The Columbus In All Of Us

Near Gallery Uffizi in Florence 

They discovered continents.  They explored worlds.  They colonized civilizations.

My first trip abroad was around 1995.  Hongkong.   It was my first taste of congee with my favorite fritters to go with it(you know, that loofah-looking dough?).  We stayed in Kowloon side and I remembered our days there being filled mostly by Laserdisc and music cd buying from one store to the next.

That first travel was the start of a string of travels I will have in this lifetime.  It somehow brought out the Columbus in me.

Every travel, to me, is a discovery.  An exploration.  Sometimes a conquest.  You conquer the fear of being in a strange and new place.  You conquer the fear of being alone in the midst of aliens.

Travelling makes you know more.  Makes you see the world from another perspective.  It makes you see how other people live their lives different from how you live yours.

Killing time in the park

A Park in Florence

The sun rays in Tuscany feels a lot healthier than our sun rays here.  The smell of flowers in the streets of Switzerland is not the same as the smell of fried daing in the streets of Cubao.

Travelling is sensorial.  You feel, see, hear, taste and smell a new environment.

Being in another country, makes you see what you wish you could change or miss about your country.

The food is no exception.  Discovering the foods of other countries is a paradigm shift.  Tomatoes never tasted so good in Italy.  I eat more vegetables abroad than I do here.

Of the countries I've been to, there are some that speak to you and there are others that do not.

Last minute picture with the Eifel Tower

I remember being in Paris and not loving it, at all.  It was touristy, it's hard to move around the city, people are kinda snooty.  Being there is like being in a package tour everywhere you go.  Like in Louvre, the throng of people inside the museum was just crazy.  I rarely go to museums but with this one, I wanted to see all the masterpieces in their gallery.  But I want time alone to, sort of, relish being in the presence of a masterpiece.  But with that huge crowd snaking around each room, bumping into some senior citizen in retirement mode trying to catch a glimpse of a masterpiece before her last breath, shit, by the time I got to the Mona Lisa, I was so sweaty that I felt I was not worthy to have my picture taken side by side with the ethereal Mona.

Chanced upon this when I got lost in Venice

I love Italy.  I belong there.  I'm not saying that just because I might be coming from an Italian lineage (Matti in Italian means "the crazy one").  Wink, wink.  I'm just saying that the Italians are people I can be friends with.  They all exude an appetite for life.  Their warmth is contagious.

One of my lousy days in Neuchatel, Switzerland

I can't say that about Switzerland.  When I was there, it felt really cold, emotionally.  Day or night, the streets were empty.  Except for the chocolates of Switzerland and the beautiful high-tech, lakeside hotel I stayed in, I didn't really enjoy my stay there.  They close all restaurants and shops from 2-6pm.  And since I'm not really an early riser, I'd always end up eating lunch in this Persian sandwich place right at the heart of Neuchatel's downtown.  Persian food in Switzerland, great!

Dario Argento on the right

This was the fatal day I was late for a car ride with Roger Corman

But Switzerland was memorable.  I sat side by side with Dario Argento for dinner.  He talked about his fear of riding a plane and had the festival fetch him by car to travel from Italy to Switzerland.  Got Roger Corman pissed for being late because we had to share a ride to lunch.

The sun deck in Hotel Palafitte

I stayed in Hotel Palafitte, a 5-star hotel by the lake.  I was booked in one of their villas, the ones standing in the middle of the lake.  It has its own sun deck facing the expanse of the river.

The then hi-tech remote control in my hotel room

This was in 2002 and everything in the room then was already remote controlled.  Turn on the TV by remote.  Close the windows, by remote.  Put up the sun deck, by remote.  Even when internet in hotels were hard to come by then, they had free wifi, 24-hours a day in the room.

When I discovered this remote gadget, about the size of an old betacam deck, I started tinkering with it.  I even discovered that it turns on the shower in the bathroom.

