Ziggurat Cuisine Restaurant

As far as I know, Ziggurat Cuisine Restaurant is the only place in Metro Manila that serves African cuisine. While it also serves Indian, Mediterranean, and Middle Eastern food, which we can find in various other restos, it is African food that lured my me to Ziggurat.

First, a few notes about the location. The restaurant is located on the corner of Euphrates and Tigris streets in Makati, which I'm sure figured in the owner's calculus before he opened the restaurant. It is not exactly the easiest place to find, especially if you're not used to Makati's latest permutation of one-way streets. I actually got flagged down by Makati's finest on my way there; luckily I got off with a friendly reminder. I can also see parking being hell during peak hours-- my Dear and I went there on a Sunday, which was a pretty slow day for the restaurant, and there was only one parking slot available.

The decor is predominantly Turkish/Middle Eastern-- think carpets, gold thread, and hookahs-- which can either be tacky or exotic depending on your taste. Although there are a few high chairs and tables, most of the seating is on the floor with lots of throw pillows and carpets to keep you comfortable. Indoor lighting is quite dim, which might be nice for the after-work evening crowd.

Now on to the food:

Moussaka (P150) with Arabian Khobiz (P10/piece)-- The moussaka was very good and flavourful, equal in flavour to the one from Arya Persian Restaurant but not in presentation. I had the impression that they make a big batch early in the day then just reheat portions as people order. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as food like moussaka actually get better when you reheat them (stronger flavours). Khobiz, the classic Arabian flatbread, is basically pita bread. The bread with the moussaka can easily serve as an good-sized appetiser for two or a hearty snack for one.

Algerian Grilled Vegetable Cousous (P250)-- While Ziggurat has around 20 rice dishes, we opted for the Maghribi staple, couscous. It was a very good decision, as the couscous with vegetables was a meal in itself. I've had couscous only a few times before, and I have to say this was among the better tasting ones. The grilled vegetables, which they chopped and mixed into the dish, added a sweet and savoury taste to the bland couscous. As you can see in the picture, they made no effort towards presentation, which to some people might matter, but to me was more than made up for by the taste.

Ethiopian Chicken We't (P375)-- If you watched NBC during the mid 90s, you might remember this filler segment they called World in a Stew. One of the dishes they featured was a chicken stew from Ethiopia. This is that dish. Chicken we't (or doro we't) is a stew of chicken cooked in butter and berbere spices, served on injera bread with hard-boiled eggs and cottage cheese. Ziggurat's version of this dish was mildly spicy and a bit pungent-- I liked it but it wasn't exactly every day fare for my Filipino taste buds. The bland eggs and cheese were a good complement to the we't, cutting through the strong flavour of the berbere spices and butter. The injera bread, where it was dry, was also a good complement to the dish; however, the butter-based sauce soaked most of it that it was no longer nice to eat. Next time I order this dish I'll ask them to serve the bread on the side.

Moroccan Mint Tea (P75) and Ziggurat Iced Tea (P60)-- Nothing really spectacular here, just mint tea in a pot and iced tea. Next time I'll try their lassi, an Indian yogurt-based drink.

Dessert Trio A (P250)-- A trio of (from the top) shir berenj (Persian rice pudding), kulfi (Indian frozen milk dessert) and mihallabiya (Egyptian milk pudding). The shir berenj was a milky rice pudding with a hint of rose water, similar in texture to a thick rice guinataan. The kulfi was basically hard ice cream, like a very sweet rum-raisin ice cream. The mihallabiya, which for me topped the trio, had the texture of soft bilo-bilo made from sticky rice but flavoured with yogurt and rose water.

Ziggurat, which has been around for a few years, was a very good discovery for me. It impressively offers a very diverse and ambitious menu of dishes, and does a decent job of them. While I wouldn't say that it serves the best dish X or the perfect dish Y, I think it does a pretty good version of those dishes. Very much worth the trip (and a return trip) if you're getting tired of the usual East/Southeast Asian, Italian, or American fare we often find in the city. Although we spent around P650/person during our visit, one can have a hearty meal in Ziggurat for around P450; their shawarmas even go for less than P200 if I remember correctly. Now for the scores (in case you missed it, see the explanation here):

Quality = 7.5
Size = 7.0
Taste = 8.0
Ambience = 6.0
Service = 7.0
Value = P677.64
Price = P450
Sulit Rating = 1.51 > 1

