That I like food, will not come as a surprise…. I’m also very curious to taste new things and learn more about them… So a while ago I asked a Filipina friend of mine aka Samantha :-), if she was able to teach me or maybe cook together with me some traditional Philippine dishes  … Because I’m going to be honest, what do/did I actually know about the Philippines? Besides that it are islands, that it has been a colony from Spain and that the capital is Manila… Do you guys? So I was really glad Samantha wanted to help me.

Not only did she want to help me to discover more about the Philippine cuisine, she even asked a few of her friends to join us.

I bet all of my male readers  are jealous right now, right? I’m still thinking it was a dream (and yes, you’re seeing twin sisters). Good food and goooooorgeous women, no better way to learn 🙂

When I arrived,it was like entering in” Santa’s workshop” or shall I say” Spinelli’s little workshop” :-). The girls were worried that I was expecting everything would already be ready to eat… which wasn’t the case, because I really wanted to see how and what got made …

The first dish they wanted me to taste was Lumpiang Shanghai (springrolls), which is a typically meat-laden, fried type of loempia made with ground pork and beef meat, onions, I think I saw some garlic going in, cilantro, etc…  What you should know about Philippine cuisine, is that it got influenced by lots of the countries during the colonization of  the Philippines….well not only food, also language is influenced, some words they use are Spanish words

Back to the food. Thesewere very yummy (really!! Not trying to score points) spring rolls got served with sauce made by Ramona on the spot… it was like I was watching my private cooking channel. She made her own creative spicy sweet sour sauce

We even had  an injured person,  if this isn’t live cooking and devotion/ love for cooking, than what is? 🙂

I wanted to help the girls, but I couldn’t as I was the guest of honor…OK, I’m not that sad I couldn’t help … usually it’s me always working in the kitchen whole night

The main course was “Pansit” in this the ‘Canton’ version, as I’ve read that there are more than 30 different types of “Pansit”. Pansit actually means noodles in Filipino Cuisine. These noodles then get combined with fish, meat, vegetables, eggs …  With this dish you can really see the Chinese influence the Filipino cuisine has.  The ‘Canton ‘version is made with paprika, carrots, soy sauce, chicken (boiled before putting it with the other ingredients), garlic , chicken broth, green beans , onion (if wanted you can also add mushrooms) that they stir-fry before adding the boiled noodles.

Sometimes we also took time to take some pictures  and to drink bubbles, I’m not sure how many bottles got emptied, but let’s just say that we were all very cheerful 😉 and at some point the girls were disappointed that they didn’t bring a karaoke set 🙂 🙂

Something that I do found and still find strange is that they served these noodles with white rice… I ate it anyway 🙂 Just to make sure how much l liked it, I took twice!! If I wouldn’t have liked it, I wouldn’t have done that. When I look at the below picture, that’s really the dish I think off when I think of Asian food

The girls explained to me that this dish is always served at big feasts and/or celebrations… So I know what I’ll be serving my next feast 🙂

But it didn’t stop there, nooooooo sir! They also made me a rice dessert called ‘Biko’.  Biko is made with sticky rice that gets boiled, put in a baking tray and they top is with coconut milk that has been cooking for a while. While this coconut milk has been cooking they added brown sugar. Afterwards they put in the oven… I didn’t taste too much of the coconut, but that’s probably because brown has a pretty strong taste. This dish actually reminded me of rice pudding (but better, I even took some home) And after dessert at some point even I started singing (THANK GOD there is no video from that)

One thing was sure, they made more than enough food, but seems to be the tradition in the Philippines

That after dinner everybody can take some home .

I must say that this has been a WONDERFUL night and I’m happy that I got surrounded by 6 friendly, funny, beautiful and food cooking Ladies!! Thank you Samantha, Crystal, Christine, Ramona, Tanja and Cindy for making this Filipino feast possible 🙂

One thing is for sure, I was really in heaven and can’t wait for the next time 🙂 🙂

I also want to share this little video from my favorite standup comedian Russell Peters  explaining the difference between Asian people (including Filipinos) 🙂