Anyway, after being tired from a long plane trip I slept to get ready for the big day at the festival the next day.  The next day, I woke up terrified.  Literally, the whole room was covered by a million little black thing scattered all over the place.  My comforter was riddled entirely with these black things.  I immediately stood up in panic.  Checked it closely.  Good thing they were already dead.  I called reception to help me sort it out.  When they got there, they reprimanded me for not reading the instructions beside my bed.  "Always close the windows at night.", was how it read.  The black things were mosquitos from the lake.  I tinkered with the gadget and forgot to close the windows in the sun deck and they all attacked me while I was sleeping.  Good thing I was covered entirely while asleep that I didn't get a single bite from those bloody mosquitos.  Phew!

A view of Neuchatel

Switzerland means something to me because of the memories it gave me.  The minute I landed, my newly bought luggage came out tattered in the luggage belt.  My clothes were scattered and the bag was covered in grease.  I had to buy a new set of luggage (this time, a hard case) from my own measly pocket money because Lufthansa would only pay me when I get back to Manila.

I also made a side trip to Zurich to visit a friend from my hometown.  It was a nice day, sunny and all.  She brought me to a park with her Spanish husband.  Lying on the grass, her husband lighted a joint.  Thinking that Swiss weed does not come close to a Baguio gold strength meter-wise, I casually smoked it like a cigarette.  Time lapse:  an hour later, I woke up in the park, it's almost dark and my friends are waiting for me to have dinner.  They couldn't stop asking me if I was okay.  Fucking embarrassing!  Ended up in a fondue dinner and I didn't have one because I was slumped the whole time on the dinner table.  They finally brought me to the train station and, still disoriented from the roundhouse kick the Swiss weed gave me, I fell asleep on the train station and missed my train.  Ended up back in Neuchatel at 1am rather than 10.  Grrrr!

I love those little mishaps that make travelling memorable.

Lady crossing in Shibuya

A rainy day in Tokyo

Once in Japan, when I landed, I had both the soles of my shoes left behind while walking to Immigration.  A lady behind me stopped me and handed over one of the soles of my shoes.  I smiled nonchalantly trying to hide my shame.  A few feet later, my other shoe gave in.  I was lining up in Immigration with my socks walking on the carpet clutching the two soles of my shoes pretending everything's under control.  The worst part is, I landed at 6pm, travelled to Shibuya, checked in at 8pm and had to go straight to a dinner.  As I am not really your formal kind of a guy, that was my one and only formal shoes that I brought.  The next one, tucked in my luggage, is a yellow, bright colored Northface shoes.  A friend critic fetched me at the hotel and I told him about my dilemma.  He said, "Your an artist!  You wear yellow shoes with your formal suit!"  And that's what I did.

In a sea of black tie formal affair, with all the serious Japanese walking around, somewhere in the floor, there's this yellow Northface strutting around.  I met a lot of friends through that, though.

If I didn't travel, I could not imagine having seen all these things just staying here in Manila.  I'm no rich, globetrotting dude travelling at my heart's desire.  I had a lot of travels for free because of my movies going into film festivals abroad.

The view of Florence from our window

Forbidden City in Beijing

Still life in Udine, Italy

Sun bathing in the Big Apple

Riding the boat to Staten Island

Flowers by the window sill in Venice

A bad profiterole in Chianti, Florence

China town, New York

Tired lady in a Beijing Park

Through my travels, I have managed to get lost in Venice, sat quietly on a bench in a Lido street watching dusk turn to night, made a wish in a Japanese temple, eat in a molecular gastronomy Michelin-star, restaurant in Switzerland for free(beside Dario Argento to top it), accidentally discover the best ramen in a Kyoto side street, ride a bus full of, politically correctly speaking, not-so-pleasant-smelling Indians in Singapore with my children rudely putting on a mask in the midst of them, went around a horror house with Phil Tippet of "Jurassic Park", slept in a Florence hotel with Michiko overlooking the whole of Florence, eat foie gras in a picnic watching the lights of Eifel Tower, shake hands with Tony Soprano, Hope Davis, Marcia Gay Harden and Jeff Daniels, help a drunk Korean friend who puked all over a hotel lobby carpet, look for an olive tree not knowing we are already beside one, be dragged out of my hotel room for being dead drunk and had to catch a plane in Trieste, run around with all the big stars of "Mano Po" in the streets of Shanghai trying to shoot without permit(imagine Susan Roces, Lorna Tolentino, ZsaZsa Padilla, Christopher De Leon scurrying in Shanghai streets. Now that's Third World superstardom for you), seeing the Golden Gate bridge and not knowing what to feel because it still is just a bridge, lock myself out in my underwear at a Shibuya Hotel (yes, the hotel right in front of Hachiko) and had to go to reception to get another key, had a near-miss pickpocket in Rome with Michiko surrounded by 4 burly Italians, huff and puff with my two kids going up the Great Wall of China, ate in probably the worst Italian restaurant in Italy, get trapped at Troubadour station in Paris,  kissed in the middle of the rain, eat kare-kare in Montmartre.

