Ziggurat!

We are very pleased about Ziggurat being here.  Well, not exactly in Sta. Rosa, but at the border--in Silang.

It occupies a corner of the ground floor of Stanford Suites in Bgy. Inchican. Right across the St. Scholastica's College, and St. Benedict's Church.

I don't know how Ziggurat is related to the Destination Hotel (a few roomswithin the building), but they gave us discount vouchers for the rooms after we paid for our meal. Oh, the building is a condo-tel. 
http://www.southforbes.com/house-lot-laguna-cavite-philippines-stanford-suites/
I am not connected in any way to the owners or staff of this restaurant.  We simply just enjoyed it in our previous city, and now here it is in our next one.

We are very, very pleased...

...having lived in close proximity to the main Ziggurat in Makati prior to here.  We didn't know we had missed it.

OKAY BEFORE I CONTINUE...LET ME SAY WE ARE LOVING PERI-PERI CHICKEN IN SOLENAD NUVALI. APPARENTLY SO DO MANY PEOPLE, AS THAT PLACE IS ALWAYS FULL! 

ZIGGURAT IS A JUST LOCATED IN  NICE QUIET CORNER NEAR THE CHURCH WITH CUISINE WE ALSO SAVOR.

I will leave a few not-so-great photos...but the menu, the extensive menu of North African, Middle Eastern, African, Meditteranean Indian dishes....I will leave for you to peruse in detail when you visit.  Extensive as the menu list is, not all the dishes are available at any one time because of ingredients on stock.  I am happy as long as there is lamb!
(and hey, prices are reasonable)

couscous!

https://www.facebook.com/Ziggurat-Cuisine-Restaurant-125013094177654/

Paseo

     So this is what they've done to that first, original row of buildings in what is now Paseo de Santa Rosa...

     I had wrongly assumed another building would rise in this spot, after its tenants were moved to other parts of the center.  Instead, I found grass, sky...and a good playground set.

    Perhaps management realized people were skipping this area for Nuvali?

    I got a little bit sentimental. On this spot stood the original strip with the Safari car rental office, Japanese restaurants, and a few offices. I really wish I had photos of the place almost twenty years ago.

    This was where we would stop for breakfast, brunch or lunch, on the way to Tagaytay. This was back when--and I am sure I have said this before--we would take this route up, but not down if it was too late in the evening.  The Japanese restaurants served the Japanese men from the surrounding Japanese companies. They still are around--Umenoya and Ippon Yari, but in other locations.  Pancake House is still there, in the building pictured on the right.

     By the time we moved here, the center of this strip was occupied by bars...it was pretty seedy actually, especially when they opened by twilight and on Wednesday and Friday and Saturday evenings.  It was actually a relief that they knocked this down.    

    Frankly, I find that this commercial area is confused, confusing, and really, not maximized. Well, I don't know about their profits, but from a customers' standpoint...it could be better.  It is too late in the evening for me to expound on this. I'll just leave it at that.  

     

Annyeong Friday (refer to post in 2012)!

     Speaking of Koreans in Laguna...
a surprise upon my return home.  Another neighbor (on a another street), a handsome couple, came by with this 'bento' box.  Yum!

     It was their young daughter's birthday, they said, and they had prepared some lunch. They wanted us to have this set.  The cookies came in a cute loot bag.

     This handsome couple have been here less than a year. They are quite young, modern, and are expecting a second child very very soon.  We have not actually spent much time together, our daughters having played just a few times.  The woman's own mother has been in and out from Korea, and she is actually who brought us all together. All without speaking English. Play is its own language, and serves to forge links, after all.  And so does an exchange of food and treats!   Maraming Salamat neighbors!

Overcast for a week. Soup and expat cooking

     There had better be narra flowers on all the narra trees after this.  PAGASA however, has declared more rains. Thing is, here in Santa Rosa, it has hardly rained.  It's been cool, overcast, gray with the sun peeking once in awhile.  I think I prefer more showers than these light ones, and drizzles. Just so alanganin (uncertain/undecided).

