a mobster's haven in cebu

DIMLY lighted, wine bottles on the walls, soft music playing in the background, the interiors a cross between a Mediterranean villa and an Italian trattoria, this cozy restaurant located along A.S. Fortuna St. near the Adoration Convent of Divine Mercy exudes an old-world charm not found in most of the new establishments springing up in and around Cebu City. With the ambience reminiscent of a gangster’s favorite eating-place or watering hole, you’d half-expect to see Don Michael Corleone, Tony Montana and Lefty Ruggiero clinking glasses and counting the day’s take while being served by Charlie Brigante as Officer Frank Serpico glances at them furtively from another table.

Cinematic characters notwithstanding, underworld activities are not the norm at Carlito’s Way Steakhouse. Rather, the byword here is “beef.” The brainchild of Raul Baron and Leon Quimpo, two Ateneans with a taste for bovine-based meals, Carlito’s Way represents their love for the ultimate masculine fare, the steak. The duo being both self-confessed Al Pacino fans, the restaurant might very well be a tribute and a shrine to the legendary actor. Testimony to this are the various Al Pacino posters hanging on one wall of the establishment.

Diners at Carlito’s Way can choose to start their meals with Raul’s and Leon’s iteration of the traditional salpicao, a delicious plateful of tender beef cutlets sautéed in oil and served with a sprinkling of herbs. Christened “Salpacino” by the owners, this dish, usually eaten as an appetizer, can also be enjoyed as the main viand in a meal or as something to partake of with a beer or even a glass of wine.

Another wonderful complement to a bottle of beer would be their Bacon Mushrooms. Made from round bacon and mushrooms cooked in oil, it offers beer drinkers an alternative to the more commonplace pica-pica such as chicharon, sisig or pork belly.

First-time patrons should definitely try the Lengua Champignon, ox tongue and mushrooms drenched in a rich creamy sauce, topped with garlic flakes. With the ox tongue so tender it practically melts in one’s mouth, it comes as no surprise that the recipe is a well-kept secret.

Of course, steaks are king in a steakhouse, and the steaks at Carlito’s Way are definitely something to look forward to. Grilled on a rock grill using heated lava rock, the steaks come out cooked nicely, without the usual charred edges and smoky taste that come from charcoal grilling. The steaks are served with soup, buttered vegetables, a choice between rice and mashed potatoes and an excellent creamy gravy.

From their inch-thick flank steak to their rib-eye steak to their massive, 280-gram T-bone, the steaks at this restaurant not only taste really good, they also come at very affordable prices. Those who prefer chicken or fish need not despair, too, as Carlito’s Way also serves chicken and fish dishes as well as sandwiches.

With steak houses in Cebu so few and far between, Carlito’s Way comes as a welcome addition to the dining establishments found in the city. With the kind of reception they’ve received from Cebu’s hard-to-please diners, it’s quite obvious the meticulous Cebuanos have taken to steaks done Carlito’s Way.

And as Raul and Leon hope, soon Cebu will know steaks by another name.

This article was published in SunStar Cebu Lifestyle Section.

HOLY COW!

While most people go to restaurants expecting to be served, dining at Sumibi Yakiniku Tajimaya, at the far end of Crossroads Arcade may hold a surprise for most people, and may serve as a challenge for the culinary skills-impaired. It’s a relatively do-it-yourself affair at this Japanese restaurant. Customers come in, get seated, order their food, and are provided the ingredients for their main course.

Provided? Yes, ingredients are provided, as in, the customer is expected to cook the main courses of grilled beef on their own. A charcoal grill set in the middle of the table is meant for this activity, and while the staff is always at hand to help out, diners are encouraged to perform this particular task to fully enjoy the experience.

Named after the old province of Tajima in Japan, in what is now known as Hyogo Prefecture, Sumibi Yakiniku Tajimaya serves the very excellent Wagyu beef. Defenders of Kobe beef need not cry out, as Wagyu and Kobe beef are actually the same kind, Wagyu being the breed of cattle and Kobe, the capital of present-day Hyogo. With its intense marbling, the extra-special Wagyu beef comes out subtly flavorful, tender and juicy without the graininess that comes with other types of beef. Beef lovers, especially those who love steak, will definitely have a field day at this restaurant.

