Let's Eat December Issue

L ET’ S E AT

THE HEALTHY ISSUE

LET'S EAT — January 2017

JANU A RY 201 6

W H AT ' S I N S I D E

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THE GREAT JUICE ROUNDUP

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ESSAY: FAST FOOD: WHY CAN'T I QUIT YOU?

ESSAY: CHEATING DEATH ONE PILL AT A TIME

ISSUE NO. 45

LIST: A YEAR IN EATING: BEST OF 2016

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Q&A: JIN PEREZ AND LUIGI MULACH

LET'S EAT — January 2017

L E T’ S E AT DON JAUCIAN Managing Editor

PATRICK DIOKNO Art Director

SPANKY HIZON ENRIQUEZ Writer

GABBY CANTERO Photographer

BERT SANTOS

Photographer’s Assistant

COCO QUIZON

Contributing Writer

ROB CHAM JL JAVIER CARINA SANTOS

Contributing Illustrators

LUCIEN DY TIOCO

SVP for Sales & Marketing

ANNALYN DELGADO Editorial Assistant

Let’s Eat is published by The Philippine Star 202 Roberto Oca St., Port Area, Manila For inquiries, call 5277901 local 132 or email letseat062013@gmail.com Facebook: facebook.com/LetsEatPhilStar Instagram: letseatph

O N TH E C O VER

A Holiday Choice Illustration by ROB CHAM

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HE JUICE LEANSE OUNDUP

you’ve gained from all the holiday parties you’ll go to

ILLUSTRATIONS BY JL JAVIER

Here’s a handy juice cleans guide to help you banish that excess weight

WORDS BY SPANKY HIZON ENRIQUEZ

LET'S EAT — January 2017

the roundup Every new year, the number one resolution is universal: a promise to lose weight after all the feasting. One “detox” that’s gained traction over the past few years is the juice cleanse: all natural juices can flood your body’s system with nutrients and antioxidants, while flushing out all the toxins that build up during the holiday binges. But the most difficult part is getting started. And to help you do so, we’ve compiled a list of the experts who can guide to a healthier 2017. As with all diets, moderation, and proper supervision is key. Don’t forget to consult your doctor before drinking up.

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The Juice Barista

Hillside Café & Juice Bar

Bar List: 12 cold-pressed juices and seven smoothies. All are raw, organic, and unpasteurized. They’re all beautifully bottled, and dazzling to behold. Their line of infused waters — “Agua”, invigorated with fresh fruits, herbs, and spices — has become a big hit, a new and refreshingly lovely way to hydrate.

Bar List: Nine Detox Juices and nine Superfood Smoothies. The Hillside Detox Juices are cold-pressed (no heat pasteurizing, no water added), retaining essential nutrients and delicious flavors.

Signature Blend: “Gourd of Luis”.

Specifically developed for a diabetic friend of the Juice Barista owners; it’s become their bestseller, with hardly any trace of the bitterness of the base component, ampalaya. The mixture also contains cucumber, green apple, dalandan, morigana, spinach, and kangkong. The latter is a vegetable Filipinos take for granted, but it’s packed with 13 different antioxidant compounds, which help eliminate cancer-causing free radicals from the body.

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Signature Blends: For the Detox Juices, the “Clean and Green”: kale, pineapple, cucumber, celery, and ginger; this provides digestive balance and is a proven alkalizer. “Beet It” with beets of course, carrots, orange, and turmeric, helps cleanse the kidney and improves metabolism. For the Superfood Smoothies, they recommend a healthier version of powdered protein shakes: the “Banana Almond Blast” — with fresh bananas, almond milk, almond butter, hemp protein, chia seeds, maca, flax meal, and honey — provides a great energy boost and aids in muscle recovery.

A perfect post-workout pick-me-up.

LET'S EAT — January 2017

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Juju Cleanse Bar List: 8 cold pressed juices, two nutmilk beverages and three cold-brew coffee drinks. Juju Cleanse is one of the country’s juicing pioneers, and its popularity led to a natural progression into Juju Eats, one of the city’s premier salad bars, now with four full service branches all over Metro Manila.

