Southern Living: 2016 October

October 2016 Volume 11 | Issue 02

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KILLING ‘EM SOFTLY

The messy conundrum of soft openings reveal as much about a restaurant’s complacency as it does about what’s wrong with the way we dine TEXT PRISTINE L. DE LEON ILLUSTRATION DANICA CONDEZ

A “soft opening” sign plastered on a restaurant’s wall can often be read as a forewarning. It’s a gentle reminder that even the local branch of New York’s most buzzedabout eatery is, on its first months, still ironing out some kinks. It’s the well-meaning, sometimes entitled, and generally wimpy, go-easy-on-us appeal to guests armed with social media on their phones, ready to hurl their regrammable reviews like an army of Bourdains.

In the politics of pretentious dining, a soft opening sign can be a restaurant’s last resort for saving face.

Sometimes, dining joints open softly for purely economic reasons. While the establishment is still perfecting its much-hyped hotdogs, it would not hurt to start getting their investment back from foodies raring to make an early conquest. In the case of a new burger joint that opened in Conrad Hotel last September, they opened simply because they had to: chef Mikel Zaguirre’s Carnivalé needed to avoid being penalized, thus opening before their real plates arrived.

“In most cases,” explains Inquirer food columnist Clinton Palanca, “a soft opening will [admit only] family, friends, and a select group of people who [would] provide feedback in exchange for eating for

free or at reduced prices. But as long as you’re open to the public and charging full prices, you’re not on soft opening. You’re open and are up for judgment.”

And some of these criticisms are naturally unforgiving.

“One diner posted on Locavore BGC’s Facebook page that [among] everything he ordered, walang tama. Even the service, walang tama,” laments Zaguirre who, aside from Carnivalé, opened Empingao, Tacqueria 101, and Locavore’s new BGC branch this year. “He even put so many hashtags. But when I asked my manager there about the diner, he said there was no complaint.” Chef Miko Aspiras, who opened Garde Manger, Milk Trade, and Freezer Burn this year as well, adds, “With web reviews and social media, you can’t really control what people post, whether it’s good or bad. Especially when you’re on top of your game, people will really look at you under a microscope.”

While sites like Looloo and Booky pop the grand announcements through regular “Now Open” lists, they are as neutral as press releases. People then look to anonymous restaurant lurkers haughtily flinging their sharp-tongued opinions online while silently slurping their soups at the corner table. Consider the rise of

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Instagram account @masarapba as particularly telling of the dining climate: with over 100,000 followers on Instagram, the account gives its instant yays or nays on everything, from Sunnies Café to yema spreads.

To a degree, candor and crass remarks have become the yardstick for fearless authenticity. Valid or not, opinions on new restaurants have gotten restaurateurs hiding behind their recurring caveat: “We’re only on soft opening!”

“I noticed that being on ‘soft opening’ has somehow become an excuse so that restaurants can operate without being fully ready, so that customers will be more forgiving for less than par food and service,” says F&B Report magazine editor Angelo Comsti. He has witnessed the chaotic sight of a staff misplacing orders and meals taking an hour to arrive on the second day of one restaurant’s operations. “It was missing a system,” he says.

While a restaurant is understandably learning the ropes in its infant stages, diners are naturally disinclined to pay full price for a half-baked concept. For customers least likely to return for second servings, these soft openings are less of humble dry runs than they are clever ploys to get the word out and get the money coming in.

And when they backfire, restaurateurs simply trot out their hackneyed caveat to protect their name. Palanca reveals, “On a few rare occasions, [some restaurants] tried to pay me to take back my bad review and write

something positive instead.”

In the middle of the clamor, however, the spotlight similarly falls on the defect of diners.

Zaguirre articulates the problem clearly: “Instead of complaining to the manager and letting the restaurant know what the problem is, they don’t say anything; they just rant on Facebook. How can the restaurant know what’s wrong?” Comsti adds, “Some are just out to destroy food establishments.”

