Great with Beer

The bed of melted cheddar, the crunch of sweet corn, the pull of gooey mozzarella with every slurp of noodle. Once you try it, you'll tell all your friends to combine instant noodles with Korean 

This recipe uses Samyang Buldak ramen, the South Korean instant noodles of 

 challenge fame, to bring an appetizing heat to the dish. Grab the Quattro Cheese variant, if you can.

Korean Corn Cheese Instant Noodles

Presenting our best instant ramen hack yet: a bed of hot, crunchy, gooey Korean corn cheese over instant noodles.

Imagine two of your favorite things combined: buttered seafood and fried snacks. Well, Omakase did just that when it came up with it's Oyster Butteryaki—a battered, then fried oyster appetizer dressed in butter sauce. We've hacked the dish so you can make it at home; time to say goodbye to boring steamed oysters. (We don't mean that, steamed oysters are the bomb.)

The rice flour and soda water combo is essential to make a light, crispy shell for the oyster. (Not to be mistaken for the actual shell it naturally comes with.) It goes without saying that fresh oysters are a key part of this dish, as it adds a subtle sweetness to the slightly salty butter mixture. Though you can always dip it into the ponzu dipping sauce to balance out the flavors.

Butteryaki Sauce

Dipping Sauce

Fried Oysters

Omakase-Inspired Oysters Butteryaki

While corn cheese sounds like a dish off the kids’ menu, Koreans enjoy it as 

 or drinking food. (Think pulutan.) It arrives on your table in a sizzling skillet—a hot, bubbling mixture of corn, 

This recipe adds cream cheese for an extra-creamy dip. For a bonus toasty browned topping, finish your corn cheese in the broiler or with a blowtorch. Or skip it completely and dig right in with nacho chips (or a spoon). Hot, freshly cooked corn cheese waits for no one.

Korean Corn Cheese

If you didn't order the Toro Spicy Sashimi, did you really eat at 

 This recipe hacks the popular spicy tuna from Pasay Road's famous izakaya.

Sriracha provides heat and color to the sashimi dressing. It's not Japanese, but the sauce has spice and pucker similar to Nihonbashitei's. Kewpie mayo and sugar adds sweetness. The tempura flakes are the most demanding part of the recipe, but don't skip it! They provide an addictive crunch that completes the dish.

Tempura Flakes

Spicy Dressing

Sashimi

Nihonbashitei-Style Spicy Tuna Sashimi

Bring out the beer: This Nihonbashitei Spicy Tuna Sashimi hack mixes tuna sashimi chunks in a spicy sauce and a flurry of tempura flakes.

Total Time

Tambai's fast-cooking, relatively affordable yakitori is one of the OGs of Makati's Poblacion area. One of their crowd-favorite dishes is the ever-so-soft beef rib fingers.

You can ask for the beef rib finger from the butcher (try looking for US beef rib fingers in the frozen section), or just get ribs and cut the "finger" out yourself. Make sure your grill is hot before adding the beef fingers—you don't want to deal with stuck bits of meat after cooking.

Marinade

Beef Rib Finger

Tambai-Inspired Grilled Beef Rib Fingers

Bring Poblacion to your home with Tambai's popular beef rib finger yakitori.

Hong Kong's Yardbird is known for their yakitori, but they also have some other items on the menu such as Sweet Corn Tempura, Garlic Fried Chicken with Kewpie, and the crowd-pleasing Korean Fried Cauliflower. The lightly battered, crisp vegetables are dressed in an addictive sweet-spicy glaze. Think of them as a healthy-ish alternative to spicy chicken wings.

Glaze

Yardbird-Inspired Korean Fried Cauliflower

 has completely infiltrated our collective psyche, dishes like buldak, or 

 with cheese, are no longer completely foreign. Instead, they’re found in almost every Korean restaurant, as popular as barbeque and samgyupsal, and perfect for pulutan.

If you think that this dish is complex, it’s not. The only thing you’d need to buy is gochujang, but otherwise, all the ingredients in this recipe are very accessible, making a Korean restaurant experience easy to recreate at home.

