Hong Kong: Cliftons

The seminar I attended in Hong Kong was held at a Cliftons training venue  right smack in the middle of Queen's Road Central. The venue provider also catered the three-day event, providing breakfast, lunch, and mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks. 

Before the seminar I wasn't at all happy that I will be provided most of my meals for the day. I envisioned lackluster Western dishes designed to please varying palates - in short, safe and oft-repeated standards. 

And that is what met me on my first day. Breakfast was sausages, eggs and some breads. I had indulged breakfast at my hotel, so I congratulated myself. I wasn't in Hong Kong to eat sausages. 

Lunch, however, was a revelation. There was a total turn-around, and it became hardcore Chinese. There were dishes that even came across as exotic, ones  I could never have come across no matter how hard I scoured the restaurant scene across Hong Kong. I would never have ordered them, for one, if they were available, since they were remotely unfamiliar. But here it came free with the tuition that the agency I work for had paid.  

And there was confirmation of the food's pedigree - my favorite classmate, the one who pointed me to Tim Ho Wan and who explained how to eat congee and soy milk for breakfast, declared that everything was "surprisingly good."

I didn't find everything that palatable, though. That dish above, for example, was labeled steamed angelo lufta and glass noodle in garlic. I'm sure there was some sort of mistranslation or misspelling there, for no matter how I researched I could not find what lufta or angelo are anywhere. But it's some kind of gourd, very much like sponge gourd or patola (which is spelled luffa), but not as slick, and very, very bitter. It has a different bitterness from, say, ampalaya, or even papait. The large slices further emphasized the bitterness, so needless to say I didn't enjoy it very much. 

This one is more familiar, called braised lo hon vegetables with bean curd. "Lo hon" is this revered vegetable mix called "Buddhist delight" because it is eaten by Buddhists, and is traditionally served in Chinese households for the first five days of the lunar or Chinese new year for self-purification practices. At Cliftons the vegetarian dish was mixed with glass noodles. 

Another vegetarian noodle dish, egg noodles with mushrooms. 

Smoked duck breast and peppered pastrami beef, which were very good eaten together with the vegetarian noodles. A bit irreverent, yes. I would have preferred those heavenly slices of duck with noodles in soup, though. 

I always enjoy the variations of Chinese rice, fried or otherwise. I had plenty to enjoy at Cliftons, like steamed rice topped with chicken a la king, or stir-fried yang chow style. 

No, liquid is not waste. Or is that, waste is not liquid? Or no liquid waste should be thrown here? This was a notice posted by the water dispenser. 

The cream soda is a popular carbonated drink in Hong Kong, said to taste like a mixture of milk and 7-Up. It tasted like shandy to me, and a can was a good way of helping me digest all that I ate as I got ready to end the day and start exploring Hong Kong, fueled and ready eat more.

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Unlimited Dim Sum at Jasmine

This is my kind of indulgence. I'm a veteran of buffets all over the country, but over the years my constantly expanding flesh has become weak in spite of my willing spirit's steadfastness. And after decades of buffet eating, there seems to be nothing more that can surprise, and allure. I now prefer this focused dining, more enjoyable and more relaxed than the frenetic, frenzied gorging that characterize buffets.  

This is not a buffet - for a fixed price, one can have unlimited servings of dim sum of your choice from the dedicated menu of New World Makati Hotel's Jasmine Restaurant. It is served table-side, so you get to sit down in full comfort and, with the restaurant's lavish Chinese art-deco interiors, style.   

The promo includes choice steamed dim sum, to be chosen from a roving cart like in many Cantonese restaurants, with baked and fried dim sum,  two choices of congee (fish fillet, pork with century egg), and desserts served upon order. A round of iced tea completes the meal, but we usually prefer the house tea served in a pot.

When I was there with my two older kids (children above two years old pay the same price) and friends on a Friday it was full-packed, with functions going on in the private dining rooms, so the servers were a bit harried. Some of the steamed dim sum listed on the menu were not available in the roving cart, so we ordered. They were never served, and there was some delay in the serving of the fried and baked dim sum, and some orders were doubled. But these incidents were more than made up for with profuse apologies from the servers even without our raising them up, and we were given several rounds of complimentary fresh fruit juices and bowls of ice cream for the kids as a way of making up for the shortcomings.