These days, careless commentary that is seemingly out to try to shut down a business can be equally deplorable. “Soft opening used to be an excuse for restaurants to say, ‘Be soft on us,’ but now, people almost expect perfection right when we open our doors,” Aspiras says. And while constructive criticism is always warranted in the face of less-than-noble service, unforgiving foodies have transformed the dining scene into a space for palate politics, launching harsh commentary both to address the restaurant and to assert the authority of their taste.

These so-called critics often undermine the work that goes on behind the scenes: a staff still tweaking their logistics to adapt to a newer market and chefs training new cooks to perfect the cuts and flavors.

While remarks are always welcome, at times they may be as overblown as the hype that had buoyed a restaurant to instant fame. “Believe me,” says Aspiras, “I’m already my own worst critic!”

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TREACLE TREAT Kinasaang Beans na Malagkit A lesser known addition to the sweeter realm of kakanin, this dish is created with kibal beans, which are common in Batangas. A slightly darker variant of the common sitaw, the beans give flavor to the surrounding malagkit that was boiled with sugar, while the sauce is made with muscovado sugar dissolved in kakang gata. Inducing an early morning saccharine kick, both the starch and sugar give children energy throughout the day—or so the common spiel goes of many moms and grandmas in southern towns.

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WAY OF THE CARABAOS Adobo sa Gata In the towns of San Pablo, Pagsanjan, and Sta. Cruz, carabao meat makes a prominent appearance in the ubiquitous adobo. Unlike in Manila where either chicken or pork are bathed in toyo, there, they do away with adobo’s common clichÊs. Instead, the carabao meat is boiled to bring out the softness of the brisket then flavored with garlic and sukang tuba. The gata, made thicker, renders the adobo (just a little) surprisingly sweet.

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SOUP FOR THE WEARY Goto Batangas This isn’t simply rice porridge the way goto lovers would imagine it. Common in the Batangas city proper, goto are savored by diners with broth and twalya (beef tripe). Once the dish has been boiled, they add in atsuete for color and bone marrow for texture and a bit of umami. Overall, it’s bulalo with animal innards— purportedly a treatment for last night’s hangover.

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The curious life of sourdough TEXT OLIVER EMOCLING PHOTOGRAPHY GABBY CANTERO

When I arrive at Toyo Eatery, where Manapat currently abroad. “We don’t grow wheat in the Philippines,” he bakes, he is already applying tension to the sourdough explains a fact that frustrates him. Even though other he made a day ago for the final proofing. He gets a crops can grow well in Philippine soil, local farmers rattan bowl, lines it with a hairnet, and dusts it with still stick to rice even in times of drought. “Wheat is a mix of bread and rice flour. “If we use just bread hardier than rice. Rice needs more water, and if you flour, they tend to stick,” he explains. The sourdough keep planting the same crop on the same parcel of land is then left to rest before it finally goes into the oven. every time, the nutrient depletes,” Manapat continues, “[Making bread] is not as glamorous as people think citing Thailand, Vietnam, and Mexico as wheatbecause most of the time, we’re just waiting.” Before growing countries with similar weather conditions. this final proofing, the sourdough has undergone a Another thing that forces him to import flour is long process, much like an act of creation: there was the milling process in the country. “We actually have nothing, until life appeared. For Manapat, it all starts rules that require our flour to be adulterated,” he with pineapple juice (“The pH of the pineapple juice says. Under the Republic Act 8976, it is mandatory is just right to kill the bad bacteria”) and organic to fortify rice with iron while flour has to be enriched rye flour. The mixture draws lurking with Vitamin A and iron before it microorganisms in the air to take goes to the market. “Although you “People have to get are adding vitamins and minerals, shelter in the concoction, and the life of the starter begins. It should be fed these are not [the crops’] natural rid of the notion and taken care of like one’s own child. nutrients. We have [an already] that all bread has naturally healthy product that Manapat allows me to touch the risen dough. Once pressed, the dented wouldn’t need all those additives,” to be sweet and section slowly rises while maintaining he explains. the mark of my touch, an indication While wheat is not grown in the look exactly the that the dough is ready for the oven.