Chazuke (茶漬け)

Found this recipe while surfing the Net. Chazuke, which literally means "submerged in tea", is a simple dish of rice submerged in, well, tea and topped with savoury ingredients like nori, roasted sesame seeds, and katsuobushi flakes. It has been around for around 500 years, and, for a traditional Japanese dish, is insanely easy to prepare.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups leftover rice
furikake (Japanese rice seasoning)*
Japanese green tea, piping hot (enough to submerge the rice)
1/2 tsp wasabi (optional)

1. Put rice in a deep bowl.
2. Top with furikake (and wasabi, if so desired).
3. Pour green tea.

That's it. After pouring the tea, cover the bowl and wait five minutes before serving to allow the rice to absorb the flavours of the furikake and tea. This may be eaten on its own, or served with grilled chicken or salmon teriyaki (the sweet teriyaki will complement the salty and mildly bitter chazuke). You may also top it with tsukemono (Japanese pickles).

* If you don't have ready-made furikake lying around, you can easily make your own. It's basically a mixture of roasted sesame seeds, chopped nori (dried seaweeds), sugar, salt, and katsuobushi flakes (more commonly known as bonito flakes outside Japan). If katsuobushi is hard to come by, you can try replacing it with some mild tuyo flakes, although the flavour will not really be the same. Or you can just drop the katsuobushi and make it a vegetarian dish.

Eastern European Easter Entree

I stayed home this Easter. Being too lazy to go out and too cheap to order in, I decided to make myself an Eastern European dish (at least my idea of it). This was what I came up with (sans the veggies, which I ran out of), which is basically kasha cooked with Polish kielbasa. Apologies for the above alliteration (and this one as well).

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups kasha (I used medium granulation)
2 eggs
2 cups water or broth
1 large kielbasa link (I used wiejska), sliced
1 onion, diced
1 cup diced carrots and celery
ground spices (I suggest caraway and paprika for that Eastern European flavour)
salt and pepper to taste
2 tbsp butter

1. In a large saucepan (I actually used a wok), saute the kielbasa until its natural juices ooze out. Add the onion, carrots and celery; turn down heat so they just sweat instead of saute (add oil if needed). When veggies are cooked through, add water and bring to a boil.

2. While doing (1), beat eggs in a bowl, add kasha and mix, coating the kasha granules with a thin, barely discernible layer of egg. Microwave the kasha-egg mixture for two minutes on high, then use a fork to separate the granules. This step is needed to ensure that the kasha granules won't stick together when they're cooked. This also adds protein to the kasha, since buckwheat is gluten-free.

3. After doing (2), add kasha to (1), which should be boiling by now, and simmer until all the water has been absorbed and the kasha is cooked (it should have the texture of coarse couscous or fine brown rice). This should take no more than 10 minutes if you're using medium granulation. Add salt, pepper, and spices to taste.

Top with butter and serve. Garnish with chopped parsley or cilantro. Makes around four cups. This is a meal on its own, but you may also eat it with roast chicken or rissoles.

If kasha is hard to come by, you can replace it with whole wheat couscous or brown rice; just skip (2) and instead lightly brown in oil before adding to the water. You may also replace the kielbasa with Hungarian sausage. King Sue used to sell a version of Polish kabanosy (they spelled it "cabanossi", if I remember correctly), but I can't find them now.

Of Corned Beef, Fasting, Salmon, and Chorizos

This week marks two major food events-- St. Patrick's Day and Holy Week-- both being Christian holidays and unintentional food days.

St. Patrick's Day is known for copious pints of Guinness and corned beef with cabbage. While the pints are truly St. Paddy's Day "fare", this article says that corned beef with cabbage is more of a stereotype. Speaking of corned beef, there is no corn (i.e., maize) in corned beef. The term "corned" refers to the old method of dry-curing beef with grains-- or corns-- of salt. Nowadays, corned beef is cured in salt water (process called brining), but the name has stuck.

Of course, this week is also Holy Week, so there will be no corned beef in Catholic homes on Friday. So when should Catholics really fast and abstain? According to the Code of Canon Law (Can. 1248-1253), "abstinence and fasting are to be observed on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday", while abstinence is to be observed on "all Fridays". Note, however, that the bishops' conference (in our case, the CBCP) has final authority to determine what fasting and abstinence entail (Can. 1253). From what I remember of catechism, Catholics (at least Filipino Catholics) may substitute fasting or abstinence for some other act of piety or charity. In my experience, though, fasting is the first penitence to be substituted for piety as abstinence becomes an excuse to enjoy an all-seafood feast.

