TOTO'S LECHON MANOK: KUMAIN NA PO BA SILA?

Some of you may recall that my visit to The Philippines, a little over two years ago, was one of the true highlights of the whole EAT MY GLOBE tour. It was not just that the food was sensational, which it most certainly was, but also that the people were the same, astonishingly friendly and generous.

It helped that I already had a long if slightly tenuous association with the country. My Aunt Evelyn, who lives in New York, is from the Philippines and consequently, it turned out that I had a stack of hitherto unknown relatives in Manila, all of whom pulled out every stop to make sure that my time in the city was a memorable one. They proved well up to the task and I left, after an all too short week of stuffing myself on staggeringly good food, marking the country down as the first place I wanted to return.

I may not have kept my promise to go back yet, but I have somehow managed to find myself in the position of acquiring an even larger extended Filipino family. At least I will have once Sybil and I marry in a few weeks time. It will be a very quiet affair. Just me and a handful of my close friends and family along with Sybil and a hundred or so of her assorted Filipino relatives.

I am not sure if it is enshrined in law, but I am pretty certain that it is frowned upon for that many Filipinos to gather without a dead pig also being in attendance. So, along with the other food and drink at our nuptials, we will of course, be serving Lechon Baboy, the roast suckling pig which has become synonymous with the country’s cuisine.

Los Angeles has a huge Filipino population and, on Friday, Sybil and I set out to test the theory that a well reviewed restaurant, Toto’s Lechon Manok, made a suckling pig possibly worthy of feeding all our hungry friends and relatives. Although we knew that they were unlikely to have roasted a whole pig just because they knew we were coming, we assumed that the quality of their other pork dishes would tell us all we needed to know.

The tiny restaurant is located in a small strip mall in Cypress Hill and Sybil broke into Tagalog the moment we entered questioning the woman behind the glass counter about the dishes on show. There was, of course, Lecon Manok (roast chicken) and Pritong Isda (fried fish) along with bowls of lentil stew and that other Filipino staple, adobo. But they got scant notice once our attention was drawn towards two of the dishes I had loved so much on my visit to The Philippines, Lechon Kawali and Sisig.

Lechon Kawali is made by taking pork, usually belly and braising it with salt, pepper, garlic and sometimes bay leaves until tender. It is then cooled and deep-fried in chunks until the skin is crisp before being served with soy sauce and a vinegar dip. The end result is moist meat with amazing crackling skin. It is the perfect combination of crunchy, hot, sour and juicy.

Sisig was a dish I first encountered in the city where it was created, Angeles. I ate at Ailing Lucing’s small restaurant. She is “The Sisig Queen” and is credited with creating the dish which is now the must have with cold beer throughout the country. Originally, it was a way to use up left over bits of pig like the snout and ears. These were braised and shredded and then fried with onions, chilli and lots and lots of Calamansi lime juice to create a dish, which is ridiculously addictive. It came served on a sizzling platter and my dining companions and I fought over the crisp bits, which had stuck to the cast iron plate. Great fun and a great dish as well as being one of the best things I have ever encountered to serve with a nice cold one.

Sybil ordered and our meal was dispensed into white Styrofoam containers for us to take through into the empty dining room next to the take-out counter. Along with the Lechon Kawali and the Sisig, Sybil had spotted a large mound of chicken chicharón, so to make sure we had all possible food groups covered, she also balanced a large bag of crisp chicken skin on her tray as we made our way to our table.

I was concerned, when I saw our meal being spooned out from behind glass that the pork would be dry. But, the first bite of the Lechon Kawali reassured me that I was wrong. The meat was juicy and the skin had blistered up into the perfect crackling. The Iberian influence on Filipino cooking is noticeable with the use of vinegar as a companion to pork (just as the Portugese influence in Goa, was instrumental in the creation of Vindaloo) and the sharpness of the hot, sour dip cut through the fatty meat perfectly.

The Sisig too was excellent, if lacking the authenticity and theatre of its hometown equivalent. There was just enough of the pre-requisite chilli hit to confirm that while Filipino cuisine may be the least well known of South East Asia (some very respected food writers call it the most underrated ) it can still pack a whole heap of flavour.

We alternated eating large chunks of pork with shards of crunchy chicken skin until we both began to develop meat sweats and pushed the containers away with enough food remaining for at least one more meal. Not bad for $25. While I cleared away the debris from our table, Sybil returned to the counter and began to haggle with the owners for the delivery of one Lechon Baboy sometime in the near future. I don’t think they, the poor pig or I know quite what we are letting ourselves in for, but, at least now, when I finally do keep my promise to return to the Philippines, I shall have even more people to show me the best places to eat.

Oh, the picture at the end is a bowl of ice cream from Scoops Ice Cream, which we stopped for on the way home. Well you are forced to aren't you?