Philippines, Manapat finds hope same every time.” in the new wave of local flours, like He then takes a pre-heated pot, which serves as the Dutch oven, takes mango flour made from mango seeds, the dough out of the bowl, and with grape flour, and coffee flour. “Using a lame (a razor blade attached to a stick), slashes the a lot of organic rice in bread is good, too,” he adds. dough then puts it in the oven to bake for 50 minutes. There are other grains like millet that can be used The creation and consumption of bread have to make sourdough, “but unfortunately, this highly drastically changed since its discovery in Egypt nutritious grain is just used locally as bird or poultry some thousands of years ago. From the accidental feed, and I need to get my hands on some that hasn't bread made with grains, water, and salt, most of the been modified for chickens and birds to eat.” commercially produced bread we consume now— Manapat believes that the interest in sourdough is and this may be an overstatement—is without life, growing since he began making them two years ago. hence the rise of digestive problems related to gluten. However, he feels it’s not enough. Though there are a Sourdough is the most natural way to make bread, as lot of coffee shops and restaurants serving sourdough the community of natural yeast and bacteria breaks bread in the Philippines, only those in areas frequented down carbohydrates and gluten, making them easier by foreigners are the ones that thrive. “People have to to digest. get rid of the notion that all bread has to be sweet and Manapat makes two kinds of sourdough. One is look exactly the same every time, as if it rolled off a infused with fermented black rice while the other is factory line. I think bread bakers are seen as the least fed with organic purple corn juice. I ask him if he has important of the back-of-the-house people; chefs and to source his materials abroad and answers no, but is pastry chefs get all the attention. Does it make me less quick to add that he has to source most of the flours of an artisan just because I bake bread and not fancy-

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FEAT URE looking cakes and pastries?” He points out how, in local culinary schools, students weigh between becoming a chef or a pastry chef, not thinking beyond other professions that help keep a kitchen running. Days before our interview, he asked me to watch the “Air” episode of Michael Pollan’s Cooked on Netflix, where a Moroccan community baker shares Manapat’s vexation: “I’m a baker because I didn't go to school and my parents were poor, but long ago, this profession had a high value.”

Manapat finally takes out the bread from the oven; the sourdough has grown into a fine loaf, riddled with holes in varying sizes. He has to let this newest batch rest for a while, so he takes a slice from one that was prepared the night before, the edge of the knife creating a crackling sound as it bites through the bread’s crust. Then, he splits it into half and smells a crumb with his eyes closed. He gives me the other half. As I inhale, I smell a rich, complex aroma

not present in regular white bread. I put it in my mouth; the moist, chewy bread has a flavor I have yet to find reference of.

Bread is never seen as a potential partner for our adobo and kaldereta. Filipino food culture sees pan de sal as a breakfast staple and other white breads from local panaderias as merienda. Hence, Manapat tries to incorporate sourdough into Filipino breads, trying it with ensaymada and pan de sal. The latter’s origin, especially, piqued his curiosity. “In Spain, pan de sal would be crusty like [sourdough]. In France, they have pain a sel, which is dark bread with big holes. Unfortunately, there isn’t much resource [to learn about] the really, really old Philippine bread.”

Blame the inevitable collective forgetting or the surge of industrialization.

After a long discourse on the Philippine bread industry, we fall quiet, and we breathe in the scent of bread—bread that is teeming with life.

Clockwise from left: Before becoming a full-time baker, Richie, a chef, earned a diploma from First Gourmet Academy; Slashing the sourdough with fermented black rice before baking; The sourdough is placed inside a pot, which serves as the Dutch oven, before it goes to a regular oven.

“Does it make me less of an artisan just because I bake bread and not fancy-looking cakes and pastries?”

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HOME-COOKED

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On his quest to discover Southeast Asia’s flavors, Nicco Santos also found family along the way TEXT DENISE DANIELLE ALCANTARA PHOTOGRAPHY ARTU NEPOMUCENO

“There’s no such thing as authentic.” This is what Nicco Santos realized during his travels around Southeast Asia to explore its colorful cuisines.

