Binge Session at Kanin Club

It has been an insanely busy week for our catering business; and so, I am deeply mortified by my lack of posts this month.  My only excuse is that we had to cater to close to 5,000 people in a span of 5 days.  What few days I've had after that hectic week has been spent hibernating... and working some more.  Boo.  We were all operating on 2 to 4 hours of sleep per day but somehow we managed to pull through til the end.  So workaholics that we are, we scheduled a meeting with Anj, a consultant of ours and a very good friend of mine, last Saturday, which was just a day after our said hellish week.

I don't know how I managed to get myself out of bed, but I had enough of my wits about me to bring all the necessary paperwork for our meeting and my trusty camera.  It was supposed to be a simple meeting over lunch at Kanin Club.  I had no plans of blogging about what we were about to eat since all my energy was focused on staying awake.  It was a good thing that I'd developed a habit, akin to a muscle reflex, of taking pictures of everything I eat because our lunch at Kanin Club turned out to be not so ordinary after all.

I managed to drag my bleary-eyed self to Technohub 15 minutes past our agreed time.  Yuri was late too by association.  Teehee.  My bad.  He was ready an hour before we were supposed to leave as always.  Lucky for me, our other business partner and Anj had a hard time getting out of bed too so it ended up that we all got there at almost the same time.

Our team was in a celebratory mood, and since we had Anj with us as well, we decided to reward ourselves by ordering A LOT of food.

Among us, Anj was the only one who had eaten there before.  She enthusiastically recommended that we try one of her fave dishes, which was the Sinigang rice.

Sinangag na Sinigang Php 179.00

I wasn't sure what I was expecting but it certainly didn't look like anything I had imagined.  The crispy kankong (water spinach) topping, the "sinigang risotto", and the pork liempo slices wrapped around the rice had my interest piqued and I was excited to try it.  This deconstructed dish is an interesting take on pork sinigang and you can definitely pick out all the key flavors.  The rice was cooked in the sinigang broth with an extra helping of tomatoes, so the tartness and full-bodied taste of the soup was definitely there.  The portion size  was more than enough for three, but Anj and I needed no help in wolfing this plate down.

Yuri wanted to stay away from meat, so he picked out the Stuffed Squid.
 

Stuffed Squid Php 224.00

It was definitely a sight to behold.  It looked so pretty on the plate.  The squid was tender enough and the batter was crunchy.  The sweet sauce had hints of oyster sauce in it.  The menu says the squid was stuffed with chives but I'm pretty sure it was some sort of spinach.  I just wish the stuffing had some sort of flavor to it instead of it just being plainly blanched.  The dish would've been phenomenal if they did something special to the stuffing.

Itsi Bitsi Php 224.00

We were trying to sort of erm eat "healthy" so we decided to order one veggie dish.  We went for the Itsi Bitsi just because the name was quirky.  It was described in their menu as "It's sitaw, bitsuelas, and sigarilyas sauteed with beef.", hence the name.  They get plus points for trying to be funny, and they got us to order the dish anyway so that counts for something.  The vegetables were rolled in cornstarch and then deep-fried before it was cooked with the beef.  It was simply seasoned but really tasty. 

Binukadkad na Tilapia Php 246.00

You can never go wrong tilapia.  This dish is always a hit.  Deep-fried butterflied tilapia served with soy sauce.  It was fried perfectly.  I could've literally eaten the whole thing bones and all.

Now this is what the Kanin Club is known for.  Dinuguan a.k.a pork blood stew is a truly unique and exotic Filipino dish.  Kanin Club has somehow made dinuguan friendlier and more accessible to people who'd usually cringe at the thought of eating dinuguan.  The blood sauce part is non-negotiable of course, but instead of using offals, they've decided to use choice cuts of pork cooked chicharon-style.  It was a lovely surprise!  You'd never guess it underneath all that sauce.  I'm ashamed to admit that I have been unable to conquer my squemishness for dinuguan ever since I watched my lola cook it from scratch when I was a kid.  But I've been told that many people have ventured to eat dinuguan for the first time at Kanin Club and loved it.  So I gave it my best shot.

Crispy Dinuguan Php 261.00

More than anything, it's the visual of the thick dark blood gravy that psyches me out the most.  I had to close my eyes, like the big baby that I am, before taking a bite.  Once I was past the visual hurdle,  I could properly appreciate the crunchy chicharon together with the slightly tart sauce.  Yep this was my first bite of dinuguan in a loooooong time and it wasn't so bad was as delicious as any bowl of dinuguan could be. LOL.  So, if you're sampling this dish for the first time, then I must insist that you try it here.