You can even add a twist to it like we did, by adding corn to the creamy dip made with Lady’s Choice Real Mayonnaise—the kernels give you a sweetness that’s a great foil to the grilled chicken’s chili-laden heat.

We used Lady’s Choice Real Mayonnaise to make this recipe better. Find out more about their products and where to get them here: 

Korean Corn and Chicken with Cheese

Make this twist on Korean buldak by adding corn to the creamy dip. Made with Lady's Choice Real Mayonnaise.

Talk about chicken wings in Metro Manila and the first name that comes to mind, more often than not, is 

. The "New York Buffalo Wings" shop spoils diners with 14 different flavors, from the classic buffalo to Nagoya tebasaki. This recipe hacks the most popular one: Salted Egg wings.

Coating

Chicken Wings

Frankie's Salted Egg Chicken Wings

Crispy pata looks deceivingly simple: it's just deep-fried pork hock, you might think. Technically, that's true. But there's a lot of work that gets you to a perfect crispy pata—one that has tender, flavorful meat and crispy, airy skin.

Best Crispy Pata

 nowadays. Although included in this recipe, quesabirria tacos won't be our main focus. Instead, it's for 

 or beef birria, which is basically the stew that makes up the famed tacos.

Traditionally, making the dish is a long and labor-intensive process. Our beef birria recipe takes four hours to get done, but it's not at all complicated. In fact, if you really time it, you'll only be really working on the dish for half to a full hour. The rest is merely cooking time. The wait is totally worth it, though, to get this rich, smokey, fatty stew with 

Beef

Chili Paste

For Serving

Serve as Main Dish

Serve as Quesabirria Tacos

Beef Birria Tacos

This beef birria recipe requires time and effort but promises maximum satisfaction, and is made using ingredients accessible to you.

These crispy onion rings can be enjoyed on their own, but a dusting of instant sinigang mix turns them into a five-star snack—think salt and vinegar chips. A fizzy soda water batter ensures a light, puffy crust.

Batter

Sinigang Onion Rings

Get your sinigang fix without the soup: toss crispy onion rings in sinigang mix.

There's something about sweet and savory 

 that just hits the spot. These are the ones you can get at the side of the road or pre-packed for trips to the beach; the ones that you eat with garlic rice and a side of atchara; the ones you can't make without toyo, suka, and banana ketchup.

This recipe makes what we consider the perfect Filipino pork barbecue. It uses flavorful chunks of pork and a marinade consisting of local ingredients.

Pork

Best Filipino Pork Barbecue

This Filipino pork barbecue promises tender, flavorful skewered pork marinated in a sweet-savory sauce of banana ketchup and 7UP.

We replicate the flavors of Korean barbecue in this recipe for Korean fried chicken skin. It has a nice heat and some earthiness, plus with a serving good for 4–6 people, it’s a great inuman

Pro-tip: you can buy chicken skin in blocks at the frozen section of some supermarkets, or ask anyone at the frozen poultry counter if they have stock in the back.

Sauce

Chicken Skin

Korean Fried Chicken Skin

This Korean Fried Chicken Skin recipe is the perfect snack to pair with your beer on a lazy night.

Inspired by salt and vinegar chips, these crispy wings have a glaze that's as addictive and invigorating as the snack. It has everything you love in the classic flavor combo: the punchy tang of vinegar followed by a dropkick of salt. Double-fry the wings for extra crunch.

Garnish

Salt and Vinegar Chicken Wings

Salt and vinegar chips in crispy wings form.

's hype is 100% legit. Who doesn't love glazed fried chicken? They give 10 whooping flavors to choose from, and you just can't choose which ones to try. But we all know the crowd's favorite flavor: Jack Daniel's, so we hacked it right in our kitchen.

This recipe hack includes their spicy-savory BBQ sauce and those crispy, juicy boneless chicken thighs. It's easy to make, and we know you'll be begging for us to hack the rest of the flavors but this one will do for now. 

Breading

24 Chicken-Style Jack Daniel's Chicken

This 24 Chicken-Style Jack Daniel's Chicken recipe is saving lives by hacking the boneless chicken from this well-loved Korean-style chicken resto.