Most noteworthy among the beef dishes available at Tajimaya are the Wagyu Karubi, or special boneless short ribs, the Jou Gyu Tan, beef tongue lightly seasoned with salt, and the very impressive Wagyu Tokujou Saroin, the Japanese version of an extra special sirloin steak. All these are served raw and ready for cooking, arriving at the customers’ table already thinly sliced and delicately seasoned. A word of advice for the eager cook-to-be: Wagyu beef, because of the fine balance of the fat and meat content, should be cooked as fast as possible to keep the flavor and juices in and to reduce shrinkage. Less than a minute’s worth of searing on each side should be enough to cook the cutlets yet retain its delicate flavoring. Any more than that and the result would be a charred strip of beef not worth eating. “Rare” is the operative word when cooking Wagyu beef. A plateful of Sancyu, or fresh lettuce leaves, is also served as a complement to the grilled beef. Meant to be wrapped around the thin slices of beef and dipped in a soybean-based sauce, it gives an interesting tang to the already savory Wagyu beef.

Even as the restaurant’s menu revolves around the many iterations of Wagyu beef, other dishes are also available such as the Tegutan Kuppa. A spicy miso soup with rice and egg, it demonstrates the expertise of the Japanese in creating great tasting food from otherwise simple ingredients. Customers who prefer to have rice with their meals and yet are still looking for something more exotic than the usual Japanese-style fried rice would do well to order the Ishiyaki Bibinba, sizzling rice with mixed vegetables and topped with egg. Aside from being a great supplement to the main course, it brings an artistic touch to the table. The stone pot the rice is served in adds an interesting, Zen-like aspect to an already interesting dish.

A lot of people see even the more common types of Japanese food as an acquired taste: raw fish, seafood and tofu. At Sumibi Yakiniku Tajimaya, diners get something both familiar and different all at once. Familiar in the sense that Cebuanos love grilled food, and different, not only because of the kind of beef used, but also because of the experience of cooking and eating at the same time. By introducing Wagyu beef and the yakiniku style of cooking into the market, Sumibi Yakiniku Tajimaya gives Cebuano diners a whole new look at Japanese cuisine.

This article was published in SunStar Cebu Lifestyle section

...definitely not chicken soup, but still good for the soul...

When you think of it, the popular batchoy is kind of a puzzle. Is it just a snack or a meal on its own? The answer may be irrelevant, as food is not exactly meant to be questioned, only enjoyed.

Originally an Ilonggo specialty, the humble batchoy has reached practically every major populated area in the Philippines, and has even migrated to far-flung Filipino communities in Los Angeles and San Francisco. The simplicity of this dish belies its popularity; who would have thought that it would become a favorite not only in its native La Paz, but also in the major metropolitan centers of the Philippines? Restaurants serving Filipino dishes usually feature batchoy in their menus, unquestionable proof that it is an authentic Pinoy favorite.

Composed of a savory broth, noodles, leeks for additional tang and some color, beef, innards and liver strips with bits of crunchy chicharon on top, sometimes mixed with a raw egg, the batchoy can be eaten any time of day: breakfast, lunch, supper or merienda. It’s also perfect for those night owls who have had too much to drink and wish to sober up, or those just looking for something to eat during the wee hours of the morning.

Enter Carlo’s Batchoy, located right smack along Sotero Cabahug St, possibly the busiest street in Mandaue City. Operating since 1983, Carlo’s Batchoy has become undoubtedly the most popular batchoy house in Mandaue. Its popularity led to the opening of several other outlets, not just in the outlying municipalities, but also in the hustling and bustling city of Cebu. Besides that, Carlo’s Batchoy prides itself on being the first all day-all night eatery in Mandaue, and one of the first in the province to offer 24-hour service.