To say that we reached a milestone in our business is gross understatement.  That's the most we've catered to  EVER.  So that pig out session at Kanin club was well-deserved.  :-)  I'm crossing my fingers and hoping we have more stressful weeks like those!



Address:  U.P. AyalaLand Technohub, Commonwealth Ave., Quezon City, Metro Manila
Tel. No. : (02) 332-5978
Other Branches:  Ayala Triangle Gardens, Makati
                              Westgate Center, Alabang
                              Paseo de Sta. Rosa, Laguna


~Mich :)

Couponmania: Sakae Sushi!

About two months ago, I managed to eavesdrop on my friend's conversation on Twitter. I saw the words "coupon", "sushi", and "eat-all-you-can" being thrown around and I was resolved... nay determined, to find a way to get in on the action. Thank God the coupon deal, which was from Cash Cash Pinoy, was for a one hour eat-all-you-can sushi buffet for six.  I lucked out!  Plus they really were looking for additional people to go with them so my timing was perfect.   

So finally, we all met last Saturday at Sakae Sushi at the SM North Annex for our epic erm merienda (?) sushi buffet.  You see, we were only allowed to use the coupon during their off peak hours so we reserved a table for 3:30 PM.  We had been dying to redeem the coupon as soon as it was purchased online, but somehow work and other things got in the way.  We had been dreaming and talking about this sushi smorgasborg for months so you can imagine how excited we were last Saturday!

The coupon was worth Php 1,500.00, so it only cost us Php 250.00 each.  Our one hour time limit started as soon as we sat.  Our assigned server told us the rules as soon as we were ushered into our booth.  She told us that all the sushi/items placed on the conveyor belt were fair game, except for the bottled juices which would cost us extra.  We also got a bowl of miso soup each and a choice of bottomless hot or cold green tea.  The coupon was really too good to be true!  As soon as we were given the go signal I felt my adrenaline pumping.  I've always had a bit of a competitive streak in me so I was determined to get the most out of this buffet within the time limit given to us.

It took a while for us to come up with a game plan.  The whirring sound of the conveyor belt together with the assortment of colorful plates marching past our table was hypnotic.  I could've easily gotten lost in it.  But we had a running clock so we quickly started picking out plates that caught our eye.  Half of the fun was in grabbing the plates.  And grab we did. 


Here were some of my fave picks that day.  There was a wide assortment of nigiri sushi (hand-formed sushi rice with a seafood type topping over it) with toppings such as salmon, tuna, shrimp, blue marlin, and (weirdly enough) octopus.  They also had the typical maki sushi (rolled sushi with nori).  There were also a few non-shushi items on the conveyor belt like, sauteed pepper chicken, chicken roll with asparagus and cheese, tofu steak, and tempura crabsticks as seen above.  We prolly ate close to 55 plates of sushi between  us six!  That's 100++ pieces of sushi. LOL.  *high fives all around*

Our first 30 minutes!

Whatever Sakae Sushi lacked in quality, we made up for in quantity.  They made sure that their sushi rolls had extra thick layers of rice in it so the proportions were a bit off.  Hey from a business point of view I completely understand why they did this.  Rice fills you up really fast and if you get customers like us everyday it would be quite hard to make a decent profit.  During our last 15 minutes, our server asked us if there was a specific item or items we'd like the kitchen to put out on the conveyor belt.  We didn't know this was possible!  If I had known earlier, I would've been stuffing myself with salmon nigiri the whole time.  I quickly asked for a few more salmon nigiris and true enough, they immediately put out three plates of it on the conveyor belt.   I promptly ate two.  At this point, I was stuffed up to my head in sushi.

If we go by the per-plate-prices of their sushi, to say that we got our money's worth is a huge understatement.

Yuri and I had to walk around the mall five times to get our tummies settled.  Yep that was dinner for us.  I definitely won't be eating any sort of sushi for at least a month.  But if I do feel like going on a sushi binge, I now know where to go.  Sakae Sushi may not have the best sushi out there but we got it for a steal and we definitely had a blast!

Happy tummies. :)

I'm not sure when they'll release coupons again, but their All Day Sushi Buffet rates aren't half bad:

• Adults Php 399.00 / head
• Kids Php 199.00 / head

***This includes miso soup and a choice of bottomless hot or cold green tea.  No service charge.  Surcharges will be imposed on food wastage.



Address: UG/F SM City North EDSA Annex, North Ave. cor. EDSA, Quezon City
Tel. #: (02) 332-9139
Hours: 10:00 AM to 9:00 PM daily