Not bad for all the freebie travels.  Thanks to my movies!

My next adventure:  Japan.  One of my favorite countries in the world.  Okinomiyaki, sushi, Tsukiji, Kyoto, onsen, ramen, ryokan, bento boxes, takoyaki balls, Sapporo, Akihabara, Japanese pizza and pasta, Kuidaore, Dotonbori!

To Columbus, Napoleon, Magellan, Alexander and me!  Cheers!

With each travel, I can look at my home country with fresh eyes.  

A view of Pasig river from the Mandaluyong bridge

Shooting bystanders in Montalban

A solitary monoblock left during a Bataan shoot

Quiapo manghuhulas

  

Sleeping in Binondo outside a Chinese drugstore

Old lady in print.   Quiapo, Manila.

Coffee And Cigarettes

You, guys, are great company.  My mom told me a couple of times to stay away from you.  "Your Dad died because of them.  Don't wait to be the next.", she said.

I remained loyal.  A stubborn faithful.  A blind soldier.

In your company, I can think, I can work.  You can bring out the good in me.  Through thick and thin, for better or for worse, you remain my steadfast friends.  

Others have abandoned you.  Judged you.  Others have exchanged you for better friends.  I met them, too.  Tea and E-cig.  But they're a bit too nice for me.  Too correct.

Nowadays, people go for nicer friends.  The kind you can bring to parties and never be embarrassed to be seen with.  They steer free from all the punks and the crazy ones.

I go for the weird ones, the strange and the ones with the rough edges.  I find them more honest, more real.

What you see is what you get.  No agenda, no sugar coating.

Even at work, I always find myself comfortable working with people who are straightforward.  People who don't mince words.  People who are passionate to be heard and to get their thoughts across.

I am wary of people who are nice.  I don't trust people who always has a smile on their faces even in the midst of an argument.  Can you trust a call center agent who keeps her steady tone even when you're shouting at her at the top of your voice?

My Dad warned me about them.  "Never trust a guy who doesn't drink.  Because these are the ones who know that if they get drunk, it'll bring out the worst in them."

People are born with all its frailties.  And the minute a person masks or does not admit that, christian or not, we're in trouble.

To C and C, stay as you are.  Sure, someday I might also turn my back on you.  But always remember that whatever good has become of me, I can't deny that you, guys, were a part of it.

My List Of Overrated Restaurants In Manila

SOM'S NOODLE HOUSE

As far as I can remember, Thai food does not taste this sweet. A lot of people probably like this one, not because of its authenticity but more maybe because it serves affordable Thai food.

It has been quite awhile since I ate there.  I remember their bagoong rice to be sweet, their tom yum soup to also be sweet.

This place is famous with yuppies partly because you have this carinderia-style Thai resto at the heart of Makati.  To some, they find the al fresco dining, accidentally having part of its dining area right beside a road, to be a bit charming and hip.

Well, the name alone, doesn't even sound Thai.

CHICKEN BON CHON

I can't understand the taste.  It's like an unfinished dish.  Part sweet, part crunchy, not enough salt and not too spicy.  I'm as confused as the taste.

Either that, or I just don't like sweet dishes.

With so many branches opening everywhere, not just here but around the world, who am I to argue its success?

CHELSEA

They claim, it's their take on comfort food.  Before anyone can do a take on anything, they have to be able to do the real one quite good.

With Chelsea, as they are busy trying to be creative with their spin on the comfort dishes, they totally miss out on the qualities that make these dishes comforting in the first place.

