Merry Christmas to all my family, friends and readers around the world. May you have a joyous celebration this year. I hope everyone had a good year. I had a wonderful year with the creation of my blog in February, my trip to Perth, Australia and Singapore in May, and the highlight was our high school homecoming in November. There was also sad events like the disaster brought about by typhoon Ondoy but it also showed the admirable Filipino spirit when everyone joined forces and helped the victims in whatever way they can.
My friends and I had a little Christmas party a couple of weeks ago before everyone became too busy with all the parties they had to attend. We decided it would be another potluck party and we would have a simple exchange of gifts. As usual we got carried away. The food and dessert below was for 11 people only! Needless to say we took home a lot of leftovers.
Valerie’s salad with tropical fruits and cheese was a big hit. The combination of fruits went well with the saltiness of the cheese and the sweetness of her homemade poppyseed dressing.
salad greens w/ grapes, mangoes, pomelo and poppyseed dressing
Cherry brought her own recipe for pork meatballs. They were yummy with Valerie’s Japanese rice. I loved the rice probably because of the mayonnaise in the rice and all the crab meat and scallops on top. It was very decadent. These two dishes were in my doggy bag.
homemade meatballs and Japanese rice
Pattie brought these 2 dishes she ordered from Dulcelin Gourmet. Yes she paid for them!! Sorry couldn’t resist the private joke. The Korean paella is a favorite of ours and has been present in a lot of our dinners. It’s actually similar to Val’s Japanese rice that it also had mayonnaise in the rice. It was topped with seared tuna slices and lettuce.
Dulcelin’s Korean paella and chap chae
Deb’s cook prepared the super yummy chicken embotido and Deb prepared the crab herself. The crab was loaded with tons of garlic and butter and baked. It was the highlight of the entire dinner. The crabs were huge!
chicken embotido & baked garlic crabs
baked garlic crabs
This was how it looked like in the kitchen before baking.
crab shell w/ loads of fat and butter
Despite all the warnings that it’s high in cholesterol from all my well meaning friends, I took a shell and ate it with gusto. It was the best crab shell I’ve ever eaten. If they weren’t watching my every move I would have loved to eat another one or two or three.
this is what it looks like after
This was another specialty of Deb. I loved the chicken meatballs with teriyaki and pineapple that she used in the pasta. Too bad it’s not available in the Philippines.
garlic pasta w/ saussage & chicken meatballs
I brought fried chicken liver which was a specialty of my cook. It was crunchy and. spicy. Everyone said it was good.
fried chicken liver
the spread
I’m very blessed to have such good friends and the addition of the K (kaladkarin) girls to our group made it even more wonderful. Thank you my friends for giving me so much happiness and pounds that won’t go away because of all our eating. Til our next eating session!
my wonderful and beautiful friends
There were 7 kinds of dessert for 11 people to eat. How great is that? Florence brought 2 treats from
Karen’s Kitchen. First was the traditional British dessert, sticky toffee pudding. It sounds very sweet but the way Karen makes it it’s just right. It was soft, gooey and yummy!
Karen’s Kitchen‘s sticky toffee pudding
sticky toffee pudding instructions
Sorry Karen, we forgot to flip the sticky toffee pudding!
an inverted sticky toffee pudding
Next was the frozen strawberry brazo de mercedes. Traditionally brazo de mercedes is a cake made from soft meringue outer layer and a filling made from the egg yolks in the center and is presented in the shape of a roll. This was a relatively new twist that incorporates ice cream and strawberry sauce and is served frozen. Delicious!
Karen’s Kitchen’s frozen strawberry brazo de mercedes
The best dessert for me that night was Bizu’s strawberry shortcake which Cherry brought. It was my first time to try it and I was hooked. It had huge pieces of strawberries in between two layers of soft sponge cake and lots of cream. The only other strawberry shortcake I’ve tried only had tiny bits of chopped strawberries in the cake. This was the real deal. No wonder it’s Cherry’s favorite. Thanks for sharing it with us!
Bizu’s strawberry shortcake
from Bizu’s web site
Elisa brought this old time favorite,
Dulcelin’s mango torte.
Dulcelin’s mango torte
Deb’s mom bought these Silvanas in Dumaguete City. We were excited to try it because their sans rival was one of the winners in the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s top 24 desserts.
It was just ok in my opinion. It lacked the crunch I was looking for. I want to try their sans rival if it can stand up to my
favorite sans rivals.
silvanas from Dumaguete city
In the foreground on the left in my favorite apple pie from Sugarhouse. Thanks a lot to Debbie Y. for sending it over even if she wasn’t able to go to dinner.
the dessert spread
On top of the mango torte is Estrel’s leche flan that Janet brought. It’s the best and creamiest leche flan I’ve ever eaten. And it’s not cloyingly sweet too.
after
getting ready for our exchange gift raffle
picking a stub to determine who gets what
everyone was happy with their gift!
It was the first party for the Christmas season for most of us. What a wonderful way to start the holiday season. Good food, good conversation, plenty of laughter and great friends.
Dulcelin Gourmet (Korean paella, chap chae and mango torte)
36 Times St.
West Triangle, Q.C.
Philippines 1104
telephone: 374-2165 ; 374-2167
Karen’s Kitchen (sticky toffee pudding and frozen strawberry brazo de mercedes)
428 Adalla Street,
Palm Village,
Makati, Metro Manila
telephone 898-2280 Cell 0917-5394968
email: mykarenskitchen@yahoo.com
Bizu (strawberry shortcake)
The Promenade, Greenhills Shopping Center
telephone: 724-2498 • 726-2496
3/L Glorietta 4, Ayala Center, Makati Citytelephone:: 757-2086
G/L Corte Delas Palmas, Alabang Towncenter, Muntinlupa Citytelephone: 809-BIZU • 772-1917 • 772-1918
Estrel’s Caramel Cakes (leche flan)
54 Scout Tobias Corner Scout Limbaga
Laging Handa, QC
telephone: 372-2965
Shoot First Eat Later 
are you sure there were only 11 of you? wow!
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Wow! So many fabulous eats! Happy New Year to you and cheers to more eats, travels and great times this 2010! 😀
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Whenever I’m thinking what to eat… I read your blog…I would’ve eaten ALL the crab shells (cholesterol or not). Life is short…
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