Gracious Meals at Grace Park, One Rockwell

July 17 2013 – my first time to eat at Grace Park, and guess what I ordered? Its best-selling fettuccine with truffle cream and organic egg!

I was alone when I first ate a Grace Park EXACTLY two years ago. I was new then in my current company and unfortunately, the bus for the team outing left the office without anyone noticing I got left behind. I mean, it was my third day on the job. Who would bother remembering the new kid, right? haha

A good way to start your meal at Grace Park is to order twice baked chicharon with prosciutto and salmon roe (P250)

Always order it. HAHA

So, for lunch, I took liberty of my peers’ absence and rode a cab to Rockwell. I’ve been seeing my friend Chiara’s Instagram posts of her trips to Grace Park before, and when I had that chance, I really made sure I’d eat at Grace Park.

Seafood 3-page salad and squid ink carta di musica with mango mustard dressing (P350)

3-cheese and tomato and sourdough

The thing I first loved about Grace Park was the ambiance. Nothing fancy, the place though was reeking with charm and character. From mismatched cubiertos to the colorful plates, to the deceiving glasses that looked like paper cups, Grace Park was an enjoyable place to dine in. The quirkiness of the utensils and the decor do not confuse or disturb the diner but actually give him a comforting feeling that the place isn’t an uptight venue. With industrial interiors, the restaurant is sparingly decorated. No fuss, no pretense.

At a dinner with friends Abby and Bianca

Roast baby lamb and zucchine (P610)

It might be because it also conveys the owner’s advocacy of the farm-to-table movement, which puts premium on local, sustainable and fresh ingredients. Here, the stars aren’t really the final dishes but the ingredients.

Bad to the bone! Bone marrow with bread.

Have I mentioned I always order the fettuccine with organic egg (P580)?

For my first meal there, I can remember vividly, I ordered a plate of fettuccine with truffle cream and organic egg. I remember how creamy, decadent and warm it was. I caught myself with my eyes closed the first time I tasted it. It almost beat my number 1 truffle cream pasta choice in Manila, which was L’Opera’s. I also had a cold watermelon shake, that was, Thank God!, made with a real watermelon fruit!

Muscovado beef belly (P540)

From that first trip on, I’ve dined in Grace Park several times already. Sometimes, the food is inconsistent. The one dish that I find susceptible to inconsistency is the muscovado beef belly. The first time I had, it was tender, juicy and served warm. If my memory serves me right, it even tasted milky, evidence of the beef’s freshness.

Unfortunately, this order was dry and stringy, almost tough too.

Unfortunately, I’ve had the belly twice when it was served cold and the meat was stringy and even lacking in flavor. I also tried it when the meat was dry and quite tough.

Bulalo on a slide of crusty bread. Haha Milky but deadly!

For the pastas, I do give Grace Park and of course, Margarita A. Forés, the owner, a triple thumbs up. The pastas are always superb – al dente, flavorful and reasonably priced.

Delicious pasta nero with fish roe, cream and scallops. Super good!

Meatballs on creamy polenta (P550)

Admittedly, another vital aspect of gracious dining in grace park is the high standard of service rendered by the staff. The wait staff are very courteous and alert, and they also know how to volunteer which dishes can be paired with one another.

Spaghettini with uni, live shrimp and rucola (P550). This was by far the most unique tasting pasta dish I’ve tried in Grace Park. It’s very light but flavored with subtle tastes of different seafood. Eating it reminds one of the sea.

Lamb adobo served with brown rice (P620)

Grace Park Eton Mess (P275) is a good way to end your hearty meals at the restaurant.

All in all, Grace Park, though relatively young, caters one thing that many restaurants seem to miss: a venue for good (fresh) food that one can be familiar with. The dishes are not complicated or complex to understand but comforting and filling. These are perhaps features of dishes that rely on the food-to-table philosophy. They cannot be overly complicated to do because they demand only what is available and fresh in reasonable quantities.

Creamy beef bone marrow served with toast and lemon

Again. HAHA May change naman. Look, the yolk is cooked this time.

Grace Park, for me too, is the most “personal” among Ms.Forés’ restaurants. For some reason, the food here seems they were “personally” prepared. Unlike in Cibo which features pastas that are almost too perfect/measured that they lack the warmth of Italian cuisine, the food in Grace Park embody the charm of Ms. Forés’ two missed restos: Pepato and Cafe Bola. Thus, Grace Park is the kind of restaurant that even after two years of trying it, for this author, I’ll still be coming back for more =)

A happy diner =)

Grilled Scallops: That Delicious Beach Dish

Slightly burnt at the sides, these saltwater mollusks are such delectable treats!

Being an archipelago, the Philippines is fortunately surrounded by seas, traversed by rivers and dotted with lakes rich in marine life. This summer, I enjoyed one of those seafood dishes that spell “Summer in the Tropics”, and that for me was grilled scallops.

Grilled scallops topped with cheese from D’Talipapa, Boracay

Grilled scallops are so simple yet they’re so delectable. All of the scallops I’ve tried have been prepared in such a no-frills fashion typical of how we we like to eat our seafood in the Philippines. Banking only on the freshness of the ingredients, the scallops are grilled, topped with minced garlic and some melted butter and/or cheese.