Santos, a portrait photographer and co-owner and chef of neighborhood restaurants Your Local and Hey Handsome, found love in a foreign land. “When I first went to Singapore, I had no idea that food could taste like that,” he says of his first experience of eating the famous Singaporean chicken rice. “It had everything: it tasted clean, soft, fatty but not so much. It had so much flavor. It had spice. It had umami. It’s all in one bowl, and you mix it all in.” With that first bite, he knew he wanted to feed his curiosity further and discover the different flavors and cooking techniques of Singapore.

Similar to Filipino food, Singaporean cuisine is a mix of different cultures. Access to a wide variety of produce, spices, and herbs has never been a problem for those who live in the tropics, and every region and culture has its own distinct flavors. Due to centuries of constant trading, however, foreign flavor profiles and culinary techniques became assimilated into Asian cooking— making “fusion” not a thing of the 20th century but a long-standing natural occurrence since people started trading. Case in point: chicken rice had Malay origins, but the Singaporeans indigenized the dish by applying Chinese cooking techniques to it, making it seem like an original.

Of familiar and familial flavors When asked if Filipino food also has the same impact on him, Santos says no, though the two cuisines’ similar roots made Singaporean food more relatable to him.

“It has similarities to Filipino food that’s why it spoke to me. However, they always [add] one or two things to brighten up a dish. There are herbs and a good use of ginger and galangal. It’s not so overpowering and

nakakaumay. Maybe that’s why I like it. Now, I still love making adobo, but with kefir lime or sometimes with a little bit of coconut.”

After deciding to focus on Singaporean cuisine, Santos’ first project was to recreate the dish that made him fall in love with it, but he never found the perfect chicken rice recipe in the many cookbooks he had purchased.

“They weren’t even close to what I had.” Understanding that he needed to learn the hard way, he went looking for Singaporean families who would take him in and teach him their secrets in exchange for his cleaning services.

“The secrets are not in cookbooks. They leave so many things out. So I would spend a day in a household, and they would teach me how to make rendang, laksa, sambal, etc. And each family was different. Like with our adobo, [their dishes were] how their grandmothers would [cook] and pass [these] down to them. Each time they pass it down, the next generation would add a different twist.”

To shoot and to serve After his metamorphic trip to Singapore and the rest of Southeast Asia, Santos opened the restaurant Shiok in BGC. Of course, it offered chicken rice and other Malaysian and Singaporean dishes, like sambal prawns, roti prata, and nasi lemak. The business lasted four years, then Santos delved into photography and film work. “I missed cooking after a year, though. I missed having that rush, having a team with me, and the family culture.”

Serendipitously, his cousin Andre Chanco came home in 2014 to pursue his dream of putting up a specialty coffee shop in Manila. He found a space in Makati, but initially felt it was too big. Chanco, who is now owner of the coffee shop Yardstick, offered part of the space to Santos. “I did not know what to do with it.

I just came back from a month and a half-long vacation

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COV ER STORY “I don’t know what [my] kitchen is called, but it’s definitely one that has a lot of heart," says Nicco Santos.

PHOTOGRAPHY TRISTAN TAMAYO

in New York,” Santos recalls. “The area reminded me so much of Bedford, Brooklyn, so the idea to inject a Brooklyn vibe [into the place] but serve Singaporean food came about.” Your Local was born, and the area instantly became the hottest neighborhood refuge for the after-work crowd.

However busy he was with his new restaurant, Santos still found the time to do editorial and commercial shoots, and his exposure to the world of photography helped him apply some of its lessons to the kitchen.

He is known as a portrait photographer who pushes his subjects beyond their comfort zones, capturing qualities that even they are unaware of about themselves. “I like seeing and making my subjects perform. Before opening Hey Handsome, the staff took acting classes as part of their training. I realized that, being people in the service industry, we have to perform instantly when needed.

We can be whatever we want to be if the circumstance calls for it.

“We’re here to make people feel good,” he continues.

“We’re here to make a difference and take care of people—which, I think, human beings are meant to do. We’re here to love. [The service industry] is an awesome profession [where] we get to do this.”

by food is what makes Santos turn on the stove and whip up dishes to his heart’s desire. Coming from a broken family, he believes cooking is the best way to bring everyone back together, especially his parents.

Unfortunately, that reunion never happened, so instead, Santos always cooks for his friends and their families.

