With no disrespect to age-old techniques and traditional flavors, the project did produce something new by combining the strengths and creativity upon which Hapag and Linamnam are built on.
It’s triple the fun to eat in the Philippines
As if the food scene is not abuzz enough, the rockstar chefs behind Hapag and Linamnam collaborate on a menu meant to push Philippine cuisine forward
May 5, 2023 12:08 PM
At a glance
Only a few weeks ago, while immersed in the glorious waters of the Philippines, I told two foreign members of my family separately that it was a good time to be a Filipino. While at the beach near the West Philippine Sea in the coastal town of Cabangan in Zambales, I said so to Wilfred, a Singaporean, who married my cousin Miles, and then in El Nido in Palawan the following week, while sailing Bacuit Bay, I said the same to Kelsey, an American, who married my cousin Ray.
Or maybe it’s a good time for the Philippines now that more and more of its citizens are beginning to see the gem that it is. More and more citizens are deep-diving into its past, crossing uncharted waters to see what’s possible for its future, and also raising its flag proudly in the present.
For progressive Filipino dining, the scene is abuzz with new things or old things made exciting again, sometimes presented with a twist or modernized, but also rediscovered exactly as they were, with all layers upon layers of their history.
Recently, in time for last month’s observance of Filipino Food Month, two of the most exciting names in the culinary circles, Hapag and Linamnam, had the chefs and visionaries behind them come together on a menu that highlighted what this generation of cooks and chefs could learn from each other if they worked together on the quest for the very best of Philippine cuisine.
It was a passion project long overdue, discussed as far back as November 2021, when the boys of Hapag, Kevin Navoa and Thirdy Dolatre, and Linamnam’s Don Baldosano, then only 22, met in Iloilo to judge a culinary competition as well as to go on a gustatory tour of the province.
But just as things appeared to be improving after the initial waves of Covid-19 infections, the pandemic reared its ugly head once more and 2022 started with us back in hard quarantine again. Also, given the challenges of the food industry, the chefs had their hands full keeping their restaurants afloat, plus of course, pandemic or not, these three young chefs had been too busy perfecting their craft, pushing envelopes, trying to see how far they could go to bring something incredible to the table, pun intended.
The opportunity came at last when Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar invited the chefs to do something creative for Filipino Food Month. It came in the form of a one-night-only dinner on which the three collaborated on a menu, making sure every dish was a joint effort. It would have been easier to divide the items on the menu equally among themselves, but Thirdy, Nav, and Don are suckers for extra challenges. More than the menu, it was about the process of collaboration, of wearing each other’s toques, of learning from each other.
As a result, we had a sumptuous dinner al fresco in a garden nook at Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar in Quezon City, under streetlamps and surrounded by brick garden walls, which all harked back to Spanish colonial times, especially with a violinist playing mood music on a balcony on a balmy night.
The menu was divided into five groupings—“Tinapay” (bread), “Snackbox,” “Panimula” (starters), “Salu-salo” (party or get-together), and “Panapos” (dessert).
Nothing could have put us in a better mood to eat than Tinapay’s Pan de Kalinga and Gamet Pan de Sal served with miso brown butter and Calumpit longganisa cream, but those weren’t even the starters yet. After the bread, we were served the trio of dishes under Snackbox, which consisted of Linupak na Kalabasa at Alimasag, topped with a crab salad that was tossed in local citrus and herbs, Binuro na Maya Maya sa Asin or snapper dry-aged in sea salt and wrapped in burong mustasa or fermented mustard leaves, and Silog or gamet rice crackers topped with sisig mushroom and wild tomato ensalada and finished off with cured egg yolk.
Again these weren’t the starters yet, because what came next were the dishes under Panimula, which consisted of dishes like “Pansit” Pusit sa Gata, a noodle dish of baby squid in blackened coconut milk, and Sigang sa Libas, Kamias, at Miso. Also under Panimula was Bilo Bilo, a savory version of the Filipino dessert made of small glutinous balls in coconut milk and sugar. In this case, however, it was made of sweet potato garnished with housemade breadcrumbs and a little bit of sweet potato katsuobushi in an aged pork and cashew miso ala king sauce. Also served was Kinalas, a ramen dish with egg noodles in a beef garum-smoked bone broth and beef tongue tocino. But the best, for me, under this grouping was the Sinaing na Talakitok at Burong Mustasa or trevally wrapped in mustard greens and stuffed with pickled vegetables in a broth made from dehydrated kamias. Kinaskas came next as some sort of palate cleanser. It was shaved ice with a sorbet of ripe and green mangoes, topped with refreshing sampaloc and tomato granita, and finished with pickled radish.
What followed was Salu-salo or the mains. We were served Esguerra Kurobota Pork in Mango Muscovado Glaze and Aged Tanigue with Calamansi Butter Sauce or aged mackerel in a calamansi beurre blanc with grilled pako or fiddleheads. These two main dishes were served with Tanglad Sambal Stone Pot Rice, flavorful on its own with dried espada or black scabbard fish thrown into the mix.
For Panapos, we had a couple of dishes, including Sutukil, a play on the combination of three conventional styles of prepping meat or seafood in the Visayas, i.e. sugba (to grill), tuwa (to stew), and kilaw (to eat raw), but reimagined as a dessert made of grilled banana with dulce miso fudge and cashew crumble.
With no disrespect to age-old techniques and traditional flavors, the project did produce something new by combining the strengths and creativity upon which Nav and Thirdy’s Hapag and Don’s Linamnam are built. The former’s expertise in fermentation and curing meats, for instance, became extra in combination with the latter’s skills in aging fish and using foraged ingredients. Don introduced Nav and Thirdy, for example, to ingredients like libas, sometimes called hog plum, abundant in the Visayas and the Bicol Region.
It’s really a good time to be a Filipino these days. With chefs like Don, Nav, and Thirdy, who are championing Filipino cuisine and bringing it forward, it’s double, er, even triple the fun to eat in the Philippines, too.