MERIENDA TIME!

Craving for really good siopao? Or a generously filled cuapao with that huge slice of pork filling? Oh, but you would like to enjoy it with a piece of empanada de kaliskis with flavorful ground beef within? Or, should that be unavailable, an even rarer flying saucer sandwich will do?

Oh, not to worry! Such crazy combinations of Chinese and Filipino snacks should be available if there is a Casa Daza food stall somewhere near. These savory treats make up the core menu of Casa Daza, whose stalls can be found in different malls around the metropolis, such as Robinsons Magnolia, SM Megamall, Alabang Town Center and Ayala Malls Feliz.

Casa Daza started as a full-fledged restaurant which opened two years before the pandemic hit hard, and at the helm of it was celebrity chef Sandy Daza.

It complemented Chef Sandy’s other highly successful restaurant venture, Wooden Spoon, and its concept revolved around a completely Filipino menu. Chef Sandy’s food show, called Foodprints, was already on at that time, and the show took him all over the Philippines to discover regional cuisines and try different specialties of each province.

So, when he opened Casa Daza, his concept for it was to feature the popular dishes of the different provinces on the menu so diners could have a chance to try them, too. And so Chef Sandy put his ideas together and created recipes based on what he had tasted in the course of doing his food show.

“I picked up from my travels so it was mostly Filipino food on the menu. I incorporated some dishes that we served in our Philippine restaurant in Paris,” explains Chef Sandy, whose famous late mom, Nora Daza, then had a Filipino restaurant in France and a French restaurant in Manila.

Things were going well when the pandemic hit the world hard in 2020, and he had to face the reality of closing both Wooden Spoon and Casa Daza to cope with the limitations that the pandemic had imposed upon businesses and everyone’s lives.

What Chef Sandy did with Casa Daza was scale it down to food stalls, all the time having Empanada de Kaliskis in mind.

He and his kitchen team formulated an awesome Empanada recipe, made different flavor variations of it, and then assigned Chef Sandy’s son Franco to spearhead empanada stalls all over the malls in the metropolis. It was a trial-and-error venture at the start.

“Not all of them clicked in the beginning because it was a learning process for all of us. I realized later on that it had a select market, and so we focused on those markets. The moment people started tasting the empanadas, we got very good feedback and, today, we have 20-plus branches of Casa Daza food stalls,” says Chef Sandy.

The flagship product is, obviously, the empanadas. Casa Daza today sells a variety of flavors, such as Original Chicken, Humba, Corned Beef, Tuna, and Vegetarian.

“We also sell Pork Buns or Siopao. Our buns remind you of the buns of the 1960s. We also sell Flying Saucer Adobo Sandwiches and Cuapao,” the amiable chef adds.

People can buy them per piece or in boxes of six or 12.

Lately, chef Sandy has been developing a new product, authentic

Vietnamese Bahn Mi Sandwiches, which should fly off the Casa Daza stalls soon. “I guarantee you that it will be like eating in Saigon streets when we launch them. These are all recipe creations of mine,” Chef Sandy assures.

Perfect for merienda, all these savory treats are also great for parties, potlucks, and other occasions. Casa Daza has also developed and made available several food trays, which can serve between six to eight persons and between 10 to 14 persons. All based on recipes by Chef Sandy, the food tray selections include Kare-Kare, Sigarilyas, Dinakdakan, and Caldereta.

Chef Sandy’s creative juices are flowing, so expect more products from Casa Daza, both for its savory treats and its food tray lines.

“I believe that the items I will be sharing with the public will continue to surprise them because they are both unique and delicious,” chef Sandy promises.