Signature Blend: The most popular juice is the “Green Bomb,” with celery, cucumber, pineapple, romaine lettuce, moringa, and spinach. The key is to help the body attain a more balanced, alkaline state — cleaner and more efficient down to the cellular and tissue levels — by offsetting the acids we all ingest. This elixir of assorted green vegetables reduces inflammation, and is loaded with important nutrients and enzymes that are essential to our bodies’ wellbeing.

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Detoxify Bar Bar List: Six signature organic juice concoctions that can be taken as part of a detox cleanse or on its own as a raw vitamin and micronutrient supplement.

With a unique content ratio of 80 percent organic vegetables and 20 percent fruit, all their juices are highly dense in vitamins and micronutrients.

Detoxify Bar is the only juice company that is recommended and promoted the by health care providers Maxicare and Medicard.

Signature Blend: The bestseller is the “Green Vegan Detox”, designed to quickly, safely and effectively purge the body of the harmful deteriorant toxins that hinder proper vitamin and nutrient absorption. A glass of Green Vegan — with apples, cucumber, romaine lettuce, broccoli, celery, moringa, and lemon — is equivalent in nutritional value to an average person’s vegetable consumption for one whole week.

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LET'S EAT — January 2017 WORDS BY DON GARCIA

fast food, why can’t i quit you?

ILLUSTRATION BY JL JAVIER

Giving up hamburgers, fries, and sodas is one of the most difficult things you can do. Why exactly can’t we say goodbye to these unhealthy habits?

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ovie night meant a call to 8-MCDO 30 minutes before the first film starts. It’s a routine I’m used to doing that I can recite off our orders within 30 seconds: spaghetti, fries and burger combo, and sodas (sometimes pineapple juice if we’re feeling a bit guilty or a monster Coke float for me if I’m feeling extra festive). I’m surprised the delivery guys and I aren’t on a first-name basis already but the sight of our gate is probably so familiar to them that it doesn’t take them longer than 30 minutes to deliver our food.

T h is ritual used to be an almost nightly treat; a reward after an exhausting day at work. It is true that when you’re older, you’ll crave for something more comfortable and familiar Some nights, it’s Bobs’s Burgers (marathons of which necessitates burgers — always), Friends, or Bojack Horseman — short bursts of entertainment yet, unlike the food I consume while watching it, come packed with handy guides to human relationships and experiences. I know eating fast food at this rate is bad. Its supposed to clog my arteries with cholesterol, shorten my already short life span, or give me diseases that will make me suffer in the long term.

I’ve tried to cut down but whenever I feel like it, I still dial those five numbers for my fast food fix.

It’s apparent that there are some pleasures that we derive from eating fast food. There’s the convenience it entails. It’s swift, prepared efficiently,

and filling despite the empty carbohydrates it supposedly contains. If you’re tired from working all day, you probably won’t even be bothered to cook a decent dinner. The city’s roster of fast food joints is then your savior: chinese takeout, Filipino burgers, and even Mexican food. The flavors of the world is at your fingertips.

If we listen to what psychologists say, the enjoyment of fast food mostly happens in the brain, like all the pleasures of life. Fast food is generally cheaper and the satisfaction it readily provides gives off the idea that its a bang for your buck. “Losing money hurts,” says Joshua Gowin from Psychology Today.

And this pain is associated with the one similar to when you stub your toe, according to brain imaging studies. The article, which discusses the psychology of our addiction to fast food, mentions the reward chemical “dopamine” associated with the pleasure centers of the brain.

Gown explains: “When the brain learns that a certain cue is associated with a reward, dopamine neurons learn to fire whenever the cue appears, even before the reward is given. Dopamine does more than simply reward you; it also motivates you to seek the pleasure again. As soon as you see the cue, your brain begins to anticipate the reward. The anticipation is part of the pleasure. Would you like fries with that?”

It is precisely this rush of rewarding feeling that, at least for me, has taken me back every time to the arms of the Golden Arches. But ever since I tried to have a healthy diet, sticking to your principles is the only line dividing your old fast-food reliant self and a 2.0 version of you. My gym

trainer basically said my body is garbage because I feed it with garbage. You are what you eat, after all. And the sight of fit torsos at the gym is only enough to make me shrink and realize that I should respect my body more. So I bid my nightly habit goodbye and resorted to eating healthier options: salads, sandwiches, eggs, and no sodas at all.

