Rustan's Supermarket cooks up an Asian 'eatinerary'

Suddenly, Asia is on my mind  and on my tongue  as I step into Rustan’s Supermarket one balmy afternoon. I gingerly comb the aisles and my eyes feast on an intriguing assortment of condiments, eats, and sweet treats. There are Cholimex chili sauces (hot chili, natural chili, plum chili, sweet & sour chili, sweet chili), shrimp satay sauce, tamarind roast sauce from Vietnam. There’s G7 Vietnamese 3-in-1 instant coffee for an instant pick-me-up. The next stop in my exciting Asian “eatinerary” is Singapore, the Lion City. Here, I rave over the roaring hot and saucy offerings: Prima Taste ready-to-cook sauce kits for Hainanese chicken rice, Singapore chili crab, Singapore curry, and bak kut teh (pork ribs simmered in a broth of herbs and spices) for only P259 per packet There are oodles of Koka cup noodles (including the low-fat variant for those forever on a diet). And there’s nothing like these choice sauces to spice up a humdrum day: sweet & spicy seafood sauce, black pepper sauce, nonya sambal sweet & spicy chili sauce, sambal chili sauce. From Singapore, I walk over to Malaysia where assorted goodies, tucked in the shelves, are waiting to be discovered: chunky chocolate cocoa crunch, almond walnut crunch (an easy favorite), triple chocolate fruitcake, multi nuts fruit cake, wholemeal mixed fruit cake, dark chocolate cake, soy crunchies, chapatti (Indian flatbread), roti chanai (puffed bread), tandoori (meat/veggies cooked in a clay oven), mantou (steamed bun), and vegetable cocktail samosa (potato-stuffed pastry), etc. And for the final leg of my Asian food tour, I find myself in Thailand. Here, you’ll find to-Thai-for condiments you can use to whip yourself up a homecooked genuine Thai meal. Like coconut cream, spice pastes, dried galangal, chili sauces, hot sauces, pad thai yellow curry paste, pad thai noodles, tom yum mix, fish sauce as well as pineapple/jackfruit/banana chips, sun-soaked bananas, spicy chicken nuggets, palm sugar, tamarind candies, and mini crepes (a big favorite).

What’s happening here? Has Rustan’s Supermarket turned Asian?

Well, Rustan’s Supermarket takes consumers on yet another scintillating food adventure, this time around the colorful, unpretentious streets of Asia, with its Asian Street Food Invasion ongoing until August 15 at all Rustan’s Supermarket Fresh branches.

Picture yourself clawing your way through a crowded hawker center in Singapore and eating your way through a thousand and one dishes. Imagine you’re in Vietnam basking in the sun and in a multi-sensorial feast of flavors in a small café. There, you could be slurping Vietnam’s famous pho (traditional Vietnamese soup, a staple on the Vietnamese dining table) or chilling out with chilled young coconut milk. Or enjoying a robust serving of bun cha (barbecued pork marinated in chili ginger and garlic).

“These are just a few of the well-loved street foods you’ll find when you’re traveling in Asia,” says Beth Romualdez, VP, Food Services Division, Rustan Supercenters, Inc. (RSCI).

This innovative, creative chef and cookbook author has dreamed up some Asian street food specialties that you can feast on at Benny’s for the duration of the festival.

“It would be hard to cook chicken rice from scratch, and just imagine how many ingredients go into making a curry dish,” points out Frances Yu, VP, Marketing Division, RSCI. “But with all these mixes and sauces now available for this food festival, you can easily prepare a Hainanese chicken rice, a curry dish or sambal stuffed fish at home. At Rustan’s Supermarket, all these quality ingredients are available at very affordable prices because we get direct from the source.”

And the crackling good news is Rustan’s Supermarket is also bringing in snack items from Asia. “Beth swears she will hoard the truly yummy durian chips when the supply arrives,” relates an amused Frances.

Launching this food festival at Rockwell, Makati, Rustan’s simulated an actual street on a long, long corridor and put up various stalls with different food offerings. You simply had to walk down the street and take your pick from the humongous Asian food offerings from different restaurants.

If you want to unravel the secrets of Asian cooking, you can join the live cooking demo and visit the weekend hawker’s market at Rustan’s Supermarket in Edsa Shangri-La on July 28 and Rustan’s Supermarket Makati on August 11.

The adventure doesn’t end there. A minimum purchase of P500 entitles shoppers to join the grand raffle for a chance to win a trip to one of the several featured destinations, complete with a city tour, airfare, and hotel accommodations for three days and two nights.

Surely, there’s something about Asian food that warms the stomach and sets the heart on fire.

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Rustan’s Supermarkets are located at Glorietta Makati, Rockwell Power Plant Mall, the Gateway Mall in Araneta Center, along Katipunan Road in Quezon City, San Antonio Plaza Arcade, Forbes Park in Makati, Greenbelt Makati, Paseo de Magallanes along South Superhighway, Corinthian Hills, Ayala Center Cebu, Arcenas Estates in Cebu, and Il Terrazzo Mall in Quezon City.