Casa San Pablo - Dinner

Dinner at Casa San Pablo was a grand affair, in the context of a grand meal at home. During fiestas, or perhaps an important guest, or a revered relative, has come to visit.

Providing warmth to the rather chill evening – it rained hard in the afternoon dissipating to a shower – was what I know to be bulalo, but which I also know as a proper Tagalog nilagang baka. Bone-in beef shank boiled til tender with slices of onion and whole peppercorns, the soup sweetened with corn on the cob and cabbage.

Then there was a platter of pako salad, which is indelibly associated with Laguna. The fresh fern  fronds were accompanied by slices of itlog an maalat or salted duck eggs, kesong puti (Laguna fresh white cheese), and chopped onions. The ferns, bland by themselves, were the blank canvas for the intense flavors of their platter-mates, as well as the various pickles and accompaniments arrayed on a side table.

burong saba, inihaw na kamatis sa toyo

burong bawang, burong mustasa, atsara

The chicken curry was mild, but the pork dish, sort of a dry humba, played on salty and sweet, with the latter more prominent due to the smattering of fried cubes of saba.

Dessert was delicate rounds of a milky flan, which paled in texture and lusciousness compared to the ube halaya. The kids were discontented, and wanted cake, so we had to drive downtown to a local cake shop that came with high recommendations by Casa San Pablo’s owners. And that will be covered in the coming posts. 

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Casa San Pablo - Lunch

I never had any second thought about getting the full-board package at Casa San Pablo. I was there for relaxation and rejuvenation, so I didn’t want to be out in the city looking for food during mealtimes. And it’s most economical, too. The overnight charge includes breakfast, but for just an additional P200 per person lunch and dinner will be included. That’s an unbeatable deal, considering a hundred pesos per meal per person when eating out these days will not get you anywhere near something decent.

And it certainly will not get you anywhere near what Casa San Pablo serves for meals. Served family-style, on huge platters and in arrangements that stimulate lively conversation, each meal is a nourishing and soul-comforting experience.  Nothing fancy there – whatever is available and bountiful at the market that day, coaxed to life using time -bound recipes from lola. So it’s not fiesta fare, but home-bound food you grew up eating, that you miss, and crave, when you’re away.

Unlike most hotels and inns, check-in time at the Casa is 11AM, and check out time is 10AM the following day. So when you get the full-board package your three meals start with lunch and end with breakfast the day after.

Refreshments begin with this cool, refreshing, power-booster of a pink drink upon check-in. Danica the receptionist waited until we all finished our glasses – the kids asking for seconds – before telling me what the welcome drink was made of, wrongfully thinking we wouldn’t take it if we knew. Other guests must have balked upon learning, and prospective guests may, too, so I’m not broadcasting it here, so the secret remains with me and with those who have been to the Casa. All I can say is, it’s a common ingredient across these isles, and I can easily replicate it at home.

Our lunch proceeded with warm macaroni soup sporting a green cap of what looked like pesto, but which turned out to be blitzed malunggay leaves. I forgot to ask if it’s fresh, because I’ve cooked enough malunggay leaves in my lifetime to know that the leaves turn dark green with heat, and these are still bright green. I’m thinking maybe they’re the powdered kind. The soup also tasted of chicken cubes.

After the soup, though, and after the minor shortcomings, it was all homey and country-style. There was lemon-grass scented roasted chicken, cooked through but still moist, and almost adobo-like. 

And there were thin slices of tambakol in a thin gata, the banana leaf wrapping perfuming each steak. I don’t buy tambakol  at the market for I rarely find them fresh, and I get queasy with the red flesh. But the steaks we had for lunch tasted like they were freshly caught, with no hint of lansa. I could not detect ginger in the dish, as is common in many ginataan to cut the fishy taste. Here it was not needed, and it was one of the most delicate fish steaks I’ve had. Skill, and home-cooking expertise, was evident in the preparation and execution of this dish.

A side of ensaladang talong – grilled and peeled eggplants that were diced along with some tomato wedges, in a sweet vinaigrette – paired nicely with both chicken and fish.