I’d have to admit that I’ve relapsed time and again. A hard day at work was enough to break me and grab a bag of hamburger and fries. But I’ve, more or less, retained control of what I eat. I guess I’ve trained my brain to release dopamine at the taste of anything healthy.

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LET'S EAT — January 2017 01

a year in eating PHOTOS BY GABBY CANTERO

WORDS BY SPANKY HIZON ENRIQUEZ

The highlights of the local culinary scene in 2016

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ecades from now, this year will be remembered for all the wrong reasons. All over the world, everything seemed to turn topsy-turvy. We lost Prince, David Bowie, and Muhammad Ali. Hillary Clinton lost the U.S. elections, and America is as antsy as it has ever been in its 240 year existence. Here at home, it’s been divisive, to say the least. But there’s at least one subject we can all agree on: this has been an record-breaking year in our local food scene. It seemed like a hot new restaurant opened every week, and many, imports and home grown alike, truly deserved the rave reviews and social media buzz. We shortlist seven of our favorites, the best and the brightest, the ones we kept on coming back to.

HEY HANDSOME Hands down, everyone’s favorite new restaurant of the year.

Fearless flavors, bold and brash, from Chef Nicco Santos. Turns out, his “Your Local” was just an opening act to his even more good lookin’ follow-up, where it was not uncommon to see every group on every table ordering every compelling, amazing, complex, absolutely unique Peranakan item on the menu.

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TOYO EATERY A Michelin Star just waiting to happen. If I could point those notoriously anonymous and ultra-finicky reviewers to a Filipino restaurant that’s as ready for its close-up as the multi-starred restaurants featured in Chef ’s Table, then I would direct them to the Toyo Eatery. Our most familiar childhood flavors are all around, but interpreted, or more accurately, interpellated by Chef Jordy Navarra into something completely different.

BEAN & YOLK Absolutely the best egg salad sandwich that I’ve ever had the pleasure of devouring. Imagine a gorgeously cooked yolk, glowing golden as if from within, mixed up with the boiled up whites, chopped into chunks, and lovingly coated with a creamy dressing of sriracha and chives, showered with fresh arugula, then served in a toasty and crumbly brioche bun. It’s the “Lucy”, and it’s comfort food of the highest level. Bean & Yolk is the best place for brunch, any time of the day.

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LET'S EAT — January 2017 05

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1 Hey Handsome 2 Bean & Yolk 3 Bucky’s 4 Mantra 5 Toyo Eatery

CHINA BLUE Dining in China Blue, overlooking the Manila Bay, creates a shimmering illusion: that of enjoying a sumptuous Chinese repast on a luxurious cruise ship languorously sailing to its next destination.

The Conrad’s signature restaurant’s aesthetic is a dazzling reflection the hotel’s naval-inspired architecture. And the menu, from the acclaimed award-winning Chef Jeremy Leung, is absolutely appealing, from the plating to the tasting.

TEXAS ROADHOUSE I can think of at least two other, more familiar U.S. franchises that opened this year with bigger bangs. They’re both very popular, of the highest quality, and with stronger sentimental brand recall and equity, especially for Filipinos who’ve lived in the States. But a virtual unknown, at least to the Philippine market is, by far, the best of the bunch of the new franchises.

It’s Texas Roadhouse, and it has the finest bang-for-the-buck hand-cut imported steaks around. Not surprising for a concept that’s been awarded as 2016’s No. 1 Best Chain Restaurant in America by no less than Business Insider.

Mantra Bistro T h is restaurant rekindled my love affair with Indian food. It’s quite small, blink and

IT SEEMED LIKE A HOT NEW RESTAURANT OPENED EVERY WEEK T R U LY D E S E R V E D T H E RAVE REVIEWS AND SOCIAL MEDIA BUZZ you’ll miss it, if you happen to be driving along Bolanos, the Legaspi Village side street where it’s located. Take the time to find this home of genuine Northern Indian cuisine, and you’ll be rewarded. Ask for the owner, Ranjit Chimni, this is his passion project after all, and he’ll be more than willing to be your guide in discovering the delights of the dishes of his native Delhi.