Juliet R. Veloso, Carlo’s Batchoy’s operations manager explains the restaurant’s beginnings, “Caiser Casumpang, the owner, is Ilonggo, and he wanted to share this Ilonggo specialty with the Mandauehanons. Together with his wife, Zenia, they opened the first store and named it after their son.” She goes on to explain that the restaurant started out by serving just batchoy and pan de sal, “Although during the latter part of the nineties, Carlo’s Batchoy began to offer siopao and grilled food such as pork belly and pork and chicken barbecue. At present, we offer other Pinoy dishes such as sisig and dinuguan, as well as calamares, pansit molo and other favorites.”

The food at Carlo’s are all very good, possibly even better than the food at some of the pricier establishments in both Mandaue and Cebu Cities, and more importantly, it won’t cost you an arm and a leg. Their batchoy, however, remain the perennial favorite, the best seller. Pop into any Carlo’s Batchoy branch, especially at the main store in Mandaue, and you’ll most likely see a bowl of batchoy in front of every customer. Or if you want, ask a Mandauehanon, any true-blue Mandauehanon, where to get the best batchoy in town. Stock answer: “Basta batchoy, Carlo’s!”

This article was published in SunStar Cebu Lifestyle Section

...thanks for the memories...

I remember when I was a seventh-grader at La Salle Greenhills. It was Schoolyear 1983-1984, Fridays were half-days then, and when school ended for the week, my classmates and I would usually troop to the Greenhills Commercial Center to hang out.

Our first stop would always be for lunch, at a quaint but cozy, little-known pizza restaurant. Its pizza and lasagna was quite popular among Greenhills habitués, but otherwise unknown to people who did not frequent the area. It was almost always full of La Sallistas, and if memory serves me correctly, was called Greenwich Pizza and Pasta.

Fast forward to the year 2007, I’m now a feature writer for Sun.Star Cebu, and I suddenly find myself somehow reliving the experiences from twenty-three years before. I’m at a Greenwich restaurant, albeit in Cebu City, and I’m with some members of the media, to take part in a shortened version of their popular “Pizza-Making Camp”.

I’m an amateur cook, and I have made my own pizzas in the past, but my process involves nothing more than just putting the ingredients on top of the pie then baking it, with no system whatsoever. It’s a totally different thing at Greenwich. To paraphrase Michelle Flaherty, the band geek in American Pie, “At pizza camp, we were taught to make pizza the Greenwich way.”

First off, it was stressed that cleanliness was very important, hence the presence of the “double hand-wash” dictum. Crewmembers were required to wash their hands twice, ever so often, as they would be preparing food for other people to eat. As “trainees”, we were also expected to follow this guideline, as Greenwich officials were observing our “training period”, and we were not supposed to be given any special treatment.

As soon as we were taught how to construct a pizza, from the basic single cheese pizza to the more complicated Greenwich Special, we were set loose in their kitchen. First to go on was the secret pizza sauce, then the special cheese. The meat bits went on next, followed by small pieces of pineapple. Pepperoni slices are then placed on top in a sort of ‘x’ pattern, with bacon and mushroom slices last.

Once constructed, we placed our pizzas in a conveyor belt, where it enters an oven. Around three minutes later, almost like magic, our cooked pizzas emerge on the other side, as professionally done as can be.

According to Boggs Racaza, Area Manager for Operations, the Greenwich Pizza-Making Camp is a year-round activity held by the company, not only for children but for anyone who’s never made a pizza on their own and is interested in making one. She relates, “We even have HRM students coming in to register, for some actual experience in a professional environment.”

