Filipino food seems to be undergoing some kind of renaissance. Back in the day, the only places you could go to get your fix of kare-kare and dinuguan were places like Barrio Fiesta and Kamayan.
Now, chefs seem to be revisiting local flavors with a fresh eye: Just look at chef Kel Zaguirre’s Locavore and chef JP Anglo’s Sarsa Kitchen+Bar andKafé Batwan. Even Vask’s Chele Gonzalez has thrown his hat into the ring. Sizzling sinigang? Deconstructed arroz caldo? Tinola with lobster and Japanese egg custard? Clearly, this isn’t your lola’s cooking.
This nationalistic shift in culinary tastes is something chef Neil Ramos of Neil’s Kitchen in Alabang wholly agrees with. Like the others, he offers his own unique take on traditional recipes with his Sinigang Paella with Grilled Pork Belly. Instead of serving a steaming bowl of sinigang to pour over rice, Neil opts to cook the soup into the rice instead. “I deconstructed it and reconstructed it. [It’s just] in a different form, but the essence is still there,” he explains.
He takes it further by shattering the notion that Filipino food isn’t photogenic, which admittedly, can be true at times when faced with sizzling platters of sisig and bubbling pots of goto. According to him, his take on Pinoy food is “repacked for the Instagram age.” Case in point: his sumanand mango dessert presented as a Jell-O cake.
While the presentation may be reminiscent of a very American type of comfort food, he’s taken measures to assure the palate that these still are the flavors that are close to home. “For me, the real meaning of comfort food is food we grew up with,” he says. “The food here is [prepared in] the ways or combinations of how I would eat them [growing up].”
While the presentation may be reminiscent of a very American type of comfort food, he’s taken measures to assure the palate that these still are the flavors that are close to home. “For me, the real meaning of comfort food is food we grew up with,” he says. “The food here is [prepared in] the ways or combinations of how I would eat them [growing up].”
Neil’s Kitchen. 701 and 704, Lot C, Westgate Alabang, Muntinlupa City. (0917) 311-2916.
Photos by Patrick Segovia
Source: Pristine L. de Leon for Southern Living, “Off the Kitchen Table,” July 2015