My Top 10 Ultimate Taste Test 2 Recommedations

Although our editor-in-chief has been to previous UTT, Clasrissa and I were first-timers and excited to be “food critics” for a day in the recent Rockwell’s Ultimate Taste Test 2.

The Fruit Garden

The Fruit Garden

Knowing that there would be 40 different food stalls to try at the Rockwell Tent, we had to craft a plan so we can try everything just like how our EIC made it in last year’s Ultimate Taste Test. I couldn’t imagine how to go through each and every booth so I told Clariss that we should start with main dishes such as pork, chicken, and other meat down to the desserts and beverages.

Frisch Liquor Ice Cream

Frisch Liquor Ice Cream

We were given a set of food tray, a pen, and a map with a grading sheet with the names of the participating vendors. It’s actually our passport to every food stall. We don’t have to finish all the stalls but it would be an awesome experience if we do!

The Scoring System:

  • 1 – Thanks, but it could be better
  • 2 – It’s Okay
  • 3 – We had a good time!
  • 4 – I love it!
  • 5 – Awesome! I would recommend!
Bayani Brew

Bayani Brew

The UTT management has made it very comfortable for the “food critics”, there’s enough space, drinking water dispenser and disposable plastic cups.

On my list, I actually had 12 different food stalls with a grade of 5, but will shorten it the Top 10. Let me share our great food finds with a grade of 5 at UTT2.

1. Hillside Ranch
o This is one of the most scrumptious meat entrée in UTT2. To be honest, I’m a little picky when it comes to meat. I always want it juicy, moist, flavorful but definitely not salty, and most of all tender! Available in two variants, the corned beef brisket an my favorite  slow roast beef belly. Unfortunately, they are not available in major supermarkets but you can buy them at Trellis in QC and Essel Supermarket in San Fernando, Pampanga (the province where they came from – a place famous for good food).

Hillside Ranch

Hillside Ranch

2. Carlo’s Kitchen
o The crispy, crunchy goodness of Carlos Kitchen pork belly goes very well with a bottle of San Miguel Beer! I got to try it when I visited Mercato Centrale about few months ago. The flavour, which is not too salty, and the crispiness remain the same. Crunchy belly is good for “pulutan” (finger food or appetizer). I almost forgot my favourite Bulacan chicharon!

Carlo's Kitchen

Carlo’s Kitchen

3. Baked by Anita
o Known for their delicious cupcakes, Baked by Anita surprised us with their newest offering – a flavourful savory pie called the “Wild Mushroom Gruyere & Truffle Oil”. The truffle oil made it more appealing to the palate.

Baked by Anita

Baked by Anita

UTT would not be complete without dessert such as creamy and irresistible ice cream, cakes, pastries and smoothies. Here’s my take on their dessert & beverage section.

4. Blue Togue
o When it comes to desserts, I highly recommend Blue Togue! Initially, I was hesitant to try the cakes and pastries since I had some cheesecake overload the past few days. As of this writing I still have two boxes of Conti’s cakes in my fridge. Nonetheless, their Nutella Mouse Cake looks so divine I can’t resist! And yes, I was bewitched with its moist and creamy chiffon. I highly recommend Blue Togue!

Blue Togue

Blue Togue’s Nutella Mouse Cake

5. Matasami Flavoured Shave Ice
o This one is definitely different from other flavoured shave ice I tried in the past. I never thought it would be so smooth, so luscious, so creamy and so delicious! I tried two flavors – the Swiss Cheese and Langka, in favor of the former. The owner was very generous offering us to try other variants but I had to refuse. Perhaps on my next visit, I will try the Hawaiian Shave Ice and their liquor syrups.

o Matasami can be found in: SM Mall of Asia, Robinsons Galleria, Glorietta 4 Cinema Level and soon at Robinsons Magnolia.

Matasami

Matasami

6. Villa Del Conte
o I’m already familiar with Villa del Conte as boyfie once gave me a box of these luscious, rich, premium chocolates.

Villa Del Conte

Villa Del Conte

7. Saint Alps
o They served us their refreshing Blueberry Double Chocolate which was outstanding!

Saint Alps

Saint Alps

8. Bayani Brew
o Bayani brew offers interesting and healthy beverages. I tried their Lemongrass Pandan Iced tea and Purple leaf tea Iced tea. Guess what is a purple leaf tea? It’s actually “talbos ng kamote” (kamote tops)! Interestingly, it doesn’t taste like kamote tops. However, the lemongrass pandan is just like a regular brewed iced tea but I liked it nonetheless! Each bottle costs P35.