Their pizza is too herby, too cluttered and too messy to eat.  Their carbonara too dairy tasting.  Their burger is just too much.  Too many things going on at the same time.  It feels like a prostitute faking an orgasm, too eager to please.  Too much style over substance.

Even their coffee, as simple as that, isn't even good enough.  I like coffee.  Only coffee.  Chelsea's coffee has cinnamon.  Again, trying too hard to be creative forgetting that sometimes, the simplest of flavors is what makes it good.

What makes comfort food for me, even with all its twists, fusions and deconstructions, is on how it brings back the exact feeling of how you've come to love that dish.  Sadly, with Chelsea, it does not bring me an inch closer.

The only saving grace:  The Toblerone Torte!

JOHN AND YOKO

Doing Japanese cuisine for a restaurant is not easy.  It's pretty much like Italian food.  The key to their dishes rests mostly on the freshness of the ingredients and not the complex flavors you build on the dish.

John And Yoko, as if Japanese food is not hard enough, mixed the Japanese with American twists.  Like Pearl Harbor or, more aptly, like Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it's a disaster in nuclear proportion.

This is another resto where being creative means over-the-top.  Too many gimmicky sushis and makis.  Even before you see the food, the dining TV already screams "Pretentious!", with their black and white screenings of old Japanese movie classics.

WARNING:  When you have fancy names of dishes in the menu of a restaurant, beware.  Because it might be the only creative thing that it has to offer.

MAMOU

Ok.  I'm not so sure here.  A lot of my friends have been telling me about how good this restaurant is.  I've eaten here several times probably trying hard to give this restaurant a fair chance(because to be honest, I like the place).  I may have ordered the wrong stuff because after several tries, I have not really tasted anything mind blowingly good.  It's O-K.

They say the steak is trying to do it the way Peter Luger of New York would.  But a steak is a steak.  If you can't cook a good steak, there is no reason why you're in the restaurant business.  The gauge of a good restaurant is not it's steak (because we all know, good steaks are not about the cooking but about the meat), but the other dishes they serve.

With Mamou, I can't find any dish I would like to come back for.  And besides, if their flagship dish, the simple steak, is even a mimic of another restaurant, then what's left for them to brag about?

NOTE:  This entry is solely based on the taste of the writer and in no way trying to discredit the opinion of others who support the restaurants listed here.

Only God Creates Out Of Nothing

This is a transcription of Eric Ripert's interview in 92Y's Food Talks with Anthony Bourdain and Gabrielle Hamilton moderated by their author/chef friend Michael Ruhlman.  

Eric Ripert is the owner and chef of Le Bernardin in New York, a seafood restaurant in New York and one of the best restaurants in America, if not the world.  He is also a guest judge in the Top Chef reality series.  

Le Bernardin was recently awarded as one of the top 50 restaurants of the world by Restaurant Magazine and San Pelligrino along with Alinea, Per Se, Daniel, Momofuku Ssam Bar and Eleven as the only 6 American restaurants to make it in the list.

In this excerpt, Michael Ruhlman asked the panelists what made them the chefs they are today.  

Eric Ripert is French, so forgive his english, please.

"I always considered myself having three mentors.  Because it really taught me three different distinct things about the profession.   

Joel Robuchon, being obviously the first one and probably the most powerful one in my life, the biggest impact.  And he really taught me.  I was a beginner.  Obviously I had 2 years of experience and 3 years of culinary school.   

That was really, really the beginning of the knowledge.  And he really taught me how to make sauce actually.  I really learned, like i said before, how to domesticate my movements. Which, I think, is very important. In cooking, if you want to cook something very refined you have to be very precise.      

I’ll give you an example: If you put a chunk of artichoke with a fish, it will be very good.  But if you cut it perfectly and you put the right amount of artichoke on that fish, that may trigger and elevate the quality of the fish.   

So I think it’s very important for someone who cook, at a level where I am today, to have the knife skills from the beginning.  To have the discipline to learn how to really anticipate the way a sauce is going to evolve. 