Maraming salamat. Sige po! Paalam

LUTONG PINOY: FILIPINO FLOP IN EARLS COURT

There are few things more irritating than supper at an ethnic eatery with a person who has recently been to the country which the restaurant represents. Nothing will ever be a match for what they ate on their visit, the ingredients will be wrong and at some point, of course, they will use the word “authentic” by which time you are praying to the gods that they will choke on their pilaf or get a bit of stuffed guinea pig caught in their throat.

So, my apologies to my companion of last night, my new chum, Fiona who had to sit patiently as I prodded disconsolately at the various plates that passed across our table muttering the dreaded “A” word on more than one occasion.

One of the great surprises of my recent trip was The Philippines. I fell in love with the country, the people and the food, which was savoury, delicious and had all the elements DH crave in our food, pork, deep frying and often a combination of the two. Add to that spectacular salads, wonderful seafood and the classics of Lechon, Adobo and Kare Kare and the cuisine of this country of 7,000 islands was quickly promoted into the top ten of EAT MY GLOBE.

I am never quite convinced that because a restaurant is filled with ex-pats it is de facto any good. Being born in a country does not mean you are automatically an expert on your home cuisine, but the fact that Lutong Pinoy in Earls Court came highly recommended and seemed to cater exclusively to elements of London’s 200,000 strong Filipino community augured well as we entered the tiny little restaurant in Kenway St.

Service was charming and slightly eccentric that was definitely “authentic” (there’s that word again) so was the menu, which had all the staples I grew so fond of during my short visit. Unfortunately, that’s where the good news ended. Fiona was kind enough to leave the ordering in my hands and we began with a fresh Lumpia, a form of loose spring roll, which at its best should resemble a Vietnamese Summer roll with a light casing protecting a fresh crunchy filling. Here, the casing was doughy, the vegetable filling mushy and the surrounding slick of sauce cloying. Pancit (noodles) mixed with vegetables were scarcely any better tasting as if they had been lying around all day waiting for someone stupid enough to eat them. We didn’t.

There are few things that fried pork can’t improve and things perked up when a plate of crispy pata arrived. It lacked the tenderness of the real thing, where pork knuckle or leg is boiled until tender and then deep fried to give a magnificent crunch, but when dipped in the bowl of sweet liver sauce served with it reminded me of why I ate pata just about every day of my visit.

Sisig, however, did not. The signature dish of Angeles is comprised of all the bits of the pig left over when all the good stuff has gone, chopped up with lots of chilli. It should come to the table sizzling on a cast iron plate so that the meat becomes crispy and the underside forms a crunchy crust that Filipino men can fight about over a beer. Our version was spicy enough but served on a plate that had not been heated enough so lacked any sizzle leaving it as just a tray of chopped meat with too much chilli.

If that was a disappointment then worse was to follow with the arrival of the Kare Kare, a stew of oxtail made with a peanut sauce. They were out of oxtail so we plumped for the beef version and were presented with a tired looking dish containing soft vegetables and meat that had been cooked to the texture of marshmallow. It could not even be rescued by the addition of Bagoong, the accompanying shrimp paste.

The bill including tip came to £40

This was a listless effort by a restaurant which looked and felt as if it had seen better days in the fifteen years it has been open, happy to serve ersatz tastes of glorious dishes to Londoners who perhaps can’t tell the difference and ex-pats happy for any small reminder of home. It may be odious to make comparisons, but I don’t need to because it is not just that there are certainly better places in The Philippines, I can’t help thinking they has to be a better Filipino restaurant in London.

MANILA: A THRILLA WITH THE FILLA IN THE PHILIPPINES

“It’s not safe and the food’s crap”

That was the reaction I got from just about everybody I spoke to when I said I was adding Manila onto the EAT MY GLOBE itinerary.

Of course, none of the people who said that had ever been here, but I don’t blame them. My own thoughts about Manila had been coloured by western press reports and horror stories of corruption, crime and the poorest food in the region. Relatively, it is also more expensive than the rest of SE Asia, so has fallen off the map of most travellers. A shame, because with 7,107 islands to choose from, it would make for a great adventure

I only added it to my own particular adventure when my Filipino aunt, Evelyn said that she would also be there in February and that she would make sure that I was well taken care of.

Well, one week later as I prepare to head to India, I can tell you that, while The Philippines and Manila in particular have all of the problems associated with developing nations (poverty, drugs, prostitution, chaotic traffic etc) there is a great deal to recommend the place to potential visitors.

Primarily, it is the people who almost swamp you with their hospitality and goodwill. The cheery greetings of the staff of my hotel in the business district of Makati were genuine and followed up with hand drawn notes showing me where to find the best food. The drivers of Manila’s plentiful and cheap taxis were, after a gentle bout of haggling, trustworthy and another useful source of information and stall-holders, restaurant staff and shop workers could not do enough to help.

