BBQ All You Can at "Charaptor BBQ"

Last night, me and my officemates went to this place at Kamagong St. where they said we can do a barbecue-buffet-eat-all-you-can thingy for less than Php400.

The place is called "Charaptor" (play on words between 'Char' and 'Raptor'), a charcoal barbecue bar along Kamagong St., cor Aranga St. in Makati city.

The bar, with it's "Jurassic Park buffet table scene"-ish style like ambiance, offers its patrons the BBQ bar experience either in their interior dining space, or the outside dining area, which is more casual.

Each tables are fitted with its own charcoal grill and its own direct exhaust system so the smoke and steam doesn't go around fill up the place.

 Now, the buffet...

You can barbecue from a wide variety of morsels, buffet style. Take your pick, from your usual street vendor fares like tenga, isaw,.. vegetables, potatoes,... pork, beef and chicken in different kinds of barbecue mix... seafood... and various side dishes abound. As if that's not enough, they also serve rice and orange juice until you can't take in no more.


Also available are different sauces to dip your morsel after sizzling on the grill. I tried experimenting with their line of sauces, ranging from the standard to the "huh?". So far I liked the result of mixing 1/3 toyomansi (with chili) to 2/3 yakiniku sauce. But still, I am looking for that taste I experienced when I was in Kyoto.



So take that trip. doors open from Sunday to Thursday, 6pm to 11pm.

Adventure Time Inspired Mega Sandwich

After helping around the house, cooking for the local town "fiesta" for 6 hours straight, I am left at the kitchen with a lot of left over ingredients.

Still the "mega sandwich" made by Jake in the cartoon series "Adventure Time" in my mind. I decided to combine a mad mix of stuff around the kitchen to make my own version.

What I ended up using were:

2 white bread (fill only as halves, so I'll be making 2 sandwiches)
garlic mayo (crushed garlic mixed with mayo and sugar)
deep fried chinese style meatloaf (embotido)
half a cup of minced red onion
half a cup of minced green chilis
pre-grated parmesan cheese
lettuce
chunk bits of leftover fried chicken

First off, I make a base coating of garlic mayo. Then mix up the meatloaf with the chicken bits and lay them out on the bread. Put another coat of garlic mayo then spreading some of the onions and chilis. Give a generous dusting of pre-grated parmesan cheese. Close with the leafy parts of the lettuce topped with another coat of garlic mayo. Fold the bread then go at it Taco-style.

This is gonna be awesome!!!!

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My mom taught me a way of cleaning a shrimp that I never heard of before. My brother calls it "Gutting the Shrimp".

First, use a pair of kitchen scissors to cut off the sharp end of the shrimp's snout, the one usually stabbing the hands of those sauted shrimp movices, taking along the long thread like feelers. It makes it easier to handle the shrimp and also makes a lesser mess in the cooking (and ultimately the eating) process.

Next step is using a thin, small bread knife and punch along the second scale from the tail just below the central nerve. Using the blunt edge, slowly pull the knife out, pulling with it the white, tranluscent tube with a black innards. My mom calls it the intestine because it has the waste from the previous meal by the shrimp. My brother calls it the spinal nerve. By taking it to the surface, gently pull it and you have a smelly blackj string of...something.

My mom told me it helps to make the shrimp safer to consume because eating crustasceans is really like a russian roullette. To be honest, it made handlling the shrimp better and less smelly. I don't know if all cooks prepare shrimps this way because I have had some with their hairy feelers, harpoons and black entrails still in the stew.