At the Balmori Suites Chef’s Table in Rockwell, the meal begins in quiet curiosity. Dishes arrive one after the other. They look familiar but taste different. Some are comforting. Others are sharp. All of them ask you to pay attention. It’s called Khaiba, a pop-up by Tasteless Food Group, running until July 13. The word is a play on kakaiba—Tagalog for unusual—but also Arabic for shock. It fits.

Chef Sonny Mariano leads the savory side. “Expect a fresh take on contemporary Filipino cuisine with a Dubai touch,” he says. “The dishes will still be familiar and comforting, but with very subtle twists of Mediterranean spices and ingredients. Most are based on my favorite Filipino classics.”

The meal opens with ensalada, not the kind found on cafeteria trays. It’s eggplant carpaccio layered with chickpeas, bits of burong mangga, slivers of papaya tinapa, and a hit of chimichurri. It's cold, smoky, and tart—vegetal and unexpected.

Then comes bibingka, but not the kind bought roadside. It’s sourdough-based, rich with clotted cream, topped with adobo liver pâté and sweetened with date honey. Salty, creamy, sweet—it settles on the tongue like memory.

The tuna kinilaw features GenSan tuna in a coconut-sumac vinaigrette, crowned with an atchara sorbet. Each bite is cold, acidic, and clean, a sharp departure from the usual vinegar-heavy style.

Sonny plays with fire and tradition. His laing baba ghanoush is both. He blends laing with tahini and eggplant into a smoky paste, served with papadum crackers for crunch.

One of the strongest plates is alimasag at kalabasa, a shrimp and squash purée under a tight bundle of crab salad. The kaffir oil adds a citrus spine. It’s quiet, elegant, and light.

More playful is jamon at pandesal, a fried bun stuffed with daqoos sauce, jamon, and garlic labneh. “It makes me happy, and I just want to share that feeling with the diners,” sonny says. It’s sweet, salty, garlicky—breakfast-for-dinner if you’re lucky.

Then the warm dishes arrive.

The beef sinigang comes not in a bowl but as a USDA belly kebab, glazed with tamarind and prunes. It sits on mashed gabi. It’s sticky, sour, and rich with a kind of gravity only sinigang can carry.

The lamb shank kaldereta is cooked in tagine style, layered with almonds and apricots. It’s a northern-style stew without the excess. The meat falls off the bone.

Chef Sonny doesn’t forget the staples. His barramundi sarciado leans Arabic, spiced and laid over silky harissa egg. Chicken inasal is marinated in sinamak, crisped with za’atar chicken skin. Miso prawns, thick with white miso and mafti shrimp sauce, are sweet, briny, and savory.

His short ribs bistek are braised 48 hours. They come with cauliflower purée, coffee, and cardamom. Bitterness tugs against the fat. It works.

Then come the sweets.

Chef Nouel Catis, known for his viral chocolate creations in Dubai, returns to the Philippines after 16 years to lead dessert. “It’s like coming full circle — this country shaped so much of who I am, and now I get to give back by sharing everything I’ve learned abroad,” he says.

His halo-halo is centered around a soft ube cheesecake, flanked by heirloom pinipig, phyllo crisps, and an evaporada pandan sauce. It tastes like nostalgia, made sharper.

There’s the Dubai chocolate profiteroles, filled with pistachio diplomat cream, layered with kunafa crunch, and drenched in Milo sauce.

Honey, mangga please is a Medovik cake with coconut cream, graham crumble, and ripe mangoes. Caramelized cashews cap it off.

His signature, Habibi, I’ve come from Dubai, is a dense tsokolate cake with pistachio filling and Davao chocolate frosting. It arrives with pistachio soft serve and sauce. 

“This is my first time curating a dessert menu in tandem with a celebrated chef, specifically for Filipino diners,” Chef Nouel says. “What makes it special is that this menu reflects my culinary beliefs — cultural storytelling, innovation, and creating dessert experiences that feel both personal and progressive.”

Khaiba isn’t flashy. There are no smokescreens or tweezers in sight. It’s a thoughtful reconstruction of comfort food, refracted through two chefs who’ve seen the world and returned, not to dazzle, but to share.

“I’m genuinely excited — not only because it’s my first project in Balmori, but also because I’m teaming up with Chef Nouel, the genius behind Dubai’s famous chocolate craze,” Chef Sonny says.