   On one such day this past week,  I got comfort, real comfort food, so unexpected at my door.  Soup, from my Indonesian neighbor!  Penang Hokkien Mee, she said (husband is Malaysian and this gets his thumbs up).  I salivated seeing the sambal belacan and the soup. She had separated it for me to refrigerate and eat at my leisure.  She's got to be kidding. Why would I make this wait?  It was so very masarap, enak, delicious. 

oops I should've uncovered the soup

This is what I had made. Fish fillet with papaya-mango salsa from the Maya Kitchen

    The same week, I had three neighbors come over on the same morning.  As soon as they settled, I realized I had a cookbook for each of their nationalities.  All three do cook, and in fact we are having a Thai lunch next week.  There is a good mix here isn't there.  Same time last year, a Sri Lankan neighbor who was leaving for home gifted me with something like croquetas--I forget the name and couldn't pronounce it anyway.  The real thing was meant to be spicy, but she cooked it to my taste buds. I would have liked spicy, as I did the sambal above, but I appreciate the consideration.

     Anyway I quickly handed them their respective books.  My Thai friend said I was quite lucky to have the planner with recipes and photos of Her Majesty the Queen Mother.  It contains her personal favorites and specialties, not necessarily Thai.  It is a unique book and I thank an old Thai friend for it.

These mothers are amazing, they've been producing yummy treats and meals for us.  There must be a requirement for expat wives to be excellent cooks.  I have not met one who wasn't.  

My husband's mother was from the North (below Ilocos though); mine from the South (Negros)

Then again, I have experienced having to cook (and sharing the food) while overseas with my husband...and surprisingly came up with a super adobo if I may say so myself.  Staff at the apartment hotel must have been hungry when they smelled the garlic. They tried to convince me to takeover the restaurant  which was closing.  My husband's Filipino colleague must have just been homesick when he raved about it. Ah, the pleasure of not having a ''history'' somewhere else, being new, or anonymous haha.  Seriously, if anything, it's probably confidence borne out of necessity that has produced some culinary talent. In other words, walang ibang magluluto ng gusto ko kapag nasa ibang bansa.

LZM Restaurant Solenad 2

Ack! What an irresponsible/impulsive/slow blogger am I.  I posted on "Solenad 2" that the restaurants there are "the usual".   I said something to the effect of not having any unique fare in the area like "Kanin Club's". I KNEW I saw a packed "LZM Restaurant" the two times I was at Army Navy burger...I KNEW I saw photos of Filipino food somehow. 

It took FOOD magazine's October issue to correct my Solenad 2 dining impression.

In it is a photo of what they deem to be their favorite daing na bangus.
I recalled LZM were the initials on that Filipino restaurant's sign.  He would not believe my saying he didn't have to go to the Tagaytay nor Silang branches, as it was right there in Solenad 2.

My husband quickly called the number listed and voila LZM is indeed in Solenad 2.

We didn't have to, but Googling LZM just makes me wonder where we have been in the Tagaytay dining scene. Turns out LZM in Silang and Tagaytay are "hidden" holes-in-the-wall type of places famous people like Marketman of Marketmanila love.  I read a 2007 post that said theirs was his favorite daing na bangus.

When we arrived early last night, the only customers happened to be---a cousin of mine and his colleague.  HE had known this "secret" in Tagaytay all along, and has been having his bulalo dinner regularly in this Solenad branch ever since it opened.  They work in Batangas and travel this route thrice weekly.  He says they prefer this bulalo over Rose & Grace's (located across Paseo), which doesn't have as much gulay.

Anyway...again, I'm no food blogger.  I'll just say, the bangus is extra large, plump, light and very very very delicious. It was rainy last night, and the sinampalukang manok was both comforting and tasty.  I try not to eat bulalo, I'll take my cousin's word for it.

This daing na bangus is also sold marinated frozen, for frying at home.  Basta, I can't describe it...it's just good. And LZM is dangerously going to become our next special lutong bahay place to eat or order from, just a few minutes from home.  The owners were there, and I wonder if they know how this early, their investment will surely pay off.  There still are other imported franchises out there playing it safe--Chicken places, pizza joints...   I wonder if they'll ever come.