We would not have demanded any, and we would have come back, and we would, in spite of what happened and probably because of the way it has been handled. This is the kind of service that does not exist and cannot be expected from other a la carte restaurants, much less from buffets. 

But aside from the noteworthy service, the food is worth going back for. The har gao was what initially impressed me at Jasmine. I am happy it is included in this promo, for it may be the best dim sum  here. The translucent wrapper that is chewy and possesses bite offers a tantalizing peep into the fat, succulent shrimps it is burgeoned with.

no extenders

The same wrapper is used for the vegetable dumplings, which ensconce chopped kuchay (Chinese leeks) interspersing with the corpulent shrimps.

The shao mai and the minced beef meatballs are satisfactory, but compared with the shrimp dumplings, they descend into the ordinary.

When the orders were on the table the kids, Filipinos to the core that they are, asked when the rice would arrive. I said never, as rice is not included. They groaned, and I understood them, as for most of my life I had believed that a meal would be impossible to eat without rice.  

A friend has recently been invited to Gunagdong for a week, and he observed that in all the meals he was presented with (everything was pre-ordered), rice was nowhere to be found. We all know China is a rice-eating country, and we were lucky to have known fried rice from Chinese cuisine. But my friend's hosts explained that rice is usually considered a filler, or extender, and so for esteemed guests various kinds of dishes are offered, but not rice.

tender and well-seasoned chicken feet, wafting Chinese spices

complimentary appetizer - a bowl of sweet boiled peanuts

The barbecued pork pastry had the same filling that dyes the steamed pork bun (more popularly known as asado siopao, mini), but I found the flaky, crackly crust to be more attuned and a complementary receptacle  to the sweetish, spiced pork.

fried rolls filled with shrimps and oozing with a mild melted cheese

The wagyu beef and mango roll recalls Westernized Japanese maki, until that eggy wrapper explodes and crackles on the first bite, and then it transforms into the sentimental egg rolls of childhood, now grown up and filled with the surprising mix of tender meat rippling with fruity sweetness.

glutinous rice dumpling with pork, right, steamed buns with chicken, left

Dessert is traditional Cantonese, but a notch more sophisticated and fused with trendy flavors. Here, dark chocolate is the molten core of glutinous rice balls rolled in powdered peanuts.

luxurious jelly squares flavored with dates

almond cream soup with glutinous dumpling, gritty with real almonds 

Unlimited Dim Sum available during lunch only

Mondays to Fridays approximately Php650 per person

Sundays Php950 with champagne

Ongoing until July 31, 2013

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Jasmine

New World Makati Hotel

Esperanza Street corner Makati Avenue

Makati City, Tel. No. (632) 811-6888
Website

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Lugaw at the Office

It's been frosty at the office, not because of intrigues, but because the cold Siberian winds have weakened the sun's power at this time of the year, greatly enhancing the cooling intensity of our building's air-conditioners. There have been thick, grey clouds, too, blanketing skies for as far as we could see, that proceeded to drizzle last night.

That put us right in the mood for lugaw, delivered right to our offices smoking hot. Lugaw in the common language is the local equivalent of congee - soupy rice that is a canvas ready for swaths and slashes of contrasting and complementary flavors. There is fried minced garlic for the savory, finely sliced spring onion for spice, and sliced kalamansi for a citrusy dimension.

In our suki's vocabulary lugaw has two definitions - goto (tripe) or isaw (intestines and various offals).  Both versions possessing bite, adding chewy texture to the softness of the rice porridge, but the isaw proving to be the more flavorful. Chicken arroz caldo is by special order, and requires advanced booking.

It is quite difficult eating chicken arroz caldo at the office, with small containers and plastic spoons and forks that are bound to break at the slightest try of slicing meaty chicken parts. But we order chicken lugaw more often since the average age is high, and uric acid and hypertension are big concerns. We order the chicken  meat shredded, and it comes topped on the lugaw. 