Though the small and cozy Greenwich I knew no longer exists, replaced by spacious, brightly-lit, well-equipped restaurants with full crews in every part of the Philippines, the smells are still there, whatever branch you may be at; more importantly, the tastes that many La Sallistas grew to love are preserved, if not made even more delicious. And when I took that bite of Greenwich pizza that I made with my own hands, all the memories of playing hooky, and chasing after Assumptionistas, came rushing back. And that famous pizza in Greenhills? It was as if we never said goodbye.

eating in the streets

I've been warned time and again against eating street food. I'm not talking about those Sabrett hotdogs being sold on the sidewalks, rather, I'm referring to the somehow exotic street food found in the streets of Philippine cities. People say they're dirty, or they're unhealthy for numerous reasons, or that nobody knows where the ingredients came from, whatever, bottom line, street food is allegedly not good for you. But yes, I do love eating street food.

My favorite is the famous (or is it infamous?) balut. It's a duck egg, with a half-formed embryo, ideally between 16 and 18 days old. You tap the wide end to make a crack, then slowly form a small hole. When the hole is wide enough, you can sprinke some sea salt or a few drops of spicy vinegar into the hole and sip the tasty liquid (can it be called broth?) found inside. When you've drunk the broth (?) inside, crack the egg open and start eating the contents. Again, sprinkle some salt, this time on the yellow yolk, and start eating. Do the same with the duck embryo. The squeamish can close their eyes if they wish, this being very forgivable especially for first timers. Personally, i don't like eating the white stuff, i don't know what it's called, but it's very hard and doesn't taste at all like anything, so not eating it isn't really that big a deal. I recently saw an episode of Fear Factor, they actually gave some firemen a thousand US dollars each for eating balut. Imagine that.

Besides balut, i also love barbecued chicken skin, chicken intestines, what Pinoys call isaw, and pork intestines, called tiripilya by people in my hometown of Teresa, Rizal.

There's also this thing called tempura that I like. No, it's not the Japanese kind, the tempura I'm talking about look like white sausages skewered on a bamboo stick. Actually, they're like elongated fishballs, I think they're made from the same stuff. Or maybe it's just the sauce I like? Each vendor has his or her own version of the sauce, maybe that's the thing. The sauces almost invariably taste good, whatever vendor I buy from. The funny thing is, these things are available at the supermarket, although they don't really taste as good when i cook it at home. Maybe it's the sauce, maybe the ambience, what do you think?

And kwek-kwek! These are quail eggs covered in orange batter and deep fried. They taste like, I don't know, quail eggs wrapped in batter? Again, maybe it's the sauce that makes it really good. Now that I'm living in Cebu, I don't really get to eat kwek-kwek anymore. I don't know why, but I can't seem to find anyone who sells these things.

...with everything on it...

Most people say the sandwich was invented in the middle of a card game. The Earl of Sandwich, stomach already growling but not wanting to leave the card table, ordered someone, perhaps his valet, or maybe his chef, to “put a slice of roast beef in between two loaves of bread.” Thus the sandwich as we know it was born.

Other people believe that the Israelites came up with the first sandwich when they put slices of lamb in between two pieces of matzo bread. Whatever school of thought one belongs to, one can be certain about one thing: sandwiches can be considered one of the best foods in the world.

Some people argue that a sandwich is a sandwich is a sandwich, that there’s no difference between a ham sandwich made at home by your wife or your mom and a ham sandwich from the local deli. Other people, however, do not subscribe to this notion. With the countless kinds of sandwiches one can find, a food enthusiast can spend the rest of his life just feasting on sandwiches.

Another argument arises from the structure and components of a sandwich. Most purists believe that sandwiches should have at least two pieces of bread with some sort of filling in between. Other people feel that pastries with fillings are also sandwiches; this includes bread and dough products like siopao and meat rolls. Still others insist that open-face sandwiches are not sandwiches at all, but are just a simplified form of pizza. Following this line of reasoning, proponents argue that a pizza is actually a form of sandwich.

It’s gotten to the point that the definition of sandwich has actually reached the courts, with a United States judge ruling that “a sandwich must have two slices of bread and not one tortilla,” stemming from a lawsuit that a sandwich restaurant filed against a shopping mall for allowing a Mexican restaurant to operate inside it’s premises. The main issue? The sandwich restaurant claimed that the burrito is actually a sandwich; therefore, the Mexican restaurant should not be able to operate inside the mall, as it serves the same kind of food that they do.

