Today’s Special 2: Food from Papa Fares Arabian Restaurant, Shahi Qila House of Kebab and Biryani, and Bliss Wellness Indian Curry House

All right, all right, I admit it.

Shakshuka, magalgal, and chicken mandi \m/

It’s not really Italian dishes that are my favorite; it’s Indian/Pakistani/Arabian … I’ll throw in Mediterranean. Whichever those cuisines are that make their food with unusual/special spices that give food that lingering and captivating aroma, provide a multifaceted taste, mouthfuls of character.

Special mutton biryani *nomnom

(Italians do have a thing about keeping things simple. Brings to mind an episode I watched on Food TV where a chef, Jamie Oliver, I think that was, cooked pasta for Italians in Italy. Everyone around the table was so puzzled, whispering in Italian about how OA, how goddess pasta, what he made was. Yes, “sometimes spaghetti likes to be alone.” ~Big Night 1996)

Oookay, I digress. Getting out of Europe now.

Who knew we’d have another post entitled Today’s Special. In the five years since this Baguio food diary started, more restos have been opening; and thanks to the universe, there’s variety. Yeh!

Change theme song from Come Together to Roop Tera Mastana by Kishore Kumar.  More cheering as I finally found the song that played 36 minutes into the Today’s Special movie.

Papa Fares Arabian Food

Lahsa =D

Starting things off is another Sir Dan, eager beaver, find that takes us on a magic carpet ride to the Arab side of the world, to places like Yemen. After a little explanation session with our attendant as to what the selections were, we got taste explosions of lahsa and matabbag.  The matabbag bread dough with meat and scallions was a tad salty but nothing that another calamansi squeeze couldn’t fix.  The cream cheese really made that lahsa a memorable dish that we ate with powdery, powdery pita bread. (“,)

We also got a chicken sambosa and cheese sambosa for this visit and we capped all the savory eats off with the masob dessert which looks like taho in the photo, but is really made with an oats looking base of ground flatbread with bananas, buried underneath cream and honey.

Matabbag, and chicken and cheese sambosas

After studying the Papa Fares menu at home, I  was pushed to return seeing they also had shakshuka.  I so love the look of that dish. Go ahead and Google it. White and yellow poached eggs on a red tomato saucy mixture with spices backdrop, I’m drooling right now just thinking about it. Must be, too, I have a serious protein deficiency. *snickers  Dishes seem to be more appetizing to me when I hear eggs are an ingredient in it. Sadly, the shakshuka we got looked just like lahsa with the egg scrambled in. It was delish but it totally burst my bubble not seeing it like the ones in Google. What did Shakespeare say about expectations again? *harhar

Together with this, we got magalgal that reminded me of curry but the flavor not as intense. And the chicken mandi with slow cooked chicken resting on the ever beauteous long grained fried rice and a chutney made with ‘scary spice’, Will & Grace’s code name for coriander, that made the chicken … and even the rice ‘fly’.

Masoub/malikia and milk tea. Mmm, Rabea brand.

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Papa Fares

Private Road, Lower Magsaysay (in front of AMA Colleges, a floor above Health 100)

Baguio City, Philippines

facebook.com/papafares2600/

Shahi Qila House of Kebab and Biryani

Next stop, Pakistan. Shahi Qila is now the one and only concessionaire at Manna Garden Cafe. It looks like Kharis Bakery star baker, Chef Tina got her wish of having a special resto serving a unique cuisine at their garden cafe. \m/ While Pakistani dishes are pretty similar to Indian dishes, they’re still very distinct.

Kachoomber salad =)

UPDATE 08/24/2018: After a couple of months on hiatus, Shahi Qila is back as a food DELIVERY service. Do visit their Facebook page (link below), to browse their menu and for orders. (Please place your orders at least a day before. Minimum of P500 purchase.)