A closer look at the scallops from Boracay

The best I’ve had were from my recent trip to Bantayan, Cebu, prepared by our boat man, Yolly. Plump, the scallops were cooked to tender perfection. The melted butter and garlic made the scallops fragrant, saucy and super yummy!

Our sumptuous lunch at Bantayan Island. Simple but hearty.

Posing with the lowly mollusk hahaha!

It was difficult to limit our consumption of rice because the scallops were just so good!

Another view of our meal from Bantayan.

Look at those plump scallops!

Eating our Way through Japan: Japanice!

My own bowl of Hokkaizanmai-don: raw snow crab, deep-water shrimp, sea urchin, salmon, salmon roe and scallops on top of a bowl of hot steaming sushi rice.

One of the highlights, undoubtedly, of my summer is my first trip to the “land of the rising sun”, Japan. It was a memory-filled trip with my cousins who I grew up with. It was our first time to travel abroad together, thus it was a trip one for the books.

Since it was our first time to go to Japan, we planned months ahead as to how we can cover as much “touristy” sites as possible given our limited time. Thus, through God’s grace, we were able to complete a trip covering Osaka, Kyoto and Tokyo in only a few days!

What made a tiring trip extra special were all the delicious and very reasonably-priced dishes/meals we enjoyed. We “ate” our way through exhaustion!

Typical of Filipinos, we had a check-list of popular Japanese dishes we wanted to try ourselves in Japan. That stamp of “legitimacy” made those dishes taste (or so we imagined? haha) far better than what we’d have in Manila. Our list included ramen, takoyaki, gyoza, tempura, sushi, sashimi, chicken karaage, katsudon and soba. We also looked for dishes we’ve encountered in different blogs such as green tea ice cream and okonomiyaki among others.

Here below are photos of some of the food we tried in Japan. Perdona but I am poor with Asian food and restaurant names. I’ve also forgotten how much these were worth! This might be useless to the traveler “googling” for food tips but at least these photos and short descriptions can excite you further.

Pork Katsudon with miso sauce and miso soup. I think this was 625 YEN and it came with free rice, which was so fragrant and “clean” tasting. This was from our first meal in Japan, which was roughly at 11:00 PM.

This was another version. This was pork chops with eggs.

Almost every day, we start out day by ordering sandwiches, pastries and coffess in the very ubiquitous 7-11 stores. The stores served a wide variety of food options, and their coffee was good.

Outside Osaka castle, we had octopus takoyaki, green tea ice cream and corndog.

Served piping hot, the octopus okonomiyaki is a delicious snack that features contrasting textures and flavors.

Enjoying warm Butterbeer at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios, Osaka

The gateway to “Japan’s Kitchen”, Dotonburi

My order from Ramen Ichiran

Locals slurping their way to goodness at Ramen Ichiran

A legit izakaya where you are required to buy an alcoholic drink or you’ll be asked to leave after 30 minutes.

Different kinds of tempura at our izakay experience in the old geisha district of Gion in Kyoto

A Japanese lady served the sake from a large white bottle

The best chicken karaage I’ve had was on our first meal in Tokyo. Crispy outside, and juicy inside. It was fragrant and very savory.

This was also a common dish in Japan: ground pork in brown curry sauce. The Portuguese probably introduced this to the Japanese.

Likewise, the best gyoza I’ve ever tried: the edges were toasted and almost crispy. The meat inside the dumpling were moist enough but was not mushy. It also tasted very, very good. It had the right balance of herbs and meat.

This photo will attest how much we pigged out on our first meal in Tokyo hahaha!

Plump scallops being sauted in lard

Okonomiyaki – an eggplant omelet – and yakisoba

Super good! This was one of the most memorable dishes I had in Japan. Its variety of textures and flavors didn’t overwhelm but actually complemented what could be a boring dish.

Tepan time! Grilled chicken ass, pork meat and liver.

Finally, sushi! At 11 PM, we had fresh sushi prepared by elderly Japanese sushi chefs with masterful skill. We had abalone, prawns, salmon, tuna, egg and other ingredients I can no longer recall. Burp!

The beauty, fragility and uniqueness of Japanese food makes it truly one of the finest in gastronomy.

For me though, the best meal I had during our trip was in a fish market, a clean, internationally famous market at that – Tsukiji Fish Market. To get to go there, and have an absolutely perfect sashimi breakfast was a feat for me, and I am so thankful my cousin and I were able to wake up very early to be able to line up, eat some of the freshest seafood we’ve ever had, and still catch our morning flight back to Manila.

Narita was at the other side of town, and we couldn’t risk being late because the instructions the hostel porter gave us were really overwhelming. We had to leave Tsukiji before 8 AM for us to make it to our 11:00 AM flight.

Arriving at Tsukiji at around quarter to 7 in the morning, we were seated at a restaurant by around 7:20 AM. In 20 minutes, we finished our bowls of fresh seafood with heaps of fragrant sweet-tasting rice.

The seafood were so fresh they were sweet and firm. The white fish meat was almost milky too. The bright colors of the seafood also added so much appeal.

Tsukiji was a big check off my bucket list. It measures to its international fame.

At 6:30 AM, plenty of people are already lining up for seats in the small restaurants.

The lines were already swollen when we were seated inside. Whew!

A copy of the menu of the restaurant we tried.

A tray of mouth-watering salmon fillets

My cousin’s Goukai-don: raw tuna, sea urchin, silver-skinned fish, horse mackerel, salmon roe, white flesh fish