Because a lot of mistakes in the beginning when you learn how to make sauces is that you think “Oh, it’s a rosemary sauce so I put rosemary” but it’s not like that.  Rosemary infuses.  Imagine yourself making tea at home and you’ve got the tea infused forever. And then you go at night and you taste your tea. It’s not the same as when you taste the tea immediately after you put the herb or the camomile or whatever. So I learned that from him. The technique.  That was really Joel Robuchon. 

When I moved to Washington and I discovered someone I adore, who was totally crazy. It was Jean Louis Palladin. And for the ones who knew him he was incredibly charismatic and a great artist.   

From Jean Louis, I kinda freed myself from that kind of catholic school teaching. And I discovered rock and roll in the kitchen. And really I needed it obviously. 

When I was trying to create, I will always go back to what I learned in Robuchon. So creations will be just a little twist on what he taught me. I was not really trained and motivated to create in the kitchen In Paris.  I was trained to be one element of the team to be able to provide what he wanted. 

And then with Jean Louis, he really let me express myself on the artistic level and creative level and I obviousy made a lot of mistakes but that was essential in my life as well. 

And then when I went to Le Bernardin, Gilbert Le Coze taught me to obviously have respect for seafood and share a couple of tips and tricks.  But I was already a trained cook when I went there. 

He really taught me how to become a leader on my kitchen. How to be an inspiration. How to run a restaurant and be able to pay the bills and other profit, at the end of the day because we are not the Red Cross. We need to make money as a way of living. 

He taught me how to deal with the dining room. I didn’t really dealt with it before, really.  For me it’s a big deal because we took a vicious pleasure to burn the fingers of the waiter in the kitchen when I was in Paris. Giving them hot plate.

I matured tremendously with him and that was the end of the teachings with my mentors."

Eric Ripert worked under Joel Robuchon in Paris from 1982 to 1989.  In 1989, he moved to Washington D.C. and started working under Jean Louis Palladin.  It was only in 1994 when he became the Executive Chef for Le Bernardin at age 29. 

It takes at least 5 years for a cook to train under a dimsum master before he is allowed to make one on his own.  It takes twice the amount of time for an apprentice of a sushi master before he can receive blessing to make his first california maki.  It takes almost a lifetime for someone working under a noodle sensei before he is anointed to make a single strand of hand-made noodle all by himself. 

What happened to mentorship?  Everyone seems to be scrambling to make a living that they don't find the time to devote years to train under someone they admire and respect.  Everyone is eager to create their own Mona Lisas and Citizen Kanes before they even know how to conceive and execute them. 

Although, there are some who pretend to be proteges.  They'll pick a so-called mentor.  Come in once in awhile to see the mentor at work.  Jump to another mentor, come in again and observe.  Maybe this time, ask a question or two.  Before you know it, they're passing resumes with the names of their so-called mentors listed down as someone they trained under.  Careers are launched with this MO, mind you. 

Is this happening all over the world?  Or is it just happening in our side of the world? 

Yes, Gusteau said, "Everyone can cook..."  What he failed to mention was, "...but you'll have to start somewhere before you can learn how to cook." 

Movies I Can Watch Over And Over Again

Toy Story Trilogy

     Who would have thought that a story about toys can talk about all the universal themes that matter to us, human beings.  Only this movie.  Toy Story is my Star Wars.

Shaun Of The Dead

     The best buddy movie ever!  A friendship story wrapped in a zombie setting.  I am Simon Pegg, period.

 A Few Good Men

     No other courtroom drama is as exciting as this one.  A close second is Runaway Jury and The Rainmaker.  Sure, it's no cinematic feat.  No pretensions.  It's the kind of movie that banked on itself as being a true Hollywood produce.  So what?  The script, the performances and the stellar cast are what movies should be made of.  Pure entertainment.

Goodfellas

     Ok, I'm not trying this film student choice here.  This is really one movie that brings you inside the life of a gangster.  And let's admit it, it's cool to be one after watching this.

Godfather 1

     Any Filipino coming from a huge family must love this.  The dynamics of the Corleone family is something anyone can relate to.  Well, at least, I can.