To ramp things up a bit for us young ones, we order a bilao of tokwa't baboy - fried squares of tofu and pork belly. This comes with a 1-liter bottle of dipping sauce - a mixture of vinegar, soy sauce and minced onions. They are traditionally eaten together, but I make my lugaw lumpy and more substantial by mixing in the tokwa't baboy into my bowl. I then pour some dipping sauce over, and this produces a vinegary, sweet-salty porridge with chewy morsels. 

Also delivers ginataang bilo-bilo!

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Aling Baby's Lugawan

632-5700868

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But I have a new favorite. It offers a choice of chicken wings or adobong atay at balun-balunan as topping to the lugaw, besides the default goto. Chicken wings are more skin and bones, but adobo on lugaw was an eye-popping revelation. But then it shouldn't have come as a surprise, since it is quite difficult to eat adobo without rice, and this is is just a soupy version.  

As it goes, all lugaw orders from any lugawan comes with garlic, spring onions and kalamansi. This lugaw goes further in the congee route by providing chili oil. Which heats up things a bit more. Tokwa't baboy can also be ordered separately, plus boiled eggs are available, priced per piece.

Since Lent is fast approaching, I'll be okay with eating lugaw at the office regularly, even if the cold disappears. But then it won't be penitence with these.

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JEJ Lugawan

63-917-7337637

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Hometown Fiesta 2013

After many, many long years,  I was back in my hometown in time to witness this year’s fiesta celebrations. I haven’t experienced the town fiesta ever since I went to college, mainly because it was on fixed dates and was never moved to weekends.  This year it fell on a Tuesday, but I was home because I had to accompany a balikbayan relative who attended her high school class’ 50^th year reunion.

And so for the first time I experienced Balikbayan Night, which has been celebrated annually for as long as I can remember, but of course it had always been an inaccessible event. Not that I coveted to participate – there were at least three nights of baile during the fiesta, and they were attended by people generations removed from mine. And music was provided by live orchestras whose entire repertoires came from the eras of my grandparents and beyond.

Much to my surprise, food was served for all the returning natives and their company. I don’t know if this had been a long-time practice, and I wonder where the funds came from, since the balikbayans, for once, weren’t charged a registration fee.

The food was simple, and just enough to refresh after the exhibition of antics on the dance floor. While the drums and the trombones of the live orchestra boomed and echoed throughout the town auditorium,  uniformed servers circled tables with plates of fried, salted peanuts, flavored Calasiao puto which I found thoughtful, and sliced suman. The big news was, there was lechon.

But the even bigger news was, the lechon was amazingly, gorgingly good. A chopping table was staged at the back, from where issued plates heaped with squares of lean and tender meat topped with thin, crispy skin. Each piece was garlicky and succulent. The baile started at 8PM, so we had dinner at home and were still full by the time the refreshments were served. But we couldn't help but eat, and eat, the lechon, and eyed regretfully what we couldn’t finally take in, left coagulating in fat in the cool evening air.

Suddenly I found I harbored respect for the organizers of the event, overlooking the fact that they campaigned for the upcoming elections right then and there even though the campaign period was still months away. And I smirked at my relative who was called, along with all the balikbayans, to march all around the auditorium and come up to the stage to shake hands with the local officials.

At dawn the following day a mute procession of santos from the town’s barangay chapels wound its way around the streets of the poblacion. Flickering amber rays from a multitude of candles barely pierced that thick black darkness just before sunrise, flinging shadows like ebony puppets.

Just three hours later, in the full brightness of sunshine, came the town parade, tracing the same route.  It was a long one, with all the government officials and public school teachers, though all the ones I knew weren’t there anymore.  To my amusement, innumerable elementary and high school drum and lyre bands, marching on every two minutes or so along the parade, provided lively cacophony. They came in colorful satin costumes, dragging along drums and xylophones bigger than they were.

There were bigger ates and kuyas from the invited (hired, most probably) drum and bugle corps of several colleges in the province. After the parade I dragged my relative back to the auditorium to watch the exhibition pieces of these DBCs. I wanted to see particularly the exhibition by the band from the Virgen Milagrosa University in San Carlos City, which had won, in my teens, national championships for years in a row.