Speaking of seafood, I am the happy owner of eight 16-ounce fillets of smoked Alaskan sockeye salmon. I have four preferred ways of eating them: as is, in an omelette, with pasta, and sauteed with potatoes. The fillets are smoked and packed by Kasilof Fish Co.; their website-- ILoveSalmon.com-- perfectly describes me. Aside from the eight smoked fillets, I have six cans of salmon chunks and seven fillets of frozen salmon. Salmon ranks up there with bangus and fatty sardines as my all-time favourite fishes. One guess what I'll be abstaining into this coming Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.

Come Easter I'll be all fished out and will be raring to go back to meat. I currently have a pack of Campofrio jamon serrano and a can of La Noreñense Asturian chorizos in my pantry, and I'm looking for the perfect time (and recipe) to open them. As I said in a previous post, I think Spanish cured meats are the best of their kind out there. The Italians come close with their salami, pepperoni, and prosciutto, but chorizos, salchichon, and jamon still have a slight edge. I heard somewhere that the Spaniards concocted their great pork dishes and cured meats after the Reconquista, celebrating their freedom to eat pork after kicking out the Moors. Well, that's at least one unambiguously good thing that happened as a result of all those wars.

Arya Persian Restaurant

See my review on my multiply site here. Also a brief review by my Dear here.

For a quick summary, here are the scores (read about the rating scale here):
Quality = 8.0
Size = 7.0
Taste = 8.0
Ambience = 8.0
Service = 8.0
Value = P936.78
Price = P700
Sulit Rating = 1.34 > 1

Bottomline, Arya is not exactly cheap eats, but its quality and authenticity make it well worth the cost.

How sulit is sulit: A quantitative approach

Sulit, or value for money, is a concept we often use when reviewing restaurants. Basically, it is the difference between the value of a meal (i.e., how satisfied we are with the experience) and the price we actually paid for it. By definition, sulit is a subjective measure since we are comparing something subjective (value) with something objective (price). In this post, I will present my subjective quantitative measurement of value, which I will then use for subsequent reviews.

First, let us identify my five criteria for measuring restaurants:

Quality (Q)-- refers to the quality, freshness, and authenticity of the ingredients used in the dish. Presentation, cleanliness, and temperature of the dish are also considered in this scale.

Taste (T)-- refers to the overall taste and texture of the food.

Quantity (W)-- refers to the serving size of the dish.

Service (S)-- refers to the attentiveness, friendliness, and efficiency of all crew who have contact with customers. Their attention to detail and management of complaints (if any) are also considered.

Ambience (A)-- refers to the overall quality of the restaurant's physical space. Considered here are ambience (of course), cleanliness, facilities, and even parking availability.

All scales are rated from 1 (very bad) to 10 (perfect) with 5 as barely acceptable. For criteria Q, T, and W, if more than one dish was sampled (which is often the case), the rating will reflect the average rating for the dishes. Value (V), which is our main interest, is expressed in peso terms and is a function of the five criteria with the form
V = (QTWSA)^(2/3).

The result of V(.) is my subjective valuation of the meal in current pesos, so it represents the maximum I am willing to pay per person for a meal in the restaurant given their scores in Q, T, W, S, and A. Thus, for a perfect restaurant that scores 10 in all criteria, I am willing to pay P2,154.43 per person for a meal. On the other hand, a restaurant that scores 5 in all criteria (just enough not to piss me off and still walk away with a smile) is worth P213.75 per person at most.

Sulit (S), then, is defined as S = V/P where P is the actual price per person for a meal. If S is greater than one, the restaurant is considered sulit; less than one it is not sulit; equal to one it is neutral.

WARNING: Technical Content (apologies to Mythbusters)

Any student of Economics will recognise the form of V(.) as a Cobb-Douglas utility function (homogeneous of degree 10/3). In this case, however, I am taking liberties with the definition of utility and I'm attaching a peso value to the utility measure (i.e., one unit if utility is equivalent to one peso). To illustrate, consider the following graph in Q-W space (forget about T, S, and A for now since I can't draw in five dimensions):


The 45-degree line from the origin represents increasing price and value given in pesos. Now consider the blue curve: each point in the curve represents different values for Q and W that yield the same V; the curve crosses the 45-degree line at only one point so the peso value is unique. Thus, restaurant A, with its low quality but big serving size, can have the same value as restaurant B, which has high quality but a small serving size. Restaurant C, however, being on a lower curve, has a lower value than restaurants A and B.