Taking all these arguments aside, it is a fact that most people do enjoy sandwiches. From the simple pan de sal with a slice of homemade goat cheese in between, or the most complicated submarine, Clubhouse or Monte Cristo sandwich you can find, there’s probably not one person in the world that can say something bad about sandwiches. Even comicbook and literary characters have been found to love sandwiches. Wimpy, Popeye’s friend, has an unnatural affinity for the hamburger sandwich. Author Lawrence Sanders’ Captain Edward X. Delaney, the main character in the Deadly Sin series, is not only a food lover but an affirmed sandwich addict, going so far to classify sandwiches into two kinds: the wet sandwich, with greasy fillings, to be eaten leaning over the sink, and the dry sandwich, with a dry filling, eaten at the table, with a newspaper to catch the crumbs.

Open-faced, single-decked, double-decked or even triple-decked, many people love sandwiches for different reasons. Some people love it for its ease in preparation. Other people, especially those under time constraints, prefer eating sandwiches because it’s so easy to eat, and one can usually finish a sandwich in ten minutes or less. Others choose sandwiches because it’s practically a full meal on its own: meat or fish, veggies and bread. Its relative inexpensiveness also makes it attractive to most people. The popularity of hamburger restaurants also attests to the love people have for sandwiches, and you can probably find at least one restaurant that serves some sort of sandwich, wherever you go. Some cities even have restaurants with menus devoted mostly to sandwiches.

Whatever its origins, whatever its ingredients, whatever its structure and components, is all but academic. For as long as there is a slice of bread, or two, three even, for as long as there is a baguette, a hotdog bun, or, purists notwithstanding, a tortilla, and there is something you can use for a filling, be it cured meats, poultry, fish, butter, cheese or most anything with flavor, it is a foregone conclusion that sandwiches will remain a perennial favorite, that sandwiches are here to stay. And yes, both my wife and my mom make spectacular sandwiches.

of beef jerky, garlic fried rice and a sunny side up egg...

The 1950’s was an era that saw the emergence of many things American: huge, fin-tailed automobiles, the soda fountain, drive-in movies, the jukebox, rock and roll, prairie skirts, bobbie socks and leather jackets. It was also a time when, in the Philippines, reconstruction was going on. Filipinos, hand-in-hand with their American cousins, worked towards the rebuilding of bombed-out Manila.

Unknown to many, the 1950’s also saw the introduction of one of the most popular meals in the country today. Bringing with them their taste for beef jerky, Americans began sharing this food with the Filipinos. Then it was somehow discovered that the salty, jerked beef went very well with the local version of garlic fried rice, called sinangag. Add to the mix both the Filipinos’ and Americans’ liking for the fried egg and an honest-to-goodness satisfying meal was invented. Whether it was the Americans who actually discovered this combination, or the enterprising Filipino carenderia owners who did, still remains to be determined, although some people agree that a small eatery in Paranaque was one of the first establishments to serve this dish.

What is definite, however, is that the tapsilog, as this meal came to be called, grew to be so popular that quite a number of eateries quickly came up with their own versions of it. In fact, it grew so much in popularity that a lot of people mistakenly believed that it was purely a Filipino creation, completely disregarding the Americans’ contribution of the beef jerky so important to the concept. Manila in the early 1980’s experienced a tapsilog explosion, with restaurants popping up here and there; variations of the meal were then discovered, such as the tosilog, with tocino replacing the tapa, and longsilog, with longganisa. Cebu soon followed in the early nineties, with a handful of tapsilog outlets mushrooming around the city.

What's also interesting to note is the use of the word tapa. Obviously this was taken from the Spanish "tapas", or appetizer, although common usage in the Philippines led it to mean a seasoned beef dish. Another thing, there are so many recipes for beef tapa that no one can can really claim that they use the original recipe in making it: at best, it's always made "the way lola made it."