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Seng Di Feature: 3 food places that deliver frozen home-cooked meals

Admit it, you miss eating out. We all do!

The lockdown has left everyone stuck in their houses eating the same food every day, or worse, ordering fast food meals that tend to be high in saturated fat, sugar, salt, and calories. But thanks to the ‘reheat-and-eat’ food trend, you can enjoy your favorite restaurant meals fresh and hot on your plate in the comfort of your home.

In line with the #CHiNOYTVSupportsLocal series and Seng Di Feature project in partnership with Fil-Chi Ho Tsia Ho Dim, here are three food stores offering frozen meals so that you can still flex your home cooking skills without experimenting in the kitchen.

Emperor’s Frozen Flavors

Hot pot has been known as a social meal traditionally eaten with friends and families. If you have a large pot at home, try the Emperor’s Frozen Flavors Premium sets and kits to warm up your Ber months.

Owner Jillian Samorano shared that since the business started in the late 1990s, her mother did not stop innovating their family recipe until they reached the right mix.

At first, their premium hot pot balls were sold in wholesale but just this year, at the start of the quarantine period, they have decided to offer their products in retail since the demand for home-cooked food has increased due to the closure of many restaurants and stores.

Jillian and her family are confident that people will love their products at first bite because they use all-natural ingredients in manufacturing, thus promoting a healthy lifestyle.

Must try: Emperor’s Frozen Flavors recently launched two premium sets and kits: emperor’s DIY tteok bokki kit (P399 per kit/ 3-4 pax) and the emperor’s premium set (P599 per set/ 2-3 pax).

Emperor’s Frozen Flavors DIY tteok bokki kit and Emperor’s Premium set

For those who are not familiar with the term, tteok bokki is a Korean street food made of bite-size rice cakes with spicy bean paste-based sauce. The kit comprises assorted premium balls, fish cakes, Korean rice cakes, noodles,  leeks, and sesame seeds. You can also choose your sauce if you want it sweet or spicy.

All the ingredients are cooked through boiling in a pot with the sauce and water but if you’re worrying that you might over or undercook it, worry no more because the kit comes with instructions.

Tteok bokki is usually served with cheese toppings but with Emperor’s Frozen Flavors, the cheese balls are like bombs of flavor, it works pretty well with the spicy sauce making it incredibly flavorful and comforting.

Just a warning, try not to eat the cheese balls directly from the pot or you might get your tongue burnt.

Emperor’s Frozen Flavors cheese ball is one of the hot pot balls included in the DIY tteok bokki kit

On the other hand, the emperor’s premium set includes eight kinds of hot pot balls, a soup base, and sate sauce. The bowl also has a bit of corn, carrots, hearty greens such as cabbage, mushrooms like shiitake and enoki, crab sticks and tofu, and fresh noodles.

Emperor’s Frozen Flavors premium set is perfect for your late-night hot pot cravings

Bonus tip: If you want to add something new to your hot pot sesh, try their seafood sandwich. The top white portion is squid mix while the bottom is mushroom meat. The two layers are separated with a sheet of premium nori.

Know more on the Emperor’s Frozen Flavors menu here.

Producery

Another food trend that you surely crave for right now is the Korean grilled pork belly or the very famous samgyeopsal.

This craving led Vanessa Denise Juansing to become a ‘quaranpreneur’ and started Producery PH. Her family has been in the frozen food wholesaling business for quite some time but Vanessa noticed that during the early days of the quarantine period, people find it difficult to get fresh food from groceries and markets.

Upon this realization, she thought of launching a business that can cater to households and give the convenience of door-to-door deliveries as well as the assurance of clean and safe produce at the highest quality and lowest price possible.

Vanessa meanwhile assures their buyers that their imported meat, poultry, and seafood items are always fresh and of high quality. She also admits that they are very hands-on with the delivery details they get online to avoid product delivery mishaps.

 

Must try: Pork (P330 per kilo) and beef samgyeopsal (P380 per kilo), striploin steak (P650 per kilo), pork loin (P250 per kilo), and white pompano (P320 per kilo) are some of the best-selling products of Producery PH.

