A Scientist in the Kitchen

Gone are the days now when I horde all my spices back home in Laguna and bring them here in GenSan so I can cook whatever I want when the mood strikes me. These days, I head to Robinsons’ Place precisely to get the ingredients I regular use for cooking.

Robinsons’ Place GenSan (Photo courtesy of Robinsons’ Place)

What’s not to love? I particularly like their selection of Asian noodles, spices, and sauces. They’re the only ones that sell Japanese miso paste so I can regularly have my soba and miso soup fix.

They also have a relatively good selection of noodles, from Korean to Japanese to Vietnamese.Oh, and they have soju, too!

If you like love to cook, like me, quality meats  are very important. Meats are kept in low-temperature fridge, which is a must to slow down spoilage. I usually select Lisa’s Meats, the meats are already wrapped in Saran wrap, so there is less exposure to air. Meat cuts are varied as well so there are lots of choices for me to cook. This week, I’m making ham (wait for that post!) I also like the fact that there’s a separate area for meats and vegetables, less contamination from meats to vegetables unlike the other shops here in GenSan. Cheese selection? It’s good but could be better. At the very least, the cheeses are stored properly unlike some shops that sell frozen cheese!!! What’s great is that they sell blue cheese, a luxury for me.

It’s a bloggers’ hangout, too, with free wifi! (Photo by http://hikersitch.com)

If you’re into rice (like me, who’s dissertation is on rice), you’d love all the rice selections. I get a kick out knowing the varieties and recalling the genes I know they have or particular importance of such variety. An example is the glutinous rice they sell, a Filipino traditional rice, called Malagkit Sungsong. It has a disease resistance stage that’s only expressed at the booting (almost flowering) stage of rice. I recall extracting DNA from that variety! I’m sure to get pure glutinous rice to make my very special palitaw!

Based on experience, they have a responsive customer service. One time I bought a local cheese that looked spoiled. I returned it the next day and they promptly refunded me. I wanted a replacement but it seems it was the manufacturer’s fault, all the cheese in the same lot looked spoiled!

There is also the added bonus that most of my friends hang out in Robinsons’. Whether I’m hanging out with them or blogging on the go (like now, since they’re the only mall in GenSan that’s got free wifi), this is one of the cooler places (literally and figuratively) to be in GenSan.