My Korean and Indian Food Trip!

Our project The Asian Palate is just a few days away. For those who don’t know this, it is our project of this term that allows student and adults to experience what it is like to be in another country in Asia. We are supposed to show them each of the countries’ culture. The countries we will be doing are the Philippines, Japan, Korea and India. We were asked to go to restaurants that serves food from each of the countries. Since I have been in a Filipino and Japanese restaurant, for a lot of times actually since I like that both cuisines, I tried something new: Korean and Indian.

Korean:
At first I thought it would taste a lot like Japanese, but I was wrong. Korean food was way different. It was a lot spicier and it comes in big servings. We first had appetizers. There were small shrimp, beans dipped in some sweet syrup and of course, kimchi. Kimchi a is mixture of various pickled vegetables. Korean families used to prepare enough kimchi to last the winter. That is why kimchi are made spicy, to lessen the coldness during November or December.

Next we had our main dishes. One of the meals we ordered was their special: Samgyetang. The dish’s name literally means “ginseng Korean soup” in english. Samgyetang consists of a whole young chicken and Korean ginseng. Ginseng is usually what they use in Korean dishes. It was the ingredient that made the dish have an after taste spice. Samgyetang has a bit of spice, but for me honestly, it just taste like arozcaldo, a dish in the Philippines.

The meal I ordered was Bibimo. It was rice mixed with various vegetables, meat (either tuna or beef) and Pygo Mushrooms which are widely grown in Korea. It turns out my meal has an excellent anti-cancer effect!

Overall, Korean food quite better than what I expected it to be. I actually enjoyed my food trip!

Indian:
Honestly, I wasn’t very excited when we decided to go to an Indian restaurant. I really thought I would not like it, but still, it was for a project so I did it anyway. When we entered, it smelled like spices. I really can’t explain what specific spice is that though, but what I know is that you can tell it’s from India. I ordered the one with no spice since I am not a fan of hot things. It was Indian butter chicken curry. By the way, there was no beef or even pork in the menu. Just chicken, because in India they consider beef/pork sacred. Anyway, we didn’t eat rice. The carbohydrates of our meal is from a bread called naan. It was really good and satisfying actually, and it’s hard to believe that it consists of yoghurt and onion seeds.

Moving on. So when I ordered the curry, I really thought that it wouldn’t be spicy like what they said. I found out it was still spicy. It had an aftertaste that was strangely satisfying. My dad’s order was way spicier than anyones. It was tandoori chicken. It is an North Indian dish consisting of roasted chicken prepared with yogurt and spices. Even though our meals were spicy, we had lassi. Lassi is a drink made of fruits, yogurt, and crushed ice. It was absolutely refreshing.

To finish the meal, we had Indian ice cream! There was no specific name to it but let me tell you, it was absolutely amazing! Remember, this is just my opinion. Since it was only called Indian Ice cream I couldn’t really search for the ingredients of it, but I remember the waiter said about it being vanilla flavored. It also had almonds and other nuts. It was super sweet yet satisfying. The only down part is the way they served it. It was like 1/4 to 1/5 in a small bowl so most likely you wont be content with just that amount.

My overall experience in this Indian restaurant turned out great! I went from not wanting to try their food to coming back and try more of their cuisine!

I learned a lot from both trips. I hope I get to find out not just more of their cuisine, but their culture!

God bless everyone and Good night!

A Message from the Youth

God bless you all!

Continue What’s Started (SONA 2014)

This year’s 28th of July was President Benigno Aquino III’s, the current president of the Philippines, 5th State of the Nation Address or SONA. This is where the president says the achievements and improvements that happened in the previous year. He also states his plans for this year and the upcoming ones. He mentioned quite a lot of improvements, which is a good thing since it means our country is rising. He said that the current state of the country is rising. I would have to agree since he did a lot of achievement int he previous year. In particular, he mentions improvements on our credit ratings where our country had been upgraded. He also mentions the improvement in our airplane services so that some countries allowed us to have flights in their area. Although he did quite a lot, he didn’t mention much about his future plans for the country. But overall, I think his speech about the state of the country was believable. Like I said a while ago, he said our country is rising and you can tell by the improvements he made from last year. I just wish that he would focus more on the future for our country.

One issue that caught my attention the most is when he said, and I quote, “United Nations declared that we are at the stage associated with storm Yolanda rehabilitation.” This is because I personally think it’s true. After the biggest storm of history, the President stated that the government already fixed almost all the destroyed roads and structures in Visayas, the part of the Philippines that was damaged the most. He even said that the electricity in those places are back. Plus, over 220 thousand Filipinos now have jobs and a living there. So I would have to agree when the United Nations said we are rising quite fast since the storm was just late 2013.

I was kind of happy that he helped raise the country and when he said he will keep doing it even if he’s not the president anymore. I like it when he said “I am content because my feelings are assured that many of you will continue the things I have started,” Also when he said, “The Filipino is worth dying for. The Filipino is worth living. The Filipino worth fighter for.” I agree to this because we Filipinos are one. My family and I all think that even though we achieved a lot from last year, there’s always room for improvement.

God bless you all!