Producery PH’s pork belly strips make your samgyeopsal party (at home) dream come true

The word samgyeopsal literally means ‘three-layered meat’, describing the famous pork and beef cut usually served in some restaurants. These strips are about one-fourth inch thick to allow the fatty layer to char and that it will be easier to cook.

Producery PH also has seafood products on their list

Who doesn’t like steak? Producery PH knows you badly want to recreate five-star food at home. They have succulent and tender striploin steak that you can marinate with the flavors you like.

For pork lovers, the loin is the leanest and most tender part of the animal which makes it perfect for baking meat pies, pork roast, grilled, and katsu don. Producery PH also offers baby back ribs and pork leg which is used to cook one of the favorite Chinoy dishes, pata tim.

Another hit on Producery’s menu list is the white pompano, a type of fish that has white meat. Its flesh holds together very well in any type of cooking. It also has a mild taste and has a moderate fat content that will most probably complement any sauce you put.

To see Producery PH’s product list, click here.

Infin8 Kitchen

Prepping a delicious breakfast is important not just to start the day right but also to keep our bodies healthy especially during this pandemic.

For Sheila Atienza, owner of Infin8 Kitchen, fast food and store-bought breakfast items are a big no-no. As a culinary graduate, she tries to cook delicious and healthy meals for her family and friends which later on turned into a viable business.

 

“It started as a simple ‘padalhan kita ng wontons para i-boil mo nalang’, ‘padala ako ng beef tapa for your breakfast tom’. Then I realized na marami palang nag-crave for quick, natural, and healthy food around my network”, Sheila said.

 

(“It started as a simple ‘I’ll have some wontons delivered to you’, ‘I’ll make beef tapa for your breakfast tomorrow’. Then I realized that there are many people who are also craving for easy-to-prep, natural, and healthy food around my network.”)

 

Sheila has always been passionate about cooking. She admits she is a firm believer that cooking is love made visible. So she makes sure that her products are meeting her taste and quality standards.

 

Must try: Spicy Sichuan wontons (P300 per 10pcs), homemade kikiam(P290 per 4 rolls), and grass-fed beef tapa (P345 per tub) are the products that are usually requested from Infin8 Kitchen.

Sheila proudly said that she knows her spicy wonton has potential because renowned restaurateur Eric Thomas Dee, managing director of Foodee Global Concepts, loves it.

Fried, steamed, or as noodle toppings, people love Infin8 Kitchen’s Spicy Sichuan Wonton in any way it is cooked

Kikiam or Ngo Hiang is one of the popular street foods in Asia.

Unlike the commercialized version of it in the Philippines, Infin8 Kitchen’s kikiam is made of five spice-seasoned ground pork and minced shrimp. The meat mixture is wrapped in bean curd sheets or tawpe, steamed until cooked, and then deep-fried until golden and crispy.

Infin8 Kitchen’s kikiam can be eaten as a snack or with plain rice

Filipino breakfast menus often have tocino and beef tapa so Sheila made her version of these dishes and she even made it healthier.

Her chicken tocino has a mouthwatering sweet and meaty aroma and is very natural-looking that’s just barely glazed. Unlike the commercial brands, it does not have the overwhelming syrupy taste, just a perfect balance of flavor and ham-like mouthfeel.

Infin8 Kitchen uses grass-fed beef in making their tapa. Compared to the chewiness of the traditional breakfast tapas we’ve known, the meat is tender and has a garlicky taste that has just the right amount of saltiness.

Customers of Infin8 kitchen often orders the chicken tocino and beef tapa for their kids’ lunch at school

Bonus tip: If you’re not on a tight budget, try their Aburi dishes. They have unagi aburi as well as surf and turf. Aburi is a Japanese way of cooking which literally means ‘flame-seared’.

 

Check out more of Infin8 Kitchen’s menu here

For more CHiNOY TV x Fil-Chi Ho Tsia Ho Dim lists spotlighting Seng Dis, keep an eye out on CHiNOY TV’s website!

 

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