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My Observations: Union Jack Tavern’s Sticky Toffee Pudding

My Observations: Union Jack Tavern’s Sticky Toffee Pudding

carlocarrasco

During my recent afternoon visit at Union Jack Tavern at Festival Mall in Alabang, I ordered an Apple Crumble of theirs which is a favorite dessert of mine. However they could not serve it because they ran out of Apple Crumble that day (Sunday) which was served during their Sunday lunch buffet as the dessert.

Then I glanced over their menu to check what other desserts were listed. Out of curiosity, I decided to order their Sticky Toffee Pudding. Around fifteen minutes later, it was served to me by their waitress. I took time out to take a close look at it before consuming it.

Sticky Toffee Pudding is composed of a moist sponge cake, vanilla ice cream and chopped dates which were covered with toffee sauce.

After taking a few pics of it, I decided to take my first scoop of the dessert with the spoon carefully getting a portion of both the cake and ice cream together. The result – a great taste with a satisfying feeling in my mouth! It was really tasty and in terms of sweetness, it felt rich yet not excessive to my taste buds. Anyone who loves toffee or chocolate-like food should try this!

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Union Jack Tavern’s Sticky Toffee Pudding. This one cost me P233.50 which includes the 10% service charge. Truly it was worth the price!

Having enjoyed the first bite, I gradually consumed it as I want to enjoy it to the best I could. In between bites, I drank water.

Ultimately, UJT’s Sticky Toffee Pudding is a GREAT dessert to have and it truly is worth its high price (listed at P215 on the menu as of this writing). I felt that the unavailability of Apple Crumble was a blessing in disguise. Had that other dessert been available, I may not have tried Sticky Toffee Pudding.

If you are visiting Alabang in Muntinlupa City, I highly recommend you visit Union Jack Tavern which is located at the lower ground floor of the Expanded Area of Festival Mall. Physically their place is located by the “river” (across Landmark Alabang) and near them is Mesa restaurant.

 

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This is the exterior of Union Jack Tavern at Festival Mall in Alabang. A great place to visit for drinks, meals and fun!

Origin of Sticky Toffee Pudding

While the origin of Sticky Toffee Pudding remains debated, it is likely that the delicacy was created by Francis Coulson at the Sharrow Bay Hotel in Cumbria sometime during the 1970s. Although the exact date of creation is unknown, Coulson reportedly admitted that the recipe might not have been purely his own and that he was inspired by a “sweet woman in Lancashire”. Believe it or not, each member of the staff at Sharrow Bay Hotel signed a secrecy agreement not to reveal the recipe that is kept in the vaults of the place. To this day people are arguing that the the pudding originated in the Lake District or in Aberdeenshire or Scotland (because the Scots love sugar).

Thank you for reading. If you find this article to be engaging, please click the like button below and also please consider sharing this article to others. Also my fantasy book The World of Havenor is still available in paperback and e-book format. If you are looking for a copywriter to create content for your special project or business, check out my services and my portfolio. Feel free to contact me as well. Also please feel free to visit my Facebook page Author Carlo Carrasco.

 

 

Have you tried Tsukemen?

Have you tried Tsukemen?

carlocarrasco

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When it comes to dining at a Japanese restaurant, sushi and maki often interest me. On April of 2016, out of curiosity I tried the ramen of Sigekiya Ramen restaurant located inside Commercenter, Alabang, Muntinlupa City. The ramen was very good with its rich soup, pork servings and most notably freshly made, in-store noodles.

A few months later that same year, I returned to the restaurant and daringly tried something really new to me. Something I never tried before. That was Tsukemen. It was served to me with cold freshly made noodles (with a patch of seaweed and vegetable bits) and a bowl of hot broth that was pretty thick.

So there I was struggling a bit to drip the noodles into the soup and then consume it while using chopsticks (and sometimes the soup spoon provided). The struggle was worth it because the dish really tasted very delicious! The soup was so tasty, I never bothered to add some condiments. The noodles were so fresh and clearly thicker than most noodles, they were very satisfying to eat (pretty chewy) once they got wet with the hot soup. Since then, Tsukemen became my favorite dish to order at Sigekiya Ramen and for some time I’ve been searching for the dish in other Japanese restaurants in Alabang and BF Homes. So far I only saw two other restaurants serving Tsukemen.

What is Tsukemen?

Historically Tsukemen was invented by a Taishoken restaurant owner in Japan identified as Kazuo Yamagishi. At the age of seventeen, he came up with the concept of Tsukemen as a result of seeing a colleague consuming down the noodles after dipping them in a cup that contained soup. At his restaurant, in the year 1961, Yamagishi added Tsukemen to the menus identified as “special morisoba”. The experiment became a commercial success and the rest was history. Yamagishi died in 2015 and so far his contribution to Japanese and global cuisine won’t be fading away anytime soon. Slowly but surely, Tsukemen is making its way to more Japanese restaurants outside of Asia.

How to eat Tsukemen? Use the chopsticks to grab a manageable amount of noodles, slowly dip it into the soup, move them into your mouth then slurp it carefully. If this is too hard, you can use the soup spoon to help you support the noodles.

What you should NOT do when having Tsukemen is mixing the noodles into the soup to make it more like ramen. That’s wrong and improper. There is a good reason why the noodles and soup were served to you separately. Tsukemen is all about dipping the fresh cold noodles into the soup and then consuming it with a unique approach. Do not treat Tsukemen like ramen or like some other noodle soup dish.

Thanks for reading. Please feel free to share this article to others. Also please feel free to comment or ask questions.