We could hear the music from the house, but I wanted to see, because the DBCs do not just play music - they perform to it, too. Unlike the live orchestra of the night before which had a gaggle of slinky-dressed girls barely into their teens cavorting in front of the musicians, the DBCs had the musicians themselves cavorting around the now covered auditorium.

VMU was as good as ever, playing “in” tunes, including the inescapable Gangnam,  as well as melodies my mother had sung to. The fast numbers were choreographed, with quite a few changes in formation.

Like my balikbayan, I’m glad I went. And now, having lived in several places, I realize the way we celebrate fiesta is quite distinct. I noted before that I was perplexed that in Cavite several fiestas were observed in a year, because in my hometown there is that one single, but over-the-top, observance. It was a discovery for me to know that my hometown fiesta – a commemoration of the town’s patron saint in thanksgiving and supplication, so is mainly a religious event – has been embraced by the local government and has made it also its own, staging around it secular events.

So the several nights of baile – socialization for the 73 barangay kapitans and their sanggunian, the balikbayan night, climaxing towards the town parade and the main baile that ends with a pageant of the town’s fairests. A fair with games and rides is set up on government land two months before the fiesta, and stays there for a month more afterwards. Without these the fiesta would be a very sedate affair, with only the silent dawn procession and a mass officiated by the archbishop of Lingayen, who then confirms the baptisms of the past year.

We are religious to some degree, but I don’t think we would have come home to pay homage to our patron saint, who is not that very well known. So it’s a good thing there is no separation of God and state in my hometown’s case. It has always been, and remains a good excuse to meet with long-seen relatives and friends and schoolmates, be entertained, and together eat long-missed food. 

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I'm sure just about everybody's already suffering umay and sawa from eating by this time. I most certainly am, and I still have several parties for the year, with several more postponed to next year due to the surfeit of eating. Diets be damned.

For the last four weeks pias (kamias, kalamia-as) have been in heaping palangganas (plastic basins) at the public market, sold alongside fresh fish that I get cravings for sinigang. Those who have witnessed a pias tree bearing fruit would know how overly generous it could be - green globules parallel to the ground, propped up by all the other globules underneath.

So we've been sun-drying them to concentrate the flavor and temper the sourness. It seems the sun isn't aware it's already December down here by the equator, so it just takes a few days. 

And in the mornings we take my fresh stash and slice some of the still hard ones, thinly with a sharp knife. Topped with lasuna, also shaved thinly, which has unexpectedly appeared, and a little home-made agamang (bagoong alamang), it's a refreshing counterpoint to some fried tinapa or longganiza at breakfast.

The tartness is bracing, the peppery bite of the shallots add zing, and the salty meatiness of the fermented krill   brings the flavors together. This salad is a serious contender to our standard morning side kamatis-agamang. 

Honestly, though, this salad doesn't just jolt us awake at the start of the day. It startles our collective appetite and whips it into motion. Paired with breakfast deli staples that are on the salty side, it dooms us to platefuls of steaming hot rice.

But for lunch a sour-sweet shake would be in order. And I'd be ready for another party.

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Mainland Bohol

Tagbilaran City, the provincial capital, is the gateway to Bohol. The airport, which services only two flights per airline, is there (with plans of transferring to Panglao Island, which I hope with all my heart doesn't push through), as well as the major sea port that connects the island to the other islands in the Visayas and to Mindanao. 

There is no Manila-based mall in Tagbilaran City, so there's not a lot of chain restaurants that can be found there. Consequently, most eating places have local roots, or are transplants from neighboring islands Cebu, Negros and Panay. There is a  small mall called BQ in the center of the city, which hosts some international chains along with the local eateries.

And it is at the BQ Mall where one can have, in my opinion, the best lechon in the Philippines. Proudly called Lechon Boholano,  it is sold by a small counter at the basement supermarket. Freshly roasted pigs arrive daily at 9am and 3pm, and it goes so fast that there is just a one-hour window to make a purchase.

I arrived at lunch one time to find painful disappointment welcoming me - staff cleaning out the  empty chopping board. The salesperson told me to come back in the afternoon, but neglected to inform me that up by the third floor there is a dining counter serving the lechon at the food court called Food Plaza. 