This calamares recipe promises tender squid with a golden brown coat—no tough, leathery rings that take a day to chew. Soda water keeps the batter light, while panko breadcrumbs ensure a tight, crunchy breading. Serve with a lemon wedge and a dip of choice. You have plenty of options: aioli, tartar sauce, mayonnaise, or marinara sauce. 

Crispy Squid Calamares

Our calamares recipe promises tender squid rings with a light and crispy tempura batter plus a breadcrumb coating for extra crunch.

As far as party appetizers go, it's easy to just bring out some chips and dip and call it a day. Enter: 

 classic nachos. Rather than a jumble of chips and toppings, Chili's serves them like bruschetta topped with 

, making it a convenient starter. The bean, beef, and cheese trifecta's very easy to make. Yet, it gives you a more complex flavor profile than your usual nacho dishes.

Bean and Beef Topping

Cheese Blend

Assembly

Chili's-Style Classic Nachos

These are nachos for neat freaks. Instead of a jumble of chips and toppings, each chip gets an edge-to-edge spread of beef, beans and cheese.

The best days during Yuletide season falls in between Christmas and New Year—everyone gets to rest and we're all still lingering from all the leftover food from Noche Buena + the heightened excitement for Media Noche food. Lechon is no stranger to every Filipino's leftover list. Aside from frying and transforming it into paksiw, we present to you—lechon sisig.

 It's even got that creamy texture sans the mayo, all done in 30 minutes. We did it with leftover sarsa, in case you're wondering how to use that up too.

Sisig

Lechon Sisig

With every delicious shawarma comes a strong shawarma garlic dip. In kiosks everywhere or tableside at late-night joints, this bottled sauce is used excessively because it tempers heat and adds richness. We can’t live without it, and it has easily become a staple for cuisines that are full of herbs and spices.

We’ve combined the garlic sauce with the spices that usually come together in a shawarma marinade. We’ve achieved that by making a thick, creamy dip with Lady’s Choice mayonnaise, that has turned the often liquid texture of the sauce into something that clings onto any chip, whether tortilla or pita.

Shawarma Garlic Dip

Can't get over that shawarma garlic dip doused generously on your shawarma? We got you, here's the recipe for it.

From sushi bake to samgyup bake, 2020 was the year of “baked” goods. If you’re looking to make an equally indulgent alternative, this Tex-Mex Nacho Bake is for you.

This recipe has all the fixings you’d normally expect from a 7-layer dip—taco-seasoned ground beef and black beans, for example. But to change things up, we’ve combined the cheese, jalapeno, and Lady’s Choice Real Mayonnaise into a thick, velvety mixture that you can easily assemble and bake in the oven.

Tex-Mex Nacho Bake

Make this layered dip with ground beef, black beans, cheese, jalapeno, and Lady’s Choice Real Mayonnaise creamy topping.

Crispy liempo and pork belly chips have become one of the most omnipresent snacks at markets and bazaars. Is it the modern-day sisig, an after-hours appetizer that is as snackable as chicharon? Make it at home, as thin and earth-shatteringly crisp as you like, or as thick-cut and moreish as possible.

This recipe calls for 3mm slices which turn into paper-thin wisps of porky fat with a crunchy rind, with an addition of sweet-sour mango vinegar. The dipping sauce makes this better than any store-bought version, hands down.

Pork Belly Chips

Mango Vinegar Dip

Make Pork Belly Chips

Make Mango Vinegar

Crispy Pork Belly Chips with Mango Vinegar Dip

Pairing these crispy pork belly chips with mango vinegar makes it better than the bazaar-bought stuff.

Beer, although already great as a drink by itself, can be used to build other liquid concoctions. Ken Alonso, founder of artisanal Filipino spirits brand Proudly Promdi, proves this with his spiced negroni beer cocktail.

This cocktail is a hybrid of two of Ken’s favorite drinks: a 

 and beer. A Kingston Negroni is a twist to the classic Negroni, which uses Jamaican rum instead of gin, giving the drink a funkiness. He uses that technique, adds some ginger, 

 and pineapple juice, plus a bottle of San Miguel Pale Pilsen to make a refreshing, tropical-esque, boozy beverage.

