Bagoong Club

At my brother's recommendation, we decided to try Bagoong Club for Sunday lunch. The restaurant is located at Sct. Dr. Lazcano, one of the side streets from Tomas Morato, and looked like a house converted into a restaurant. We were led upstairs to our table. I was surprised to see the place full. It seems that this small place has quite a following. Bagoong Club, according to our server, is going on its 2nd year in January.

Our companions who arrived ahead of us were already munching on the complimentary singkamas slices with 2 kinds of bagoong. Our server was also quick to advice us to order enough because additional orders might take a while. Service was pretty good, which was a pleasant surprise given the number of customers with only 2 servers on the 2nd floor.

Our orders arrived after an acceptable wait time. We ordered 2 kinds of soup - La Paz Bulalo and Seafood Binacol. My half of the group had the bulalo, which was decent bulalo. Compared to Gerry's Grill's, I find that the beef shank was more adequately cooked here, and cutting the tendon from the bone was practically effortless. The other half of our group seemed to enjoy the binacol, but it wasn't polished off like our bulalo. Perhaps my side of the table just had a bigger appetite :P

For our veggie dish, we had Pinakbet at Liempo Barbecue, which was good and even had big pieces of shrimp. They certainly did not scrimp on the ingredients on this one. The Bagoong Rice was okay, I still prefer plain steamed rice though.

What's worth mentioning was the serving size of the bagoong rice. The menu indicated that it serves 3 persons, which our server corroborated. We decided to order just one for the entire group, consisting of 7 people. It turned out to be a wise decision, because 2 orders would have been too much. I added a cup of steamed rice for myself after having a taste of the bagoong rice.

Our other dishes were Sizzling Bangus, Menudong Bagnet, and Club Binagoongan Special. I found the sizzling bangus weird, because it tasted like it was marinated in black vinegar, a type of vinegar I really dislike. The menudong bagnet was forgettable. The club binagoongan special was described by my sister as binagoongang baboy with a twist. It's slightly spicy, which did not help any, as some people in our group didn't like spicy food. I did not get second helpings of this dish, one was more than enough. It could be because I'm not really a fan of binagoongang baboy.

Overall, the dining experience was okay and the service was good. But I'm not so certain that I would go back. For Filipino food, I'd still rather be at Gerry's. Haha.

Dezato Mochi

I first read about Dezato Mochi at Dessert Comes First http://dessertcomesfirst.com/archives/360. I remember my first taste of mochi, albeit not the traditional mochi, but Dreyers' ice cream mochi. One bite and I was hooked. Unfortunately, the price was quite prohibitive. So 2 years ago, I was excited to hear that Magnolia released its own version. But turns out it only came in 2 flavors, ube and sesame. I was sorely disappointed.

Last week, we were given a box of Dezato Mochi. The box contained 12 mochi balls in 4 assorted flavors - milk chocolate, white chocolate with walnuts, white chocolate with green tea, and dark chocolate. I swear there were 12 mochi balls but hands were quicker than the camera :-P

I'm instantly reminded of DEC's tikoy strips. And I remember comments I read which likened the taste to tikoy. I thought they meant the round tikoy that's sliced, dipped in beaten egg then fried. But I guess they meant the ready-to-eat tikoy. I tried the dark chocolate mochi first then the milk chocolate variant. The mochi was just so-so for me. But my brother seemed to enjoy it a lot. And I wonder if I've read too many rave reviews that the taste did not meet my expectations. The next day, after being refrigerated to keep its freshness, the mochi still looked just as appetizing, but unfortunately, it did not taste nearly as okay as it did fresh.

Checking out other blog posts about mochi, I discovered that Dezato now offers ice cream mochi as well. Now that's definitely something worth trying.