I was in a foul mood on Friday and into Saturday, and had I been a character in a comic strip, I would have been walking along with a dark cloud over my head grumbling… And my solution to that state of mind isn’t an aspirin or a stiff drink, it usually involves a trip to a food source or food store. So early Saturday morning I headed to the FTI market, and the mood lightened. Even better, I decided to drop by Bacchus Epicerie at Rockwell and see what new stuff had arrived for the holidays. I ran into one of the owners of Bacchus on a recent trip, and he mentioned some pre-portioned foie gras that sounded very interesting, so I thought I would check it out. Bacchus has always been a favorite food/wine source of mine, and I did posts on them early in the life of the blog, here and here, and most recently when they opened Bacchus Epicerie last year.
The store is chock-full of goodies for foodies. If you have holes in your Christmas list, there is LOTS to choose from. I went around the store and started assembling a “dream basket” of goodies which included a whole Prosciutto di Parma that had just arrived arrived from Italy. They sliced open a leg and I tried a couple of slices that were silky, delicious and better than aspirin… :) At PHP25,000 for a whole leg, it’s pricey, but you only really need a few grams to make you happy. We have had a leg of prosciutto (a present) for months and it keeps going and going and going… Bacchus are now the official distributors of Citterio salamis and other products, so you don’t need to order them in from HK or have friends handcarry them from the U.S. or Italy. Their salamis large and small are SUPERB. In the basket is a large Ungarische (spelling?) salami that has always been a personal favorite and now it is stocked locally… yahoo! I also got a closer look at the cleaned and pre-portioned foie gras that would be fantastic for a fancy home dinner because all you need to do is heat up a pan and take the foie out of the freezer and plop them in to sear them and serve. They come out to roughly PHP300 per serving, not bad when you consider what a restaurant might charge for such… There were also newly arrived confit de canard, mustards, macadamia nuts (more on that in next post), as well as great olive oils…
If you are feeling flush, they carry some pretty good caviar as well.
They have a freezer full of prime and “super-prime” (whatever that means) meat. And while I like Bacchus meat, I find they sometimes slice them too thinly. A roast would be a better way to enjoy the beef, I think. For a carnivore, what better present could you think of for the holidays than a bunch of prime steaks??? :)
Don’t eat things with legs? How about some wild smoked salmon instead. A darker color than farmed, the muscular wild salmon have more flavor, and of course, are a bit pricier…
And to round off your gourmet meal? How about some Valrhona chocolates, or if you peer to the left of the chocolates, they have cans of Italian butter that I am told is to die for. Bacchus Epicerie is on the ground floor of Rockwell Mall in Makati. Happy shopping and eating.
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Totally agree, a good meal is the best therapy! :) After a week-end of crossing off items on the to-do list, we are having grilled duck breasts tonight, with roasted fingerling potatoes and braised savoy cabbage and the second bottle of a Gigondas I have been wanting to try (we are well into the first bottle). Today we received from a friend a pain d’epice made with buckwheat honey, and though I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, this does smell good.
Some farm-raised salmon can be quite dark, depending on the feed. I find the greatest difference between wild and farmed is the texture…unmistakable. Farmed salmon tends to be “flabby” compared to the firmness of wild.
Ungarische is spelled correctly–it is “Hungarian” in German.
Off to get dinner ready.
Having just recently moved to Canada, there is definitely a huge push to encourage consumers to purchase wild caught salmon. It is regulated by the govt so the stock isn’t depleted. What is threatening the salmon population is actually farm raised salmon. They are kept very densely and tend to get fish lice ewwww that hurts wild salmon. Then they medicate the water which makes it even worse. Best choice wild salmon. Second best? Farmed salmon, raised in land locked locations.
I knew only good food could cheer you up! But that dream basket is to die for, even Santa would swoon over it!
friends and relatives have been reporting foul moods because of the general stress of christmas season and they tell me traffic is getting worse. i guess it doesnt help that everyone flocks to the same spots to shop. must be scary scene to head to divisoria. i imagine it would be as stressful to go to bacchus
Do they have truffles I wonder? Or even truffle oil…
I got the pre-portioned foie gras too! No more de-veining! Love it. Best thing since sliced bread he-he-he. Cooked it two nights in a row and now again as we speak.
Thanks for the tips! Would you know where to buy good quality vanilla extract? Ive checked S&R and Santis but no luck. I hope there is one in Bacchus. Have bought some in the USA sometime ago but here, I’ve found none. Am tempted to make my own vanilla but too late for the holidays. :(
Read somewhere (I think it was a Yahoo page) that Atlantic farmed salmon are full of chemicals that are toxic to humans… *yuck*
I hope Santa reads your blog MM, because on top of my Christmas wish list is the “dream basket” and secondly will probably be the Zubuchon.
@corrine – try the cooking/baking supplies store at the foodcourt area of rockwell. They have whole vanilla bean and might have the vanilla extract you’re looking for.
Same here…whenever I’m stress @ work I either go to market, cook a nice dinner and next thing I know I’m recharge. I normally start my weekend here in singapore @ 6am to visit the market and find whatever fresh produce or catch I can cook. Last weekend I went to the Tekka Market at Serangoon and was surprise too see the following:
– Fresh greenpeppercorn
– Fresh Bamboo shoots
– nice looking fresh mixed salad
– Fresh herbs (Rosemary, thyme, parsley, tarragon etc..)
– Meat shop that has a menu written in tagalog such as Bulalo, caldereta, papaitan, kare-kare,bopis, libro and tualya. They even have a pinoy worker with them.
Even the vegetable seller knows the pilipino name of each vegetable. I guess the filipino customers is getting bigger here in singapore.
@corinne, check out Healthy Options for real vanilla extract
Santis on Yakal Street currently have the real vanilla. I saw it 2 days ago
Hello MM! Pls. help me!! I was wondering where I can get the same thin big flour wrapper like the ones they use in ristras ..the mexican resto in wilson.=) Thank you.
Thanks to the web, i found out your site, Marketman !!! I just moved from France to live with my pinoy family in Tabon, Cavite. And I was desperate to find where to find stores and products from Europa… I went twice in Makati, but for a new resident, it is quite hard to know where to head for…
By the way, I have seen on that store pics, that they sell Labeyrie products, smoked salmon, foie gras….
Sorry to say that Labeyrie is the largest industrial foie gras and smoked salmon wholeseller in France, meaning that unforunately their products are far to be worth the price we may pay for here… I think (but this is my opinion) that luxury grocery stores could offer these, coming from artisans, as the south-west france has a lot of little producers in foie gras, which are “family made” and are a real experience to taste, and prices are not so much higher, compared with the highest quality.
I took with me my own force-feeding device, and just hope in some time, do my own foie gras, duck’s magrets, and confits , as i did while living oversea…
Who knows, I might send you some pics, when I will begin to do my foie gras !