Bucky’s I go out of my way, or find excuses to go to the Century City Mall or park on Don Pedro St. in Makati’s Poblacion, just to get a couple of Bucky’s Original “Not a Brownie”. It looks nondescript. A simple slice of an unadorned chocolate cake? It doesn’t even have a glaze, much less frosting. But take one bite of the dense, deeply fudgy confection, and you’ll understand why it isn’t a brownie.

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LET'S EAT — January 2017

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how to cheat death one pill at a time

ART BY CARINA SANTOS

WORDS BY COCO QUIZON

If 2016 has earned any kind of reputation for itself, it could be the year people scared themselves healthy after several unexpected celebrity deaths. One after the other, stars and icons have been meeting untimely ends from various health complications, the results of unfortunate happenstance or of years spent “living it up” that had finally caught up to them.

I am one of these people. After every well-publicized celebrity-related tragedy, I sit and quietly declare to myself, “It’s time to get your shit together!” — scared to my core that I’ll drop dead at 70 without having actualized because, like most millennials, I still would have been dragging my feet and taking my sweet time enjoying the finer things in life.

In the interest of full disclosure, I haven’t completely been the poster child of clean living. I still drink enough coffee to stop the heart of a small child, and I still make the most of any alcohol buffet.

Becoming the healthier, Toyota Prius version of myself is a day-to-day struggle where battles are won, not wars. I tried to

Becoming the healthier, Toyota Prius version of you is an everyday struggle.

IT MAY SOUND LIKE A LOT, BUT WHAT I AM DOING IS THE HEALTHYLIVING EQUIVALENT OF SAYING YOU HELPED YOUR CHILD STUDY FOR SCHOOL WHEN ALL YOU R E A L LY D I D W A S H I R E A TUTOR

LET'S EAT — January 2017 quit smoking and sugar, and I started taking the pill all at the same time in a grand effort to avoid dying young. My body, unable to handle these abrupt changes, threw all my hormones in disarray, causing my body to slowly balloon to 185 pounds. Looking at the big picture, I realized this wasn’t the worst outcome, but I still wanted to find a way to become a bit more respectful to my body.

After all, it’s God’s Temple, and I’ve treated it more like a super mall.

As of this writing, I’ve been leading what might be considered a healthy lifestyle. I’ve cut rice and soda from my daily intake.

I wake up and take a small shot of L-Carnitine to allow my metabolism to continue functioning while I stay sedentary for hours working my agency day job. I wash my face with soap consciously made from local lemongrass and moisturize with organic malunggay oil, whose healing powers I first encountered in mass-produced tubs marketed under its international moniker, moringa body butter. While all this is happening, I swish a tablespoon of virgin coconut oil in my mouth to rid myself of toxins from the day before and to prep my teeth for a once-over with my toothbrush to get that fine detail. After my first meal, I treat myself to a trio of supplements: chlorophyll for my skin, spirulina for my immune system, and senna tablets to make sure my internal digestive logistics remain sound.

It may sound like a lot, but what I am doing is the healthyliving equivalent of saying you helped your child study for school when all you really did was hire a tutor. All I’m really doing is buying my way into health using a lot of dubious research, socialmedia crowdsourcing, and testimonials from close friends who would also like to avoid dying young. It’s ridiculously expensive, but I am seeing results. My teeth have never been whiter. I have little to no morning breath. My hair feels great and I don’t wake up every morning looking like I’m seeking the sweet release of death. But for every day I lapse, all my progress goes away. In this way, it becomes habit-forming — it is a very expensive habit at that. Is it worth it? I remain undecided.

Body-wise, I’m far from being the healthiest I’ve ever been.

But given how great I feel even by just doing the bare minimum, I start thinking: How much harder do I really have to work to know what it feels like to be at the optimum level of being alive? My lack of effort in getting myself physically fit becomes so apparent that this “lifestyle change” I’ve undergone is more of a capitalistdriven shift in ideology in the manner of “I buy, therefore I am” than actual progress for the better. I put a tablespoon of clear oil in my mouth for the length of a sitcom episode, only to spit out white, toxic sludge in the bin, supposedly a lot healthier than twenty minutes prior. In a way, it has made me carefully examine if my laziness is learned or pathological and if my acceptance of my body is fueled by self-love or complacence. I remain undecided, still.