We started with the kachoomber salad that had such a perfect lemon juice dressing that made simple tomatoes, onions, cucumber addicting. You know it, more than a starter, I was perfectly happy with it as a main meal. *hee

Good thing, daal masoor and beef karahi called to me from the Shahi Qila menu as well. Fab sauces for both viands, eaten together with pita bread and/or with rice. Daal is like a grittier and more fun mongo guisado on account of the spice party mix, and the karahi, just the way I like it, with uber soft chunks of meat that it looks like it’s melting into the sauce. ^^,

Beef karahi, anda pakora, daal masoor (“,)

Here I go again with the eggs with anda pakora, the Pakistani version of our kwek kwek. Thanks to coriander, what Akbar from the movie described as “a young girl walking through a lone grove by the ocean wondering what the future holds”, as a chutney, it saved the eggs from being utterly dry.  We washed this authentic Pakistani meal that we ate to our hearts’ content with sweet lassi and Pakistani milk tea. =)

Sweet lassi and Pakistani milk tea

I couldn’t bear leaving Baguio’s very own Shahi Qila ‘fort’ without biryani. Afterall, it is the house of biryani, and man, how my brother and I enjoyed that breakfast. At first, I didn’t heat the meal up. Read: Lazy mode. *hihi But after a bite of the mutton that was like a hardened chunk of oil, I realized heating was in order. Heated, it was one scrumptious spoonful of beautiful ricey and tender meat after another.

Baguio’s very own Shahi Qila and a photo of the namesake, Lahore Fort

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Shahi Qila House of Kebab and Biryani

Manna Garden Cafe

UPDATE 08/24/2018: After a couple of months on hiatus, Shahi Qila is back as a FOOD DELIVERY SERVICE.

Browse their menu and for orders: facebook.com/Shahi-Qila-Restaurant-784616625028764/

(Please place your orders at least a day before. Minimum of P500 purchase.)

Bliss Wellness Indian Curry House

With a heads up from our foodie friend, Ruth Gail, we travel to the border of Pakistan and end up in India. Walking up Hilltop Street from Magsaysay, we can easily spot the Indian Curry House across from hangar because it’s the building with only the second floor painted yellow. Way to make yourself a landmark, Bliss. =D

Keep a look out for the yellow painted second floor and this sign

From Sir Jim of the old Bliss Cafe‘s sneak peek of the Curry House menu, days ahead, I already knew what I was going to order: Jeera rice, aloo govi, and matar paniir. We totally surprised the owner that we knew about Indian dishes. He did say I also had Indian features, so there. *tee hee

Yum, mildly spiced rice with cumin seeds. Could you blame me feeling like I was such a big shot eating this? Cumin, a saucy wench to Akbar, “will give you great pleasure but she herself is never satisfied.”

Matar paniir, jeera rice, aloo govi, chapati ^^,

Race and I made the aloo govi and the matar paniir our ulam. Gobi means cauliflower. For this curry house’s version, it was swimming in zingy tomato sauce.

Garam masala, “the soul of Indian food” combined with fresh cheese that is paneer made the matar paneer one viand to contend with. Ahh, paneer. Now, another Indian food movie is coming to mind: The Lunchbox. =)) The role of the chapati for me was just to wipe our plates clean off any sauce. *wipe wipe

Informed that they had rasgula which I was major curious about, we finished our Bliss Wellness late lunch with that sweet choice and a cup each of masala tea and Indian tea. While sipping from my masala cup that’s just more aromatic than Race’s cup of chai, we assessed that we prefer the other ball shaped dessert, the gulab jamun to this white one. Funky, the way it disintegrated in our mouths, like wet tissue. I’m sure though, that’s just an acquired taste sensation that I just have to acquire … or not. =b

At the beginning of the meal, chef told us that the front part of their menu was the hungry man dinners section. Even if I insisted on getting foodstuff from the not-so-hungry side, we were mighty satisfied with our … advance picks.

Cups of tea (Indian and masala) and rasgola dessert

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Bliss Wellness Indian Curry House

No. 129 Hilltop Hangar Market (building with yellow painted second floor, across from Hangar)

Baguio City, Philippines

0927 7983 366

0999 6982 869

facebook.com/Indiancurryhousebaguio/

Parting shot of matar panir, dal masoor, chicken mandi

X marks Papa Fares,  Shahi Qila, and Indian Curry House for good food in Baguio.

***Thank you so much, fellow foodies, who keep a lookout for new restos in food trip city, Baguio City and telling me about them. Let’s clink our forks. Cheers!