The lechon was so full of flavor it didn't need to be salty. The fat was negligible, the toothsome meat tender, the golden burnished skin thin and crispy like it came from a suckling pig. For one unforgettably delicious hour I forgot about the seafood in Bohol.

The first time I was in Bohol twenty years ago I stayed with friends for a few days in Loboc. The Loboc river already hosted cruises, but there were only two rafts then, and only during lunchtime. Nowadays river cruising is a seriously flurrying business with an indefinite number of rafts, several cruise operators, and hourly trips from daybreak until almost midnight that features song and dance acts by costumed children.

But man the food has not varied for the two decades that has passed. The same sloppily prepared and presented banquet that shames the local island cuisine. I wasn't impressed twenty years ago, and I wasn't keen on cruising again, but I had to take the kids, if only for experience. The fresh fruits were easily the best of the lot.

The cost for the packaged island tour - which includes the chocolate hills, the man-made forest of planted gemelina trees, a visit with the tarsiers and some languid pythons, managing a hanging bridge, and a stop at Asia's oldest limestone church and in Loboc for the river cruise, has shot up beyond the country's inflation rate. For me it can be bypassed, particularly for my adventurous family. 

What the kids enjoyed the most was the trip to Danao town, in the northwestern part of Bohol, where the zipline goes above a chasm so deep it's spine-tingling. It's far from the usual tourist spots, so unfortunately it can't be lumped with the common island tour, but on the way back to Tagbilaran City from Danao the chocolate hills, the tarsiers and Baclayon church are along the way, which is more than a sufficient way of seeing the best that mainland Bohol has to offer. I'll go back to Loboc only if the esteemed Bohol Children's Choir has a performance. 

On my most recent trip to Bohol I attended the silver anniversary commemoration of the ordination of the parish priest of Dauis town, in Panglao island. There was lunch cooked by the local parishioners, and I felt lucky to partake of home-cooked food.

At the buffet table people were converging around this huge bowl of what looked like bagoong na isda, fillets of what looked like dalagang bukid skin-on heaped together in a brown thick liquid. I had to try some, and upon inquiry it turned out to be kilawin. It wasn't as sour as others I've tried, and must have been reposing for a while in its steeping vinegar. But it attracted more people than the lechon. 

Suman dyed with the brown sugar made with it. It was sticky and sweet, but not so sweet that it was a joy to eat with the halved cheek of ripe mango. 

Bibingka, the Boholano version of latik, with a thin sweetened latik topping spread over the malagkit. That top was grilled below high heat, which resulted in a crusty latik that was almost crispy. It was so good my companions and I went back for seconds, and thirds, that we almost demolished the entire bilao. Now I know how I'll cook my own latik.

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BQ MallTagbilaran City, Bohol

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Gallego

I'm at the airport right now, and should have been airborne at this time, but delays has left me stranded for a few hours. I'm on my way to a trip that spans two islands in the Visayas, both favorites since I first flew in an airplane out of Luzon more than two decades ago. 

May being the month that celebrates Mother's Day, I get wistful and remember my mom. She had never ridden an airplane - air travel wasn't so accessible during her time. Flying used to be so unreachable, so unreasonable, that it became everybody's ultimate dream. My mom had even vowed that she could die happy and in peace if she could only ride an airplane.

With many air carriers and with the development of the tourism industry, flying today is as commonplace as riding airconditioned buses. I've been regularly flying for various reasons since that Visayan summer in 1991, and my kids had started flying from birth. Two kids are with me now, and I imagine what if three generations were together at this airport today, my mom with us. 

She would probably have prepared baon for all of us, the way she did in all the trips we made around Luzon  following my dad, so that I developed an aversion to bus-stop food. I bring home-cooked meals to the office, but on trips I prefer sampling local food. But when flight schedules are off, or become erratic, or get late, there is no choice but to seek nourishment from terminal food kiosks.