This spiced negroni beer cocktail recipe is best made using bartending tools, but you can always make this using common household tools. You can use any drinks container that seals tightly in place of a shaker. And instead of a jigger, you can just use measuring spoons. The muddler can be replaced by a mortar and pestle, wooden spoon, or a rod-type rolling pin—basically anything you can use to mash stuff, really. To “muddle” is a bartending term that means mashing ingredients to extract flavor into a cocktail.

Spiced Negroni Beer Cocktail

Ken Alonso of Proudly Promdi shares his spiced negroni beer cocktail recipe—a hybrid of a Kingston negroni and San Miguel beer.

The chorizo burger, or chori burger for short, is the stuff of legends in Boracay—a satisfying meal you can swing around while stuffing your face with carbs and meat to slow down the absorption of alcohol into your system. (Or just as a hearty, sticky, sweet and meaty meal in an entirely wholesome situation.)

Sauce & Seasoning

Burger

Boracay-Inspired Chori Burger

The first time we tried Kikufuji's Gyu Kushi, we got meat slapped. The dish seems simple, but what makes this skewer deserving of all praises lies in the beef's quality. From your first bite of the Gyu Kushi, you'll taste a world of difference between most locally available beef and 

We tried hacking this meat skewer, but the no-brainer way to hack this is finding the exact meat that Kikufuji uses—frozen Saikoro wagyu beef, which can easily be purchased at the neighboring Japanese grocery in the Little Tokyo compound in Makati.

If you can't find the time to visit Little Tokyo, try checking Japanese groceries near you, or try using tenderloin—unfortunately, we can't promise that it'll taste the same if you do.

Kikufuji-Inspired Wagyu Beef Skewers (Gyu Kushi)

Use Saikoro steak cubes for Gyu Kushi that's just as good—if not better—than Kikufuji's.

We see your breaded pork chops, Parmesan-crusted pork chops, corn flake-coated pork chops. But we raise you our chicharon-crusted pork chops. This version gives these cuts of pork a crunchy, flavorful crust, without distracting you from a well-seasoned piece of meat.

This recipe has no added complications. It's still your basic 

 and fry method, so it's easy to make for a quick meal at any time. A food processor is best for fine, even crushed chicharon. But if you don't have one, you can easily crush it with your hands.

Chicharon Crust

Pork Chops

Chicharon-Crusted Pork Chops

These chicharon-crusted pork chops are still your basic dredge and fry method, so it's easy to make for a simple lunch or quick dinner.

Fried chicken is the unofficial favorite food of many Filipinos, that's why we've created a version that is sure to excite your palate and introduce a spin on the classic fried chicken. Sinigang fried chicken uses the powder, giving an extra punch of sourness to the crunchy, golden exterior of chicken that we love. Rather than using extra spices to flavor our deep-fried fowl, we've gone down an even more Pinoy route, with sour flavors that are familiar to us.

Sinigang Fried Chicken

Everyone has their own favorite version of fried chicken. But sometimes, we look for newer takes. Hence, sinigang fried chicken is born.

In times like these, it's handy to keep recipes for canned goods in your pocket. We've partnered with CDO Karne Norte to give you three Filipino favorite dishes that you can easily use Karne Norte in, and have it for more than just breakfast.

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Whether it be for snack or for lunch, Filipinos love eating fries loaded with toppings. Take CDO Karne Norte and pile it on top of your favorite style of fries (we cut our own, but you can use whatever's readily available). The fine beef strands make it easy to pile on your potatoes.

Add as many toppings as you wish, but we recommend some dressing and fresh chili to go with the karne norte.

If you want to make these recipes at home, order through 

CDO Karne Norte Loaded Fries

Who says you can’t have Rum Coke on an empty stomach? This is a glaze more commonly found on chicken wings, but Sabrina Artadi instead decided to apply it to ribs—and we think it worked pretty darn well.

All you need to do is spike your Coca-Cola with a hint of rum, get your skillet running hot, and proceed to fire up a batch of these delicious ribs. And the best thing about it? You can down the leftover rum and coke for a pleasant buzz while you cook.

Rum Coke-Glazed Ribs

Rum coke glazes are common with chicken wings, but they work exceptionally well in pork spareribs.