Suppose now that restaurants A, B, and C charge a per-person price of D pesos. A and B would then be considered as sulit restaurants while C would not.

To illustrate, consider some restaurant K which I rate as follows: Q = 7, W = 6, T = 4, S = 7, A = 7. Thus, we get V = P407.70. However, you can expect to spend around P500/person for a meal and a drink in restaurant K. It therefore registers S = 0.82 < 1, so it is not sulit.

Angel's Kitchen

After getting all psyched up by the positive blog posts about the restaurant, my Dear and I finally tried Angel's Kitchen over at Connecticut Avenue in Greenhills, San Juan. The place was exactly what the posts said it would be-- very cozy and homey, with lots of warm yellow to enliven the place. The restaurant has ample parking (well, good for at least eight cars), and a very clean rest room-- very important yet often overlooked aspects. The service was also very friendly and efficient. And now the food:

Toast with liver pate (free)-- Well, the name says it all. This is the standard house appetiser, and it isn't bad, with plus points for uniqueness (at least this side of Asia). I found the liver pate quite good-- good texture with a mild flavour-- but I'm not much into liver (or any other innards for that matter) so I didn't get much of it.

Garlicky Caesar Salad (P258)-- Honestly, not worth the price. There is usualy a tradeoff between size and ingredient quality that would justify any price; neither aspect in this salad justified its price. The serving size was small and the ingredients not exactly gourmet. The dressing was pretty good, but it was closer to a garlicky ranch than garlicky Caesar. For just P40 more, I could get a much bigger and much better solo Roka Salata at Cyma, and with recognisable parmesan cheese at that.

Sardine Pomodoro Pasta (P268)-- This was what my Dear ordered for her main course. It was pretty good, just the right amount of spice from the Spanish sardines and sour from the tomatoes. The serving size was also decent and well worth the price. However, it doesn't come with bread, which surprised me. And since it's pasta, I'm pretty confident I can make it at home if I buy some of those gourmet sardines they sell in the restaurant.

Honey Garlic Spare Ribs (P308)-- This is what I got, upon the advice of the server who said it was a popular dish. I like fried spare ribs, I like garlic, I like honey, but this dish just didn't work for me. It totally did not work for me. Now, I've had quite a few honey-something savoury dishes, like honey-mustard bangus or honey-apple chicken barbecue, and and in all those cases you'll barely see the honey and just have a hint of its sweetness when you taste the dish, the honey enhancing the flavours rather than overwhelming them. For this dish, think of the garlic fried spare ribs that you might find in Chinese restaurants. Now smother it with loads of sweet raw honey. Really, that's what it was. No kidding.

Banana Cream Pie (P118)-- This was the reason we went to this restaurant, the raison d'etre for this restaurant, we were told by the blogosphere. It was good. Very good, actually. But not spectacular. Maybe we just got all hyped up by the write-ups that we set a pretty high bar, but I can't say it's the best banana cream pie I ever had. And I'm just talking about banana cream pies in this country.

Lemon Tart (P98)-- Now this was the spectacular dish of the evening. So far the best lemon tart I've tasted, and I'm very much into lemony/citrusy desserts (the balance of sweet and tart is just perfect). The flavour of the tart is very balanced and the crust is rightly bland so it doesn't interfere with the flavours, plus there's a very thin layer of crunchy caramelised sugar* on top to enhance the texture. If anything, I'll come back to this restaurant for this and this alone (as soon as I forget what I got for my main course).

Caffee Lungo (P88)-- Full-bodied brewed coffee. No more, no less.

Usually I have a bottomline to summarise my review, but I guess I'll stop here.

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* "Caramelised sugar" is a redundancy because, technically, only sugars can get caramelised. Caramelisation involves the oxidation-- i.e., browning-- of sugars, be it sucrose from table sugar or fructose from fruits and vegetables. Meats, on the other hand, cannot be caramelised since its browning is not due to the oxidation of sugars but due to the reaction of amino acids and sugars (i.e., the Maillard reaction). However, caramel-- that sometimes rock-solid sometimes gooey sweet stuff-- can be made either by caramelisation or by a Maillard reaction depending on the ingredients. O.o