It seems the malunggay pills have been taking effect, because I’ve been in a singularly dynamic mood this week. I’ve decided to take all the high-minded advice about local and artisanal sourcing I’ve been banging on about and see if I could make it work in my own kitchen. This is actually not easy: Consciously looking for local is inconvenient and time-consuming and often aggravating.
I decided to try out a local coffee supplier called Kaffeol, which, much to my surprise, actually replied to my e-mail. I did a dead drop into a bank account, and a courier delivered a package the next day, which is as close to online shopping as we’re likely to get in these parts.
I tried a local Excelsa blend and one of its “premium” coffees, a charcoal-roasted Arabica. The Excelsa blend is highly recommended, full and smooth, and a darker roast than I usually would have chosen, but it suited the beans well. It’s also a good rapport between quality and price: at P280 for 150 grams it’s about P1.88 per gram, while Illy coffee, from Italy (well, probably from Africa or South America by way of Italy), is dependably good and convenient, but is about P750 for 250 grams.
Happy experience
Buoyed by my happy experience with Kaffeol, I’m on a hunt for various other things, which I’ll report on presently. In the meanwhile, though, I remembered that there was a new coffee kid on the block, Curator, which had opened on Palanca corner Legaspi Street in Makati.
Or at least it was supposed to have opened; we spent over an hour circling the wet, empty streets of the Makati business district on the weekend afternoon and found no sign of it. We eventually ended up at Seattle’s Best to dry out, and it was nearly dinnertime. Which was fortuitous, because we would never have otherwise discovered XO46, which presented itself to us like a beacon of warmth and urbanity.
They speak Tagalog at XO46. Not Filipino, which is jocular and relaxed and plays fast and loose with tenses, but Tagalog. I love it, even if I’m more than slightly intimidated by it and was struggling to keep up. The next time I go, I’m going to drag Virgilio Almario with me so that he can “out-talinhaga” the waiters.
I realize I don’t know how to say “menu,” “dessert” and “bill” in Tagalog, for which I bow my head in shame; and I applaud the restaurant for its purist stance. It also lets the customer know, from the get-go, that it is not catering to a foreign crowd and that it is taking Filipino food seriously, which I also like very much.
It’s traditional Filipino food but executed with the facilities and flair of a professional kitchen. But it is also very emphatically not “fusion,” which again, I respect it for, because most restaurants like this feel they have to put a spin to the classics (Sentro, Mesa, Abe, Lorenzo’s Way, Pia y Damaso) to stand out, especially in a commercial setting.
Very good mains
For our pampagana, we had grilled squid in garlic oil like gambas (slightly chewy) and fried kesong puti with a mayonnaise-based sauce (chewy but this time in a good way). We needed
more mouths because there were a lot of good things to try, but we were only able to order two mains, the beef adobo and the monggo sa gata. Both were very good indeed.
Confusingly, the restaurant has two menus, a Filipino menu and a Visayan menu; what this says about regionalism I leave to the reader. The Visayan menu is far more interesting, but we felt obliged to order equally from each. (The bills for each menu also arrive separately.)
And I mean no disservice to the chef’s careful preparation of each dish, but one of the great things about Pinoy food is that when you pile everything on your plate it all seems to go together. (The Indians and Nepalese do something similar with the thali, a metal plate on which they put the various components of the meal and mix things up to taste.)
Slightly underwhelming
The dessert was perhaps the only part of the meal that was slightly underwhelming; half the menu was not available, and what was available was a bit stodgy and overly sweet. Halo-halo should be light and cheerful, but this one was grim and determined and humorless.
This is not the only Filipino restaurant that falls short when it comes to dessert, despite our having a vast and diverse repertory of largely forgotten delicacies to draw from.
I’m somewhat late at the party with XO46, which has been around for a while. It seems that it briefly had its moment and then the crowd has moved on. I do feel that the dishes could use some further refinement and tweaking, and having two menus is just silly.
But what a pleasant surprise to stumble upon this proudly traditional outpost of serious, old-fashioned bounty in an area full of second-rate delis and canteens. Like the best of local produce, it’s just waiting to be found.
XO46 Bistro Filipino is at G/F, Le Grand Tower, 130 Valero St., Salcedo Village, Makati; tel. 5536632.
Visit the Kaffeol Artisan Coffee website www.kaffeol.com