Bayani Brew

Bayani Brew

9. Pinkberry – They served us Coconut Pinkberry and made us choose 3 toppings. It had a good balance of tanginess and sweetness to crave for.  Check out my separate post on Pinkberry.

10. Mochi Sweets

o A soft and not-too-sweet mocha dessert goes well with a cup of hot tea. Since we’re already full, I paired it with Nescafe Dolce Gusto Cappuccino.

Mochi Sweets

Mochi Sweets

With a wide variety of food, I never thought I would be spending almost four hours at UTT2.

Other interesting food items are the Hokey Pokey Ice Cream from New Zealand Natural, Frisch Liquor Ice Cream, Maria’s Ilocos Empanada, Chef Anton, Lulu Belle, & the Plaza.

Bake Buddy

Bake Buddy

The Plaza

The Plaza

Nutella Rocks

Nutella Rocks

On the other hand, there were two food stalls that I had to visit twice because they run out of food – Chief Wings and Chow Fun. The latter offered us their interesting chocolate butchi.

* Story and photos by Marjorie Pineda of www.livingmarjorney.com

New Zealand Natural

New Zealand Natural

Maria's Ilocos Empanada

Maria’s Ilocos Empanada

Nescafe Dolce Gusto

Nescafe Dolce Gusto

Those are my Top 10 food items from Rockwell’s Ultimate Taste Test 2! I was so full I had to skip dinner that night.

Rockwell’s Ultimate Taste Test 2 on Sept 15!

NomNom with Anton Diaz (right)

NomNom with Anton Diaz (right) in UTT

In Rockwell’s Ultimate Taste Test 2011, NomNom was able to conquer 51 food stalls. How many would this year’s count be? On September 15 and 16, test your appetite and set your own records at Rockwell’s 2nd Ultimate Taste Test happening at Rockwell Tent as brought to us by Anton DiazOur Awesome Planet together with San Miguel Lifestyle Brews and more.

This two-day food tasting event happens from 11 in the morning up until 9 in the evening of both days. Get to taste samplings from over 40 home-based food businesses, concessionaires, and Power Plant mall establishments as they set up shop to have food lovers, connoisseurs, and foodies, become ” food critics for a day.

Food Rating Activity

Rockwell’s ltimate Taste Test traditional ratings of the food by the visitors within the scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest, will be one of the event’s highlights. The top performing food stalls with the average rating of 3.8 and above, will be specially features in Anton Daiz’s Our Awesome Planet blog in October 2012.

Rockwell's Ultimate Taste Test 2011 Score Sheet

Rockwell’s Ultimate Taste Test 2011 Score Sheet

Purchase Tickets

The ticket rates for the tenth (10th) edition of the Ultimate Taste Test  (UTT) is at P585/person/day or P1,000/person for 2 days. This covers the food taste portions and a bottle of San Miguel Super Dry, Premium All-Malt or Cerveza Negra (age 18 and above).

Buy the tickets from Creative Juice Office (Tel. # 5707827) during office hours or Rockwell Customer Care (Tel. # 8981702) during mall hours . You may also email admin@ultimatetastetest.com for questions and inquiries.

Rockwell's Ultimate Taste Test 2012

Rockwell’s Ultimate Taste Test 2012

For Interested Food Suppliers

Interested in becoming one of the food suppliers? Email the organizers at admin@ultimatetastetest.com. 

Buy your tickets now as only 1,000 tickets to be sold are allocated per day. See you at Rockwell’s Ultimate Taste Test 2 in 10 days! 🙂

 

2011 Ultimate Taste Test 6.0 Soon!

Food lovers, connoisseurs, and foodies, hear ye, hear ye! One of the most exciting food event of the year is back – the sixth edition of the Ultimate Taste Test!

Brought to you by Our Awesome Planet, in cooperation with San Miguel Lifestyle Brews, Rockwell’s Ultimate Taste Test 6.0 is happening on September 3 at the Rockwell Tent from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. as food blogger Anton Diaz  embarks on this first partnership with Rockwell.

Be a food-critic-for-a-day by sampling mouth-watering food preparations and concoctions from over 50+ home-based food businesses and some of Power Plant Mall’s own restaurants. Participants also get to rate the food samples and exhibiting food concessionaires on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the highest. The hihgest scorers get to be featured in Anton’s site.

Each ticket costs P585/person and covers the ff:

  • Food Taste Portions from 50+ Home-Based Food Vendors & Power Plant Mall Restaurants (new) for the entire Saturday
  • A bottle of San Miguel Super Dry, Premium All-Malt or Cerveza Negra (18 years old and above only)
  • Exclusive to 1,000 foodies
Ultimate Taste Test 2011

Ultimate Taste Test 6.0 2011

For ticket inquiries, call Power Plant Mall Office (Tel. # 8981702) during mall hours or Creative Juice Office (Tel. # 5707827) during office hours.