Rounding the meal off was ginisang kangkong, which tasted differently from the ginisang kangkong we have weekly at home. There was something aromatic in there, without the somewhat acrid, though very subtle, note that I’ve come to associate with kangkong. I was enjoying it so much I forgot to ask Danica what was in it. Perhaps it was just the freshness, and the waters from which they grew are not as polluted as in Cavite, or elsewhere.

The only available drinks were softdrinks, which my family does not consume. I found the kitchen short in this aspect. Don’t people in Laguna drink local fresh fruit juices? Or herbal teas? But a pitcher of the pink drink can be ordered, so I was appeased. And there was free-flowing purified water, too, which was enough.

Dessert was an entire llanera of the smoothest, chewiest ube halaya on earth. I’m not sure if malagkit, maligat properly translates to chewy, so if it does not then it is not the right word. Not sticky, either, though it does stick to your gums and molars. However short my vocabulary is, it does not diminish the qualifications of this halaya. Or perhaps it leaves me speechless. I suspect powdered glutinous rice was mixed in it, to make it so malagkit. We finished it off, and the kids were eyeing the remains of the entire llanera a couple at the next table was not able to finish (it seems one entire llanera is served per room), so I sent them out to ride the bikes. 

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Asuhos

When I started scouring wet markets in Makati in the early years of my marriage, I noticed how woefully small basasong were in Metro Manila. And not only that, they were priced dearly, too, for such size.

I never bought, understandably, until the family transferred to Cavite, and I learned that the fish I mistook for my childhood friend and foe was an altogether different species. I cannot be blamed, for asuhos was and still is an unknown fish in Pangasinan, but where basasong (called kalaso in Tagalog) abounds that it is commonly made into daing. 

They have striking similarities, though. Porously flaky ivory flesh, silvery white outer color, long narrow bodies. Even the rich tastes are close. But whereas the basasong can grow as large as overgrown bangus, the largest asuhos I’ve seen have difficulty reaching six inches, and these are altogether rare.

Asuhos (whiting, Sillaginidae) appear in plenty in Cavite City when the rains come. They arrive in pails at the wet market, and are sold by the tumpok – heaped on small tin plates, priced anywhere from P30 to P80, depending on the size of the fish and the container.  I’ve never been offered it by the kilo, but I buy like three plates for a time, or two for the big ones, and they are good for two meals already. 

My kids love asuhos fried, even though it is fussy to get to the thin flesh (we always cook fish whole). It is fortunate that asuhos are not spiny, having only the central skeleton and spines along the fins. The really small ones are better deep-fried to a crunch, so we can just bite into them whole, spines and all.

 I think asuhos are a Katagalugan fish, since during office lunches a colleague from Bulacan said she grew up eating them. They never fried them, though, but poached them into a dish called sinuwam, which is like tinola, or pinatisan. The asuhos are boiled and seasoned with either salt or patis (fish sauce) and topped with sili leaves. 

 So I cook sinuwam with asuhos, too. The resulting broth is rich from fish fat, tasting almost like tinolang manok but without the cholesterol and with the added benefit of omega-3. Since the sinuwam I know (from other colleagues from other areas in Tagalog country) contain corn kernels my sinuwam is sometimes thick with corn, preferably the white variety. And because I am a Pangasinense, I add a slice of peeled ginger, as all broth, all dishes actually, must be cooked with it.

I know it is not only Tagalogs who are chummy with asuhos, for fillets of it are what are made into kisu tempura in Japanese restaurants. And when I was in Japan battered asuhos fillets were offered for breakfast along with shredded cabbage every single day of my month-long stay.  Friends who went to the Middle East found asuhos in grocery stores, so they bought them and fried them for a taste of home. 

Asuhos disappear from the Cavite wet market towards the cold months and on to summer.  The supply is not as abundant now as when we were just new in the area, but they still come, thankfully, and the prices are pretty much stable. So we enjoy them while we can, fully maximizing the advantage of having access to fresh fish straight from the fishermen. Asuhos fillets, as well as whole fish, are now available in supermarkets in Metro Manila, but they sell for a premium, and in what state is anybody’s guess. 

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