Some of Archie Rodriguez’s biggest critics every time he brings in a US-based restaurant chain to the Philippines are his close friends and family, including his stylish designer-wife Bea Valdes and their three kids.
Call it “toque envy,” but after watching all those chef shows on TV, I realized that I’ve developed this irrepressible longing to don a toque whenever I serve anything that requires use of spoon and fork.
I have been obsessed with preserved pork ever since I tried Tao Yuan’s cabbage with the cured meat. I am in awe of how cabbage can taste so good and not in a vegetable-side dish kind of way.
Oh, Tokyo. You have earned my lifelong reverence. Your warm welcome (and toilet bowl seats); your culture of respect for labor and laborers; your intricate attention to detail from subway murals to sushi. You are a most beautiful balance of yin and yang, hot and cold, timeless beauty and radical creativity.
I had promised myself that I should see the Banaue Rice Terraces, and soon. My nationalistic conscience bothered me when friends from foreign lands would ask me if I had been to this wonder of the world. When that happens, I change the subject matter to other places like Batanes and Tawi-Tawi, faraway places I had been to, which, at the time, almost no one had visited yet.
Delicious culinary experiences actually lead foodies to go back to restaurants where they had very satisfying meals coupled with efficient service and pleasant ambiance. Sometimes, we are too conservative that we would rather go back to these dining places rather than try new ones and come out frustrated.
I never imagined I would see it happen—a cookbook which I can’t hold, whose pages I can’t turn, and which weighs practically nothing. And yet it accompanies me everywhere.
“Once you decide on your occupation you must immerse yourself in your work. You have to fall in love with your work. Never complain about your job, you must dedicate your life to mastering your skill. That’s the secret of success and the key to being regarded honorably. I’ve never once hated my job, I fell in love with my work and gave my life to it.”—Jiro Ono in “Jiro Dreams of Sushi”
I wonder if I’m the only spouse asking this as we make secret (but noisily secret, to reassure my better half) plans for Valentine’s Day. It used to be fairly simple: On the 14th of February, we men would shake off our suits of mothballs and drive out with made-up and scented dates into the traffic jam, to make it in time for that difficult reservation in a restaurant with lots of candles, a waiter in a bow tie and exorbitant prices.
“You can take the chef out of the kitchen, but you can’t take the kitchen out of the chef.” So said Discovery Suites’ former corporate chef and now resident manager David Pardo de Ayala, prior to a recent lunch at the group’s property in Tagaytay.
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