This year, Foodprints on Lifestyle channel once again will release a 2nd set Christmas special with 2 episodes. These 2 episodes airs in TV on December 14 and 22, 2015 on Lifestyle channel. This time, it is a whole lot difference from last year’s Christmas special. This time, Foodprints’ host, Sandy Daza travels around the National Capital Region of the Philippines (NCR), which includes Pateros, Marikina, Malabon, Quezon City, and Antipolo City in Rizal province to sample and feature local Christmas-time food give aways. These food products from all over the Metro will sure be very exotic but interesting delicacies to give away and serve during Christmas. The 2nd episode, which airs on December 22 will be a more sophisticated Christmas dining episode featuring places to order high-end Christmas food such as Paella, Wild Boar, desserts, Prime Rib, and Private dining within the Metro. These 2 episodes shall once again bring Christmas into us by the means of food.
The first episode of the Christmas special featured local delicacies from some far destinations within Metro Manila. This episode featured all sorts of interesting and very local insider places to by Christmas food products in Metro Manila. The cities of the NCR that will air on this episode are Pateros, Marikina City, Malabon City, Quezon City, and Antipolo City and each has local food surprises and places for sightseeing as well. From Pateros, the local delicacy Foodprints will feature is the Balut Egg; Pateros is found at the eastern part of the Metro, east of Makati City, north of Taguig City, and south of Pasig City, Pateros is best known for making Balut eggs, in fact it this egg snack containing a duck embryo inside is well known all over the Philippines, and also sold in other parts of the world, in fact Vietnam has their version of it, but the origin of Balut is the town of Pateros in the Metro. Pateros, once a duck farm and rich agricultural land and river port has developed different kinds of snacks throughout the years; another snack from Pateros is Inutak, a sweet sticky cake either eaten hot or cold but goes best with ice cream, Pateros is also known for a other egg based snacks like Penoy, a dry boiled duck egg and Bibingka Abnoy, an omelette made from rotten eggs, the Alfombra slippers are from Pateros too, all this including the slipper will be featured in Foodprints X-mas special part1. Next stop in the Metro is Marikina, located int he north-east part, east of Quezon City, north of Pasig, and west of Rizal province, it is best known for its low river lands and some interesting yet to be discovered food products. The food products of Marikina include the assorted coloured puto, mini rice-cakes the Marikina version, also a grilled and stuffed Bangus fish, and Everlasting, a sweet Christmas meat loaf. Marikina has exotic food samples but has old sites and buildings dating back to the Spanish era in the Philippines, the food here has a long cultural history too. Next after Marikina is Malabon City, found at the north-western side of the Metro, north of Manila City, West of Caloocan and Valenzuela cities, and east of Navotas City, and south of Bulacan province as well. Malabon is basically a lowland port city with rivers and streams from the sea making its way through the city making the city a wet one having more seafood products. The most famous seafood product of Malabon is the really tasty Pancit Malabon, a rice noodle dish cooked it crab fat and oyster sauce and topped with cabbage, eggs, shrimps, squid, and more seafood sometimes, it comes with a yellow sauce and was invented in Malabon back in the early 20th century. Other food products found in the watery, Venice-like city of Malabon include a famous rice cake platter, often called Kakanin, made with assorted colours of rice cakes with a pattern. After Malabon is down to Quezon City, and in particular, one part of Quezon City, and Banawe street, home to several Chinese eateries and Chinese Christmas food. Banawe street is the alternative to Manila’s Chinatown and is a street where you can find many Chinese eateries selling and serving roast duck, dumplings, rice meals, and Chinese delicacies and while eating, you can have your car or motorcycle fixed. The final stop of the episode is Antipolo City, found at the east of the Metro above the hills of Rizal province and is the provincial capital of Rizal too. Antipolo is well known for its miraculous church but outside, local food products are sold. The food products of Antipolo are basically desserts and sweet delicacies, the well-known ones are Suman, a thin sticky rice cake, mangoes, and Casoy or cashew nuts, apparently all 3 go perfect with each other. That’s all for now on the local food products episode of the Christmas special, the order of sequence of the cities and products may not be in chronological order as the episode will show them but these cities and food products are exactly what will be featured on this episode.
The second episode of the Christmas special of Foodprints season 3 features the fine classy food to have to give away during Christmas but even more, food that can be served at Christmas parties. The 2nd episode features Christmas ham on a bone from Mr. Delicious together with pandesal bread from Balai Pandesal and in which it is best partnered with Cheese Pimiento spread made from Queso de Bola cheese, the classic Filipino Christmas cheese, which will also appear in the second episode. The 2nd episode of the Christmas special will mainly focus on take out suggestions for potluck parties, and aside from the ham, pandesal, and cheese-pimiento spread, there will be more fine food suggestions fit for Christmas parties. One of the best suggestions for Christmas party food this episode will feature is Wild Boar from Mr. Cochinillo, and this time Mr. Cochinillo will be featured once more, but unlike in last year’s Christmas special where it was the Cochinillo or roast baby pig, this time it is his new brick-oven roasted wild boar. As an alternative to Cochnillo, wild boar is a great sample of a main course dish, being described as a tougher and gamier version of the soft Cochinilllo, but of course the one place to get wild boar is from Mr. Cochinillo. To the wild boar or cochinillo, there is its best paired partner of course, a type of paella called “Fideua”, which is a seafood paella dish, but aside from Mr. Cochinillo’s Fideua, this episode will feature a place to get Paella as the main course rice dish for Christmas parties, and of course the perfect partner for wild boar or cochinillo. The paella of this Christmas special comes from Casa Medillano, a perfect place where you can order fine home-made Paella for Christmas parties. From Casa Medillano, you can order a mixed Paella or any dish fit for potluck parties, most of them are in fact Spanish dishes. Afterwards, this episode will show something quite different but interesting, a private dining place located in Quezon city to have Christmas parties. This private dining place is called Pio’s kitchen, and it mostly serves Spanish dishes, to eat here, you need to make a reservation, it is located at Sct. Reyes St. cor. Sct. Fuentebella St. in Quezon City. What this episode will feature of Pio’s kitchen is its 2 types of Paella, one is the regular yellow paella but with a unique topping found in it, the Ilocano Bagnet, it comes with an eggplant Chimichurri sauce, the other paella of Pio’s kitchen that will be featured is the Paella Negra (black paella) with Saffron Aioli. Pio’s Kitchen has a country house look with farmhouse furniture, which makes it a unique interesting place in the middle of Quezon City, and the best part is that it serves really good private dining Spanish dishes, most especially the Paella. Now on to the desserts, as it is an episode for food suggestions for Christmas parties, of course the desserts have to be included as the Christmas parties are not complete without the desserts. This episode will show the making process of 3 desserts; a chocolate cake, a sticky toffee pudding, and an apple cheesecake. And finally, the highlight of the episode would be featured last, which is the Canadian prime rib steak, cooked by Sandy, the host himself. The beef prime rib is the highlight of the potluck, and is one dish that is considered to be the highlight main course of a Christmas party or dinner.
Well, this Christmas shall be a great one now that Foodprints has showed where to find the best food suggestions to take out for Christmas parties and local snacks for Christmas give aways. Don’t miss Foodprints on Lifestyle Channel on Mondays, December 14 and 21 to see the best food samples for Christmas… thanks for viewing, Merry Christmas!!
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