Food break

Filipinos are among the top foodies in the world, or so I think. Many foreigner-friends who come to visit, mostly Americans who have married into the family and tag along friends and family members for a first time visit to the Philippines find it very amusing that all our bonding moments, those getting-to-know you sessions are mostly centered on food. Yes, family lunches and dinners are the most common bond that we all share so heartily, not unlike the Irish and Germans who gravitate to the pubs when groups of friends bump into each other.

On this note, I don’t find it surprising that the biggest subdivision in Asia, B.F. Homes, Paranaque, has become one long winding food street, emerging that way through the decades to serve one huge community that still keeps on growing. To be sure, many eateries have come and gone, folding up even after just a few months of operation simply because they have not stumbled on the right formula to keep the customers coming. It always makes my wife and I sad to see the money flushed down the drain, certain that they did not recoup their money.

But one enduring dining place is Little Quiapo along the main artery, Aguirre Avenue. I was first introduced to this iconic restaurant during my college days in UST.  B.F. Homes is essentially not a young community, so I can surmise that many of its original homeowners are familiar with Little Quiapo’s popular palabok and halo-halo. It is a family-type restaurant serving good old favorites, including pancit in bilao, tokwa’t baboy, pinakbet, arroz caldo and main courses of course. But the second generation have likewise learned to embrace Little Quiapo’s enduring entrees so that even on ordinary days, the place is never lonely. Their palabok and halo-halo topped with ube ice cream remain to be our comfort food these days, but they also have hard-to-resist goodies on sale like chicharon, fish crackers, bottled adobong peanuts, native vinegar, pinipig suman, etc. There is a long line of products, which balikbayan guests of residents gobble up. Prices, of course have gone up through the years, but they remain delightfully reasonable. Which is probably why the restaurant has endured.

Among the more recent additions to the food street are many Japanese and Korean restaurants, the latter due to the increasing number of Korean families in this subdivision. My family has not really tried any of these Korean restaurants (there seems to be one sprouting every now and then, as if we don’t have enough of them already) but my wife and kids have tried the Korean groceries, which surprisingly carry many of our common local brands. Now that the latest craze is ramen, I see quite a few respectable ramen houses that we must try one of these cold late-night forays. There is also the Sensei Sushi run by a very young chef-owner.  Their sushis are contemporary, not traditional, fusion-style and a bit pricey, but the young crowd is crazy about this sushi house. And the small restaurant does not accept walk-ins—one has to reserve.

 One of the most outstanding Japanese restaurants though that has kept us coming back several times is Hanakazu Restaurant, and yes, it is also along Aguirre Avenue. Like most of the restaurants here, it is obvious that Hanakazu used to be a residence, a modestly big one-storey house and like most of the homeowners along this main thoroughfare, they have elected to sell out because commercial establishments have virtually taken over the entire street and it has become too busy and noisy for a residential area. There are in fact very few “hold-overs” left along Aguirre, some large homes that have stubbornly held on to their turf. I suspect they cannot hold on for very long, given the volume of traffic and parking in Aguirre now.

Anyway, back to Hanakazu. The cuisine here is definitely authentic Japanese because the owner-chef is a middle-aged Japanese national married to a Filipina. He is seen harried and busy behind the sushi counter while his wife tends the cash register and other cooks tend to the hot food. At any given day, this place has hungry diners, whether for lunch or dinner, and as a general yardstick of how authentic their food is, one can see quite a few Japanese nationals dining here casually. A poker friend of mine, a certified foodie himself, Nick of PGA Cars, comes all the way from their EDSA showroom with officemates to savor good Japanese cuisine here at Hanakazu.

On lazy or slow days or when we do not care to stray too far out into Makati or Alabang, we usually end up here, and among our favorites are the steaks that are cut up in cubes (very, very tender morsels of tenderloin sautéed in soy sauce and plenty of garlic and served with mongo sprouts). The price is rather steep and the serving is quite small but the dish is very rich in flavor and goes really well with hot Japanese rice. They do not have fried rice in their menu, and I’ve always wondered why. I remember enjoying my US rib-eye steak, cut up in cubes also, which is the Japanese way and cooked in lots of garlic in front of you at the old Kimpura Restaurant in Makati back in the ’70s.  Paired with their beef fried rice, I was in heaven. You must remember that we didn’t have cholesterol issues back then.

Also included in our favorites here at Hanakazu are the California Maki, the Tempura dishes of prawns and asohos and the single- serving potato salad. All these are not exactly cheap orders, but still, they are all worth your hard-earned peso. We tend to have the same orders all over again, but occasionally, we peek into other tables, especially those of the Japanese diners to see what we can add to our usual repertoire. But a favorite mainstay is the potato salad, which we find a strange one in a very Japanese menu. One serving costs P100 but it is a hefty one, and many days we send out the driver to buy these which come in good-sized tubs. The salad is obviously made fresh daily because the restaurant usually runs out of it for late diners. That is how popular it is, and there is a decidedly Japanese flavor to this otherwise American food, which does not need the usual chunks of chicken to make it flavorful.

There are still quite a few noteworthy restaurants that merit mention here, but this is all the space I’ve got for this week.  Maybe we can go into a part 2 next week?

Mabuhay!!! Be proud to be a Filipino.

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