Mida Food Turns 20 + Dishes I Made with Pacific Bay Seafood

Last June, Mida Food Distributors celebrated its 20th year anniversary with a Feast of the Pacific at The Tent at Enderun. Mida Food Distributors is the leader in the Philippine seafood industry. Together with its sister company, Mida Trade Ventures, they offer the largest seafood selection in the Philippines! They also offer retail seafood specialty items under the brand, Pacific Bay Seafood, which I will tell you more about later and what I cooked.

Mida Food Distributors treated its guests with dishes specially made by our country's top chefs: Chef Miguel Vecin, Chef Roland Laudico, Chef Jonas Ng and Chef Margarita Fores.

 One of appetizers served was this baked oyster. I love oysters and this was good!

This was what Chef Margarita Fores prepared: Barramudi, Orange-fennel Confit, Black Olive Soil and Carabao Butter.

Chef Miguel Vecin made Pulpo A La Gallega which is composed of Pulpo with Potato Foam, 

Jamon Serrano Crumbs, Pimenton Powder.

This was my favorite. Chef Roland Laudico's Hamachi Kinilaw which has Hamachi, Coca-cola Espuma, Candied Ginger, Spicy Capsicum Puree

 Another favorite was Chef Jonas Ng's Prawn Pomelo And Crab Salad which has Prawn Crab, Pomelo, Peanut, Toasted Rice, Coconut Milk Cilantro Salad.

Love how everything was so fresh and hearing stories from the chefs prove that Mida Food Distributors is a trusted company by professionals! Congrats again on your 20th, Mida Food!

Pacific Bay Seafood sent over a bunch of frozen seafood to my house a day after the event. Pacific Bay offers freshly-packed seafood items like peeled & deveined shrimp, tuna belly, tuna steaks, scallop meat, salmon steaks, whole clams, crabstick, and cream dory fillet, as well as Atlantic cod portions, bacalao loins, Chilean seabass, softshell crab, Gindara steaks and halibut fillet and steaks.

I don't really cook with seafood (other than fish that I am familiar with, shrimps and tahong) that often because I'm afraid I'll ruin a dish or make palpak but I was up for the challenge! They sent shrimps, mussels, bacalao, scallops and soft shell crabs and here's what I whipped up. I did not cook this all in one night ha.

Baked Bacalao

This was my first time to cook with bacalao. It's a lightly salted fish. I've never baked a fish as well so I looked for a recipe on the internet and this was what I came up with it the available ingredients I have. I mixed lemon, olive oil, pepper, cayenne pepper and paprika then put it over the fish then popped it to the oven. I think I overcooked it but otherwise, it wasn't bad. Haha! Ate it with rice and stir-fried upo.

Gambas

This was my second time to cook gambas. The first time was maybe 9 years ago. Haha! Gambas is easy to cook. You just need lots and lots of garlic, paprika and lemon. I am really impressed at how plump the shrimps were considering they were frozen. It's peeled and deveined as well so it made my life so much easier!

 Green Mussels or Tahong

I cooked the mussels two way. Half of it I made it into soup and the other half I baked it. The soup came out just okay. I think the frozen is not meant for making it into soup.

While the Baked Cheesy Tahong was a winner! It was also my first time to bake mussels. I mostly make soup but I will definitely make this again. It was really good!

 Soft Shell Crab

Another first too! I just dredged it in egg and flour and deep fried it.

 Scallops

For the scallops, I bought steak to go with it. I just sauteed the scallops with lots of butter. It came out yummy and so perfect with the steak.

I probably winged 3 out of 6 dishes and I was so happy and impressed with what I made. A challenge to my cooking skills! I was always scared to buy frozen seafood because I'm not sure how it would taste vs fresh seafood but after cooking all the dishes above, now I know what brand to buy! Pacific Bay is available at any leading supermarket nationwide.

Facebook: Pacific Bay Seafood

Instagram: @pacificbayseafood

Hong Kong: Day 1

I'm making a Hong Kong Series post apart from this Hong Kong kwento of mine!

My planned HK trip was supposed to be next year pa but my achi got pregnant and didn't want to risk traveling while she's pregnant so she gave her ticket to me! Yay! Our tickets were the free ones from HSBC! About a week before, I was worried I won't have pocket money to spend but my mom reminded me that I still got HKD left from my last trip to HK 2 years ago and true enough, I have HKD kept in my cash box! Weee shopping na ito!

This trip was mainly me-time, tax refund stuff, and shopping trip! I didn't shop for a long time to able to give Y a nice 1st birthday party!

Our flight was 6:10AM the day after Pedring ravaged the sea walls of Roxas Blvd, we were kind of worried our flight will get cancelled but it didn't! We're on the same flight with the Azkals!

Watched True Blood on the plane!

We arrived at around 8:10AM in Hong Kong, immigration was a breeze! That's why I love my HK ID! No need to line up, just my ID and fingerprint, and I'm good! 

We took the Cityflyer bus going to our hotel. We took the A11 bus, fare costs 40HKD for one way ticket and 60HKD for a round trip ticket. It's a 45-minute to 1 hour trip from the airport to Causeway Bay, good thing there's an onboard Wifi! It's fast and kept me updated on twitter for an hour! I even got to pump because there's just a few passengers! Oh oh, I love double-decker buses that's why I always ride on the top haha!

Cute Marc Jacobs ad on a tram

We got to our hotel around 10:30AM, check-in time was 12NN so we had lunch first! We always eat at this congee place whenever we're in HK. I had the Century Egg with Pork Blood congee plus a side order of Plain Rice Rolls with XO sauce and the staple HK milk tea! Yummm! 

After having lunch, my mom and aunt went to the bank. While me and my shoti went to Windsor House to check out Toys R Us and Eugene Baby (will do a separate post!) then to IKEA where I bought a few stuff. We went back to the hotel, waited for them in the lobby and took advantage of the free WIFI, finally checked-in, rested for a while then trooped our way to Mong Kok.

There's nothing much to see anymore in Mong Kok Ladies Market. Well if you're going to buy sneakers, it's the place to be. We checked out Mong Kok Computer Centre where I ended up buying my portable 1TB HD for 699HKD. After all the walking, we had dinner at Cafe de Coral, a popular fast food in Hong Kong. Mom and aunt had their asado, chicken and duck fix, while me and shoti had steak!

We were all tired by the time we got to the hotel. But they made a pitstop at Wellcome, while me I had my dessert fix!

There was still time to shop and walk around but we all woke up at 3AM, so we were all dead tired. I pumped and washed my breast pump then hit the sack!

Up next: Hong Kong Day 2!