Mamou - A Home Kitchen

I used to have this dream of opening my own restaurant with one long community table for twenty guests. The menu will consist of my personal favorite home cooked meals served family style. Three or four courses a day. Maybe Filipino dishes one day, Italian the next. Good value wines to match the menu. My favorite music in the background. Simply said, it's a dinner party every night.

But the realities of running a restaurant - the long days, the small margins - quickly brought me back to earth. I'll settle for home dinner parties without the commitment of the daily grind of owning your own business.

However, Malou Fores, the chef-proprietor of Mamou restaurant in Serendra, had other thoughts and took on the dream and converted her passion for entertaining family and friends at home into a working business plan for Mamou. She personally trained her chefs in her home for six months in order for the culinarians to take in the full essence of her cooking philosophy. The dining room reminds me of The Little Italy Caffe, this quaint Italian restaurant my wife and I discovered, in all places, marche Montorgueil in Paris. The diners were packed shoulder to shoulder, but you know what, there was a sense of community and belonging. We ended up just talking to the other guests and even received a round of drinks from this French couple we sat next to. It was comforting.

Friends Leo and Michelline Suarez, along with their beautiful daughter (and my goddaughter), Sam, squeezed a lunch at Mamou on my last day in Manila. To Michelline's credit for highly recommending the place, our lunch was a pleasant surprise for a last minute date. I went straight for the specialty of the house, the USDA prime lamb chops, even though it was lunchtime. Not knowing when I'll be back in Manila, I wasn't going to hold back. Leo cheered me on. The chops were charred on the outside and perfectly pink in the middle, just the way I love it. It was succulent with just the right amount of salt and pepper. The creamed spinach and baked mashed potato side dishes are as good as you will find it at Smith and Wollensky.

I had the pleasure of meeting Malou, who I would later learn is married to a grade school classmate, Oye Fores. I admire her hands-on approach to running her restaurant. A once unique arrangement in labor-cheap Manila, Malou's determination to stay close to the heat in the kitchen, is reason enough to return to this truly "Home Kitchen."

Not Your Typical Working Lunch

The JW invited West Michigan's top foodies for a working lunch to brainstorm on a special dinner we are planning on having on November 19 at six.one.six restaurant. Details of the intimate dinner will be launched early next week.

As a surprise to our guests, Executive Chef Andrew Voss prepared a surprise paella and cous cous lunch served in the chef's office inside the JW kitchen. The foodies didn't mind the special touch at all. It sure beats the usual club sandwich.

Thanks Chef Andrew!

Sunday at the Salcedo Village Farmer's Market

Nestled amidst the skyscrapers, cafes and malls in the business district of Makati City is the Salcedo Village Farmer's Market. My cousins Rhett and Gigi Eala introduced me to this market which was just a block from their condo. After coffee and a light breakfast at the local coffee house, we strolled through this idyllic oasis one Sunday morning only to discover the amazing products and food featured at this market. This is not the market I remembered as a child growing up in Manila. There is an amazing cornucopia of fruits, cooked meats, seafood, vegetables and beautifully packaged products from the provinces. In one corner of the market, a vendor is roasting a suckling pig while another vendor from Laguna is selling buko (coconut) pies, the region's specialty. This market is a must-see on your next trip to Manila. While everything looked delectable, it's going to take me a lifetime to truly appreciate the "exotic" smell of the langka.

Queso de Bola - this is the spread version of the edam cheese

Embutido - stuffed pork

Seafood snacks such as squid and mussels

Itlog na pula or salted duck eggs

The fish lady

Birds of Paradise

Philippine Mango - the best in the world!

Suman - sticky rice treats wrapped in banana leaves

Siniguelas - a type of plum

The world famous "dirty" ice cream or sorbetes

Red Ginger Flower

talong - eggplant

A street food staple - Filipino BBQ

Filipino style fruit juices - very refreshing in the summer heat

Local pate

and of course, the langka or jackfruit

A Picture Perfect Autumn Day

This past Sunday was the perfect Fall day for pumpkin picking, donuts and spiced cider at the local farm. The Fall colors were in full blossom and the smell of apples and cinnamon filled the crisp autumn air. It's days like these when I appreciate living in the midwest. There's just nothing like in in the States.