Jaws

   One of the few honest Spielberg movies.  I think these types of movies are what he's really good at.  Popcorn entertainment peppered with his usual bag of tricks.  He should not have done Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan and all his other message heavy, serious, pseudo-intelligent movies (except Munich).

When Harry Met Sally

     Quirky, intelligent and funny.  The romantic comedy that defined all romantic comedies.  *I'm no fan of Rob Reiner as a director (watch Bucket List, Rumor Has it and Flipped)  but the guy has made some good Hollywood stuff .  Must be the scripts.

Annie Hall/Manhattan Murder Mystery/Hannah And Her Sisters

     It just makes me wish I was born in New York!  Ba't ba dito pa ko ipinanganak sa Pinas!

Enemy Of The State

     I love conspiracy movies.  From Parallax View to Blow Out  to Marathon Man to Manchurian Candidate.  Only Tony Scott can make a movie as unpretentious as this one.  Plus of course, Will Smith and Gene Hackman.  A no brainer, solid, action thriller.

Bourne Trilogy

     When the first Bourne was made, studio executives wrote Doug Liman (the director) a memo telling him that they want it like a Tony Scott movie.  He answered, "I don't know what's a Tony Scott movie."

It later became one of the biggest franchise to hit the theaters.  These movies changed the way action movies are made.  I could watch this anytime.  Exciting, intriguing, action-packed and with one of the best and memorable lead characters ever to hit the silver screen.  I just love tragic heroes!

My 5 Favorite Rice Dishes In Manila Restos

KANIN CLUB's Tinapa Rice-  I've always been trying to find the taste and texture of the best fried rice that I tasted when I was around ten.  With egg, onion, garlic and spring onions.  I ate it in some carinderia near our house.  The tinapa rice of Kanin Club tastes exactly like that, but better.  Because it has shredded tinapa meat and the smoky flavor just perfects it.  The other thing nice about it is the texture.  The rice grain is separated from each other with just enough oil and the rice is really fried with a bit of burnt rice mixed into it.

CHOI GARDEN's Salted Fish Fried Rice-  I always order the salted fish fried rice in Chinese restos.  Yes, Yang Chow fried rice is good too (especially in Hongkong) but I like the contrast of the saltiness of the Salted Fish Fried rice with the other chinese dishes that go with it.  Choi Garden's version has the best mix of the salted fish flakes.  Others have bigger flakes, others don't have enough salted fish taste in the rice except when you bite into a whole chunk of the salted fish.  And this version, usually mixed with bits of chicken, has the right size of the chicken bits.  Others have the chicken bits way too big that one wonders whether it's a rice dish or a rice with toppings. 

ABE's Bamboo Rice-  There is something  about having your rice cooked in the bamboo and as they serve it, they crack it open in front of you and serve it on your plate.  Abe's bamboo rice has a sticky texture but without the heaviness of a sticky rice when you eat it.  The flavors are simple.  Maybe some stock and soy sauce, dried shitake mushroom slices.  I wouldn't be surprised if there is a bit of vetsin there.  Bamboo rice, if not for the novelty of the way they're serving it, may seem like a  simple dish to most but its simplicity is what makes it a classic.  This rice reminds me of the Hainanese rice of the Sings.

*this is not the dish itself.  This is for representation only.

BELLINI's Mushroom and Prosciutto Risotto with Truffle Oil-  I don't know if it was Gordon Ramsay or Mario Batali who said that the way to tell the right consistency of a risotto is to slide your spoon  across the cooking pan slicing through the risotto.  When the risotto mix slides back into the center when the spoon passes, it's perfect.  If it does not come back to the center, then it's too dry.  If the spoon merely slides by and does not part it like the Red Sea, it's too wet.  I've tasted a lot of risotto here in Manila and, except for Belinni's and my defunct F Word Resto,  the others are either too al dente or too dry.

NAN BAN TEI's Shake Onigiri-  There are two ways to have this:  Steamed rice with stuffed salmon wrapped in Nori or Grilled rice with the same stuffing and wrap.  I particularly like the steamed rice variant.  The salmon stuffing to me does not add anything to it.  It's actually the combination of the nori and the rice that I go after.  Like the temaki, we all know how that combination works.