Here is a list of Food Exhibitors you might expect:

 Foodie Supplier   Specialty Dish
1  The Hearty Onion  Roasted Pandan-Wrapped Salmon and Mini Pulled beef sandwiches
2  Sweet Finale  Dark chocolate flourless cake
3  Rafael’s Green Kitchen  ANAK Ng TINAPA sa SARAP! and POMODORO TINAPA
4  Souk Kafe  Mana pizza
5  Madonna’s Cuisine  Homemade baked macaroni, classic kare-kare
6  Nasi  Hainanese chicken rice
7  AMG Experience Francaise  Quiches, sandwiches, breads and pastries
8  Fortune Empire  Roast pork
9  Sals Corp  Crumbs’ ice cream burger
10  Pot-Hole The Pastry  Connection  2 kinds cheesake, opera cake, adobo lasagna with cream cheese and spinach
11  Algaventures  Chuckle! Cheese Spread/ enchantea herbal iced tea
12  Merry Moo Ice Creamery  Apple cinnamon, honey and tea, coffee kahlua ice cream
13  Sweet Sherise Cakes ‘N Bakes  Cassava de leche, cassave chocolat
14  Kitchen of Elaine & Carla  Peppermint bars
15  Sweet Nothings Mktg Corp  Chococo by glow coconut sugar
16  Tres Amores HomeMade
 Apple  Pie
 Apple pie
17  DKC Bakeshop  Almond butterscotch bars
18  Sassy K  Korn krisps and gourmet dips
19  Sweet Life  Green tea espasol with filling
20  Dulces Y Tapas aka
 Christina’s Kitchen
 Carrot cupcakes, creme caramel bread pudding
21  Fideles Food Services  YOH-GEE Premium Froyo
22  Bote Central  Freshly roasted Philippine origins coffee
23  Manila Q  Bagwang and fish ham
24  Manolo’s  Paella porchetta, fabada, chorizo tapas
25  Risa Chocolates  Chocolates
26  Mrs V’s Homemade Goodies  Fresh lumpia ubod, macaroons, cupcakes
27  MAMA  P’s  Bagnet and longganiza
28  OctoInfinity Foods  Snow ice
29  Jam Foods  Japanese Teriyaki or Korean beef
30  Mother Lee’s Home Cooking  Hungarian Goulash
31  Carol Jorge  classic chicken liver and pate grand reserve
32  DessertBarn  Amnesia, Bananalicious
33  Simple pleasures  XXX Cakes and Seaweed peanuts
34  Dulcelin  Korean Red Rice Salad and hickory smoked US pork belly
35  Chef Lolly’s Kitchen  Homemade Pork with Shrimp Siomai and Camaron Relleno (“Giok-Pit-He”)
36  da.u.de Marketing  Organic gourmet tea
37  Pepita’s Kitchen  Lechon sisig
38  Jan Viray  Brownies, revel bars, NY cheesecake
39  Christa’s Kitchen  French macarons
40  Hero Sausage  Dundee ‘Kroko’ ALL Meat SisigDundee; ‘Kroko’ ALL Meat Express.
41  Angelo Yaneza  Honey Shrimp Paste
42  Aunt May’s  Ecargot and Beef Tapa
43  Concept Specialist      Coffee
44  United Village Breadhouse  Garlic bread with parsley, assorted spread and crostini toasts
45  Kitchen ala Ching  Oatmeal cookies, espresso kahlua cake, food for the gods
46  Hacienda Macalauan  Fresh Milk, flavored milk and yoghurt
 47  Luxe by Goldilocks      Luxe Cookies
48  Pasta Box  Longganisa bolognese. Bollywood, Dirty Harry, Popeye’s Favorite
49  GUSTAZO  gourmet tuyo, Pomodoro Tinapa, Bistek Tinapang bangus
50  XOCOLAT      Bake-to-Order Cookies (Insomnia, Smores, Cookie Monster, Plain Jane)

If you want to be a food supplier, contact Rockwell UTT Application Form and submit  via email to admin@ultimatetastetest.com.

See related Posts:

Rockwell’s Ultimate Taste Test Event
September 3, 2011, Saturday, 11.00 am – 9.00 pm.
Rockwell Tent
Email admin@ultimatetastetest.com.
P585/head. Tickets available at Power Plant Mall Office (Tel. # 8981702) during mall hours or Creative Juice Office (Tel. # 5707827) during office hours.

See you fellow foodies at the Ultimate Taste Test 6.0 on Saturday! 🙂