Most of all, it is about the food. The majority of people I spoke to in the UK could come up with Lechon (whole roast suckling pig) and, at a push, maybe Adobo (pork and chicken cooked in cane vinegar) and Lumpia (local spring rolls) but to them, as indeed to me, the rest remained a blurry mystery.

A food writer friend in KL, Robyn Eckhardt, told me that Filipino food was one of the undiscovered gems of SE Asia. She was right. There is a genuine passion for eating here that I have not seen since I was in Mexico. In fact there are a lot of similarities with Mexico, given that the Spanish ruled The Philippines via that country and its first governors were Mexican.

There are also a lot of similarities with America. No surprise given the fact they were under the “benign” supervision of our US chums for decades until 1946, and Manila, in particular, would feel very familiar to any visitor from the West with its love of chain restaurants housed in extraordinarily lavish malls.

The interest in food goes beyond obsession. There is no such thing as a small meal or a short meal. Even at lunchtime the Filipinos like to sit down and indulge in their two favourite pastimes, eating and talking. Lord, how they talk. The Filipinos seem to have an opinion on everything from Lewis Hamilton’s poor defensive tactics to Barack Obama’s haircut. Strangely, I fitted right in.

However, above all, they like to talk about food. What’s right with it, what’s wrong with it. Where to get the good stuff and the dread shame of providing bad stuff to friends or, even worse, relatives.

Much of the conversation focuses around pork , the main meaty staple, and around the many and varied ways of serving it most of which seem to involve deep-frying to the point where they meet another Filipino prerequisite, crunchiness.

Like the other, Bengali, side of my family, the Filipinos think food is as much about texture as taste and demand a crunch with every meal. Be it crispy fried Hito (mudfish) slabs of Bagnet (deep fried belly pork) or Cicerones (fried crispy chitterlings)

Alongside the crunch is the love of things sharp and sour. The local soup, Sinigang comes with a broth soured with tamarind which takes a lot of getting used to but provides the perfect combatant to the stifling humidity.

They also like the bitter with bitter gourd considered a universal panacea to all ills and even the hot chocolate at People Watch Central, Café Adriatico, being dense, smoky and sharp.

Alongside the discoveries of food, I also discovered a whole new branch to the family with aunts, uncles and cousins popping up at regular intervals during my stay and it was they who made my trip such a success with visits to favourite local restaurants, day trips out of town and family meals where the noise was deafening and there was no circumstance in which you were going to leave the table unless you had to be rolled away.

They were fiercely and quite rightly proud of their food and introduced me to a bewildering variety of dishes all of which were strongly savoury and all of which were deeply delicious.

My cousin Carlo, editor of a local style magazine, decided to do an article about the EAT MY GLOBE trip and drove me up to the city of Angeles in the Pampanga province to meet with famous Filipino artist and foodie, Claude Tayag. Claude prepared a memorable meal and, as we ate on the open terrace of his lavish home, he expounded the virtues of Filipino food and particularly the dishes he had prepared.

Boulanglang, a soup filled with pork and local river shrimp whose heads gave up dribbles of fat to thicken the stew as you chomp them.

Kare Kare Dangat, a seafood stew made with the belly of the bangus fish

Fried Hito wrapped in crispy, fresh mustard leaves smeared with Balo Balo (rice fermented with shrimp)

Paco fern salad, where young shoots like fiddleheads were tossed in a sour dressing and topped with sweet tomatoes and pickled quails eggs.

After our meal, he drove us to Angeles itself to try Sisig, a combination of bits of animals minced up with lime and chilli before being served on a sizzling plate, which creates a crunchy base. This dish is like crack cocaine to the Filipinos and no glug of beer should ever pass your lips without a forkful of Sisig.

Another cousin, Ethan, and his wife Francis took me to Salcedo Market on Saturday where we ate Lechon from the Cebu region which comes without sauce (like Texas BBQ the people of Cebu argue, if your Lechon needs sauce, there must be something wrong with it) and skewers of BBQ pork so addictive that both Ethan and I had to be dragged away kicking and screaming. He really is a man after my own heart attack.

Finally, on my last night, Carlo and my “new” family, cooked a meal for me at their home in Quezon City. Wine and beer flowed and the star course was an Adobo made in the proper style so that large chunks of pork and chicken had been marinated in cane vinegar and then cooked until dark and golden before being served with red mountain rice.

As demanded, I ate and ate until I was almost blind and had to be led to the car by the hand by a five-year old niece who kindly informed me that my face was “a funny colour”

The next morning, As I sat in the business lounge in Manila’s appallingly chaotic airport, one of the staff, who I was asking to help me put names to photographs of dishes, placed a large bowl of crispy pork belly in front of me “to keep you going”

I think that says it all.

I will be back.