On the other hand, I may not be giving myself enough credit for all my work thus far. The more holistic, natural approach to health has allowed me to become more in tune with my body and what it needs to stay OK. Though I am not at the level of being able to anticipate and preempt a cold or be motivated enough to take myself on a jog to shed some weight, I do wake up every morning feeling well-rested and ready to go. I no longer dismiss the idea of routines as the squarest thing I could ever do. Here I am now, welcoming it with open arms every single day — two months strong, swigging half-melted coconut oil and applying tinola-scented nighttime skin recovery on my face, hoping that soon enough I’d figure out what level two is on my journey of living healthily.

This essay originally appeared on CNN Philippines Life (cnnphilippines.com/life)

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LET'S EAT — January 2017

JIN PEREZ A N D L U IGI MULAC H ON

A chef and a foodblogger lead the way into a healthier new year and discarding all that holiday weight.

surviving the holidays How can one not gain weight during the longest, and most decadently delicious Christmas season in the world? Jin Perez, newspaper columnist and the lovely lady behind the influential “Jin Loves to Eat” blog, and Luigi Muhlach, the newly minted Corporate Executive Chef of the Red Crab group of restaurants, share their favorite family holiday treats, and reveal how they maintain diet discipline in December.

What are your greatest Noche Buena and New Year’s Eve temptations?

Jin: I’m a carb monster with major sweet tooth issues, and I can live on flour and sugar. So those would be the bibingka, ensaymada, and pichi-pichi. All the bad carbs. We do double dinners every Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, so you

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can imagine how hopeless my diet gets. First with my dad’s side of the family, and then with my mom’s.

The eating runs from dinner to midnight snack to breakfast the next morning. We sleep the rest of the day on January 1 and wake up just in time for dinner!

Luigi: At my mom’s house — she’s a fantastic cook too, by the way — the lechon is mandatory. We’d have it for dinner, and later on Christmas Eve, after opening each other’s presents, the leftover bits and pieces of the lechon, tossed in a little patis, then deep fried, would be our “pulutan” during noche buena.

How do your control yourself when surrounded with so many delights?

Jin: I don’t. I give in all the way.

It’s Christmas. I have a license to indulge!

Luigi: Control? What’s that word? I’m not familiar with it. I eat whatever I want. As much as I want!

So what kind of detox or diet or mad exercise do you do after the holidays?

Jin: I try to eat at home as often as I can. My mom cooks very healthy and our meals consist mostly of

fish, vegetables, and a lot of fruits. We do not eat beef and anything fried. I don’t know if it helps, but I also drink a lot of water, turmeric tea, Chinese herbal soups, and vegetable juice.

Exercise, however, is my mortal enemy. I’m still learning to be friends with it.

Luigi: Come January, I try to avoid red meat and sugar. But I’m not that hard on myself. I just make sure to exercise and have “healthier” choices: replacing white rice with brown or black rice, red meat with white meat, using the air fryer instead of cooking my food with oil. That’s where being a chef comes in handy. I also stick to water instead of juice and, sadly, I confess I have to ditch real bacon for turkey bacon.

But you don’t really get too long a break — as a popular food writer and an up and coming chef, opportunities to partake of good food never end.

How do you manage to keep fit, given the never-ending workrelated meals?

Jin: I am probably the most unfit person in the world!

But I’d like to think I choose my battles well. I skip rice to eat more desserts, I eat double portion of sashimi instead of one serving of sushi, I choose wine over soda, dark over milk chocolate, black coffee over cappuccino. Choosing the lesser evil is my effort at keeping fit.

Luigi: I know you won’t believe me, but I do commit to working out thrice a week. Okay, I try. But there’s one surefire way to maintain my weight, and it’s the advice I give everyone: never ever sneak into the kitchen past midnight, never stop by a convenience store. Late night refrigerator scavenging and 24/7 shopping lead to the most fattening meals of the day.

They should be avoided at all costs.

LET'S EAT — January 2017

D OW N L OAD ISSUE S OF L ET’ S EAT F OR FR EE ON BU Q O

L E T ' S E AT DOW N LOA D T HE A P P

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LET'S EAT — January 2017

L E T ' S E AT Y OUR GUIDE TO THE C I TY’S B ES T FOOD S P OT S EVERY LA S T S UNDA Y OF TH E M ONT H 16­