My mom was not a notable cook, and I don't remember any special dish of hers, except for her crema de fruta, but her cooking was preferable to any of the food in any of the airport terminals in Metro Manila. It actually makes me cringe, seeing the choices and putting myself in the shoes of foreign tourists. Everything's worse than what's on offer at mall foodcourts, and the prices had me believing airport terminal space is the  most expensive real estate in the Philippines. 

I could go without a meal, forebearing my hunger until I arrive at my destination, salivating at the prospect of regional specialties. But much as I tell the kids it builds character, and probably EQ (remember that TV commercial?), they have started whining. My mother would not have approved, so I inspected the stalls. 

Unfortunately there was only one selling rice meals, and my boy has expressly stated he has to have rice, so I fell in line. When I neared the cashier I espied a container filled with something so orange it was almost blinding. I am most partial to tomato-based dishes, so I thought I'd have lunch myself, since we'd be arriving at our resort at merienda time, anyway.   

And this time I remember my aunt-in-law, who had taken care of my husband growing up and who continues to care for us every time we go home to Pangasinan. As opposed to my mom, my aunt-in-law is a tasty cook. She turns out wonderful provincial meals, and is so much accomplished when it comes to cooking kanen or kakanin that I am in awe of her.

She cooks a mean lauya, and considers gallego a special dish for special occasions, like Christmas and Easter and similar holidays. Her gallego, which I take to be rooted in the Spanish term for rooster, is much like afritada, which is an ordinary dish nowadays ubiquitously found in canteens and carinderias and turo-turos, although it still appears in fiestas, which incidentally are also being celebrated around the country this month.

But my aunt-in-law's gallego is special indeed, because she has to coop a native, free-range rooster (the hens give native eggs for her apos) two days before preparing the dish. The native chicken ensures the gallego is delicious beyond belief. A list of extra ingredients also help the dish become multi-dimensional.

But she is a senior citizen, and is not aware of the chemicals added to processed ingredients today. So when I am home I modify her gallego, and make it as all-natural as possible.

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Gallego

Ingredients:
1 whole free-range chicken, dressed and chopped
1 kilo organic tomatoes, washed
5 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
2 medium onions, sliced
2 red and green bell peppers, de-seeded and sliced
1/3 cup fresh peas
3 carrots, peeled and cubed
3 potatoes, peeled and cubed
a stalk of celery, washed and sliced

Procedure:

1. Bring a pot of water to a boil, and put in the tomatoes, whole. Cover for a few minutes. When the tomato skins have wrinkled, turn off heat and drain. When the tomatoes are cool enough to handle, peel by sliding out the skins.
2. Halve the tomatoes and take out the seeds, then chop the pulp.
3. Heat some oil, saute garlic and onions, and the chopped tomato pulp. Cover and let simmer for a few minutes, until the tomatoes have wilted.
4. Mix in the chopped chicken, pour hot water and cover, turning down the heat when boiling. Let simmer until the chicken is soft. 
5. Put in the remaining ingredients and bring back to a simmer until the vegetables are soft and the sauce is thick.
6. Season to taste with salt and ground black pepper, and serve hot with rice.

Serves 6.

Notes:

• I use Bounty Fresh Pollo Primero, which is not as tasty as freshly slaughtered free-range chicken, but it's the next best thing. And I actually saute the chicken first with garlic, onions and a thumb of peeled ginger, then transfer everything to a pot of boiling water. When the chicken is par-boiled, I get the chicken with a slotted ladle, and that's when I mix it with the sauteed tomato pulp. This way we get to have soup, which I boil further with malunggay leaves or native pechay.
• A free-range chicken is bony and not so fleshy, so a whole chicken is not that big. If using the common (white-leghorn) chicken, a kilo is about right for this recipe.
• For a smoother sauce, the tomato pulp is blended or processed, but I prefer mine chunky so I don't bother.
• Sometimes, so that I don't have to cook a separate vegetable dish for the meal, I add native pechay and green beans (Baguio beans) to the gallego, but then it becomes an entirely new dish, called chicken pochero.

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Gallego is not practical to bring on trips, as any dish made with fresh tomatoes spoils easily, but I am looking forward to cooking this dish when I get home.