A twenty five minute drive north of Grand Rapids takes us to the country fields of Sparta and the Schwallier's Country Basket. There's a petting zoo, "cow" rides, hay rides through the orchard, free cider and fresh picked apples, a country store, and of course, homemade donuts. Though our kids are getting a little too old for the rides, the pumpkin picking and the donuts are still a hit.

We got home and the kids went at it with their carving tools. Margaux, my teenager, carved the Grateful Dead logo. Jules, my middle schooler, carved a University of Iowa "I" to commemorate our favorite football team. Francesca, my fifth grader, created a pumpkin with various geometrical shapes to be "a little unique" from all her friends. My wife assisted the kids while I made our family's version of a perfect Fall dinner - Balti Curry Chicken with Naan. How could you go wrong with Indian food?

Eat Local, Feel Global

JW Executive Chef Andrew Voss

The LOVE is just spreading at the JW...

The long awaited website for six.one.six restaurant is finally live at ilove616.com. Check out this fresh site designed by the fabulous crew at Plenty Creative of Grand Rapids. The site includes the restaurant's menus including its dessert, cheese and wine list. And for the kids, the six.one.six children's menu. Visit our downtown vibe spot, Mixology Lounge, and our outdoor deck, the jdek. Read about the chef's and their new blog - My Food Life.

Eat Local, Feel Global!

Thai at Silk Restaurant

I have to give interior designers Cynthia and Ivy Almario a lot of credit for creating a very inviting restaurant in this corner of Piazza Serendra in Fort Bonifacio. While I heard mixed reviews of Thai at Silk from several friends, our dining experience was aesthetically pleasing given the wonderful interiors and the dish after dish of artfully thoughtful creations by chef/owner Cecille Ysmael. I have to admit that I was more enamored with taking the photographs than the dining experience partly because I was still stuffed from the non-stop dining during this trip back home.

The grapefruit salad with coconut shavings was a pleasant surprise to my nouveau-midwestern palette. The pad thai noodle "nest" was striking to the eye. One of my favorite soups in the world is the tom ka gai soup. While Thai at Silk's version is good, it  lacks depth. I learned from a Thai chef from, of all places, San Juan, Puerto Rico, that the secret to a great tom ka gai soup is to use galangal instead of ginger. Perhaps, that was the missing component.

Given the atmosphere, the prices and the clientele, I expected the servers to be more versed on the food. Service is something we Filipinos pride ourselves and you can almost guarantee that the service in most Manila restaurants would be decent. However, I wish that more restaurant operators would spend more time teaching the servers about the food and the wines to add some soul to the dining experience.

I look forward to my return trip to Thai at Silk. This time, I'll bring extra galangal slices for my tom ka gai.

Manila Nightlife

The scene at Studio A in Makati City

I have to admit that the nightlife in Manila has always been world class; from intimate jazz bars to mega discos. My first encounter with Manila nightlife was the night my mom and tita (aunt) Baby Valencia took my cousin Rhett Eala and I hotel hopping along Roxas boulevard. Starting out at the Jungle Bar at the historic Manila Hotel then to the Lost Horizon disco at the Philippine Plaza Hotel and finally to the disco at the Century Park Sheraton. There was also Stargazer atop the Silahis Hotel, and of course, the mother of all Manila disco's, Where Else?, at the Intercontinental Hotel.

These days, the energy is still the same except there are several hundred more places to go to. On this last trip, Rhett took me to Studio A along Makati avenue to a party hosted by Marlboro. Since cigarette companies cannot advertise through the traditional forms of advertising, companies use venues like Studio A to indirectly promote their product. It's an all out event complete with global celebrity deejays, an array of light displays and pyrotechnics. Models offer drinks and hors d'oeuvres to a diverse crowd of professionals and foreign nationals. My sister, Haj Wilcox, and cousins, Gigi and Dennis Eala came along for the ride.

Just like the old days, we finished the evening at the Manila Peninsula Hotel for some Halo-Halo (traditional dessert of fruit, beans, ice cream, shaved ice and milk) and late night conversations.