alexander Valley for some wine tasting but it was too late and all those we passed had already closed, so we ended up at Healdsburg, which is a quaint little town with a nice square and shops to snoop into. RJ and I got some glasses to taste, and while we were swigging at the counter, RJ suddenly got the urge for steak and decided to drive into Petaluma again for dinner.

And so we ended up at Cattlemens. Land of the 2lb steak.

The menu is pretty straightforward, but the portions looked really intimidating. Each of the main courses came with a baked potato, unlimited sourdough bread, salad and baked beans (the musical food). We had some some blue cheese garlic bread as a starter, some tumbleweed onions on the side, and a bottle of red wine to go with everything.

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You’d think that after a meal like that we wouldn’t have room for dessert, no? Wrong.

We got the

Chocolate Outlaw Cake
A dangerous triple chocolate dosage of chocolate cake,
chocolate mousse, and chocolate frosting, layered for a decadent ascent
into chocolate heaven. Order it before it becomes illegal!
and finished every bit. Surprisingly it was not too sweet.

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After all that we weighed ourselves and found out we gained 2lbs each.

Just kidding.