Kulinarya Cooking Club

Kulinarya Cooking Club was started by a group of Filipino foodies living in Sydney who are passionate about the Filipino culture and its colourful cuisine.

Each month the Club showcases a new dish along with family recipes. By sharing these recipes, it hopes that readers will find the same passion and love for Filipino food.

Kusina nen Laki Digno

The name of this restaurant means the food comes from the kitchen of Lolo (Grandfather) Digno. Laki Digno is the progenitor of the long-time catering service and bakeshop Pinkies in Dagupan City. The small, open-air, pavilion-style restaurant sits in the front portion of a one-hectare, mostly vacant property far from the bustle of the city, and is being managed by Laki Digno's grandson, Alvin Siapno. 

                            sizzling bangus                                                                                           sizzling pork sisig

Pinkie's has long been a reliable caterer and events venue, and is well known for roll cakes and made-to-order cakes for all occasions. It operates a small eatery near the bus terminals of Five Star and Victory Liner, where pasalubong and pastries can also be bought, and where the cakes are ordered.

Kusina Nen Laki Digno provides additional venues for catered parties, and is the first to offer restaurant service. The menu is short, but provides great insight into what a good, hearty Pangasinan meal can be. 

For almost a year now, we've been enjoying the ambience of Laki Digno's, all to ourselves, every time we go home to Pangasinan. My husband and I love the food, which is macho, and is not for the squeamish. I keep telling Alvin his dishes are pulutan, and the place would score big as a bar, but the family does not want to deal with the security issues involved in operating with a liquor license, and does  not want to change its reputation as a wholesome family enterprise.

Which is mighty fine by me. I want to continue eating the food there without the noise, the cigarette smoke and the kakulitan of inebriated guests. When my husband feels like it, he brings a bottle to share with Alvin, who is his close friend, after the restaurant's operating hours (it closes early). I, meanwhile, can be content   quietly sitting in one of the corners by the landscaped gardens, at peace and serene, contemplating the vast expanse of the sky as well as the property around me, after a simple but pleasurable meal.   

There are several sizzling dishes, and the tuna salpicao (first photo) tops them all. Mixed with fried cubes of tofu that have absorbed the garlicky seasoning, the tuna is succulent and lip-smacking. Extra rice, please.

The sinigang na tuna is very much a Pangasinense sinigang, with the mild, almost sweet sourness of tomatoes, the bite of ginger, and the zing of red onions that gives any dish a new depth of flavor.  

But we go there mainly for the pinapaitan or papaitan, that stew of goat innards that's sour, gingery and bitter all at once and which is a treasured dish for Pangasinenses. Because goat meat is not as readily available as other commercially-raised animal meat, any dish made with it attains a festive and indulgent status. At Laki Digno's, the flavors are assertive enough to cut through the gaminess of the offal, and balanced enough so that I want to eat the entire bowl by itself. Toothsome, revivifying, life-affirming. No rice for this one. 

But if there's anything better than pinapaitan, it's being able to get all the meat. And at Laki Digno's I learned that such a dish actually existed - the soup was made to boil until it was reduced, so that the flavors became concentrated and were absorbed well by the meats. The flavor intensity is raised to the third degree. Heat and aroma from the sliced green peppers add to its delectability.

This dry pinapaitan is called kinigtot, which is funny because the word means it was made to be so frightened that it jumped out of its skin. I was definitely akigtot  by the exquisiteness of this dish, and by the realization that I had missed it my entire life. But now that I know, I shall make amends about it. With a big platter of rice. 

buttered talaba

This leche flan was served on the house one day after Christmas, and it was a very fitting ending to a makapakigtot meal. Its texture made me swear - it was assuredly velvety and so silky, that I wanted it to stay on my tongue forever and cherish its fineness. I couldn't do that, of course, and the next best thing was to swallow it, and keep spooning it into my mouth until I emptied its llanera. To my embarrassment, the manager noticed, and asked the waitress to serve me another llanera. Aaah, bliss. It was peerless, like the meal that preceded it.   

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Kusina Nen Laki Digno
Tebeng Road, Dagupan City
Tel. No. (63-75) 6153974
Open every day until 6PM
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