He soon realized that his knowledge of food wasn’t enough, and that he wanted to take formal training.

After spending two years in culinary school, Santos never worked for any other restaurant (apart from the ones he owns). He trained instead under home cooks, learning from the different families that had crossed his path. “I don’t have that military style of operating the kitchen—it doesn’t exist [for me].

I don’t know what [my] kitchen is called, but it’s definitely one that has a lot of heart. We try to bring out the best in everyone. I want to teach the staff that it’s amazing whenever we achieve something.”

Living with different families has taught him a different kind of compassion toward others. Not only did Santos learn their long-held secret recipes but also life lessons on how to treat other people.

Even though his earlier dreams of his parents’ reconciliation went unfulfilled, food still brought his world together. Of his staff, Santos affirms, “There’s Gathering one common thing that we all wanted, and that is to The sense of family and togetherness brought about have a family.”

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“We’re here to make a difference and take care of people—which, I think, human beings are meant to do.”

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EATS Handcrafted strawberry cream and raspberry sodas; Sourdough bread with homemade peach jam and marmalade.

DELECTABLE CHEMISTRY Edible, potable, and homemade discoveries at a low-key café TEXT OLIVER EMOCLING PHOTOGRAPHY PATRICK SEGOVIA

“We like to do things the hard way,” says Ginny Roces de Guzman who, together with her long-time friends Chiqui Lara and photographer Neal Oshima, co-owns Tilde Hand Crafted Café. “It’s the opposite of trying to find a shortcut, [because we] want to control everything.”

There’s something curious about Tilde. Located on Matilde Street, the area they call “Backwell” in Makati, it’s unobtrusive. Once you enter the café, it’s as if you’ve fallen down a rabbit hole filled with the aroma of brewed coffee and oven-fresh bread. The clean, Scandinavian-inspired atmosphere designed

by Oshima instantly entices diners to succumb into a state of relaxation in the middle of a busy day.

Tilde makes almost everything in-house, from breads to sodas. “We want to show the provenance of the food we serve here. It’s either we made it, or a farmer we know made it,” says de Guzman. For one, the coffee concoctions of Dylan Oshima, Oshima’s son, are made with Arabica beans sourced from Mt. Kitanglad in Bukidnon. The Smooth Siphon reveals the true character of the coffee: bold, with a strong aroma and end notes similar to tea’s.

Tilde keeps on evolving with their short yet ever-changing menu. For starters, they serve Sisig Carbonara, inspired by a dish de Roces had in Australia. The dish has the creamy appeal of the Italian pasta with a hint of the meaty pungency of the Filipino specialty. Should Tilde begin serving Oshima’s beer experiment, a sweet brew with floral notes and the right hoppy aftertaste, this dish would be just the right pulutan.

The café is built on the never-ending possibilities of fermentation. “A lot of interesting foods are fermented because [of the] transformation [that occurs],” says de Guzman. Recalling the time when cream sodas were a hit, Tilde ferments its own fruit shrub syrup to create cream sodas that are carbonated on site, and its strawberry cream and vanilla cream sodas are ultimate reminders of old-school milkshakes, minus the dairy.

While there’s a lot going on here, there’s one thing that stays constant: “It’s a test kitchen, forever a test kitchen.” Their experiments may be as simple as adjusting the flavors of their pastries to a new discovery on fermentation, Tilde keeps on tweaking their menu to ensure that their diners get to eat real food.

Not everyone has the luxury of dropping by and staying at the café. There are those who come by simply to pick up a loaf of bread, which Tilde also delivers around the area, or a bag from the Heat and Eat selections. Seeing people come and go in search and discovery of food produces an epiphany: more than serving simple food, Tilde is building a community.

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For those on the go, Tilde also sells a variety of locally made goods by their mother company Gustare Kitchen.

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EATS

Clockwise from topleft: Smooth siphon coffee; (clockwise) Orange and EVO cake, Turtle Pie, and Lime Cheesecake; Sisig Carbonara.

Tilde. 5417 Matilde St., G/F EWC Bldg., Poblacion, Makati City. 771-2764. www.facebook.com/TildeCafe.

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