Turo-turo goes haute at Taste Asia
If, on a busy day, you find yourself craving home cooking yet office hours will not allow you to dash back to your comfort zone, fret not. Taste Asia in SM Mall of Asia offers a thousand and one solutions to your hunger.
Say you’re salivating for a quick fix of salmon head sinigang; all you have to do is to go to the wet market at Taste Asia and, pronto, you’ll have a big bowl of piping-hot sinigang served with the freshest vegetables. But to have it, you have to fish for your own fish in the tanks. No bait required. Just bite upon cooking. The sinigang is served in a palayok (earthen clay pot), steamy and a little spicy, perfect to ward away the blues brought about by rainy days.
In this 1,500-square-meter eating establishment dotted with tables and chairs for al fresco dining, you choose your own food to be cooked as you want. A stylized talipapa is the center of attraction, what with the freshest catch from the sea it has to offer. Here’s a quick rundown: tilapia from Batangas; lapu-lapu from Palawan; pampano from Bacolod; bangus from Pangasinan; tuna belly and tuna panga from GenSan; prawns and lobsters from Cebu; and crabs and seashells from Roxas City.
“What many people like about Taste Asia is that our kitchens are open, so they see how their food is being prepared. What they pay for is what they get,” says Arnold Daluz, assistant vice president for marketing of fresh and frozen division of SM Hypermarket. Taste Asia is an additional service of the hypermarket.
The kitchens Daluz is referring to are the ones operated by the six concessionaries of Taste Asia — Minette’s Inasal, Wok with Liu Kitchenette, Aling Naty’s Cabalen Sisig, Reyes Barbecue, Cuzina and Sizzling Plate. All kitchens open at 10 a.m. and close at 12 midnight; they can prepare the food Filipino, Chinese, Japanese, and Thai style as well as other styles of preparation.
“Though all food stalls offer their own specialties, their kitchens are open for those who want their orders from the wet market cooked for a minimal charge,” says Apet Mathay, business development manager of SM Hypermarket. So accessible are the kitchens to the customers that they are privy to the mongering activities of the cooks. (Mongering is the collective term for cleaning, gutting and filleting of the fish before cooking.)
The food from any of the kitchens is downright delightful, no pretensions in preparation. The crab chili garlic and tempura are divine representations of bounties from the sea turned into sumptuous creations by the resident cook of Wok with Liu Kitchenette.
The nylon shellfish are made into an epicurean pleasure when mixed with tausi at the kitchen of Cuzina. This kitchen truly does wonders, too, to bamboo shells, mussels, clams and oysters. Even if they are cooked under intense heat, these shellfish retain their juices so sweet you still taste the welcome tang of the sea.
It’s not all fish, shellfish and crabs at Taste Asia. Meat and poultry products are served, too. The T-bone steak at Sizzling Plate, done without frills, is simply to die for. The pork barbecue from the kitchen of Reyes Barbecue is so tender you can finish three sticks in one sitting. Minette’s chicken inasal looks plain and simple, yet one bite gives you a different sensation. And the sisig from Aling Naty’s kitchen sizzles; its spiciness teases and tickles your palate no end. No wonder this sisig is eaten by customers almost as quickly as it is served.
Dining here is like having a sumptuous meal in a turo-turo; only, this time, it’s done with style, and with class. Even if a wet market is present — there are also fruit and vegetable stands and a little corner where freshly squeezed juices are on stand by — Taste Asia also scores very high in the cleanliness department. The friendly waiters and cooks are an additional treat for they make you feel at home.
Diners can also enjoy their lunch or dinner at the two air-conditioned function rooms, which can each house 120 people. The al fresco dining can accommodate as many as 400. Taste Asia is a common venue for birthday parties, baptisms, seminars, product launches among other occasions. It is WiFi-ready and has, well, a good-sounding videoke machine.
Dining at Taste Asia is at once a feast for the senses. You hear the sizzling of garlic and onion being sautéed, and this sound blends well with the merriment of the customers waiting for their food to be served. The warmth and friendliness of familiar aromas emanating from the kitchens make you hungry all the more. What you smell is what you taste here, with flavors already bursting in your mouth. You’ll become so addicted to it that you will find yourself coming back for more in days to come.
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Taste Asia is located at the North Parking Bldg. of SM Mall of Asia, just outside SM Hypermarket. For inquiries, call Mario, Joel, Grace, or Kelly at 831-8054 local 124 or 0922-8550273.
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E-mail the author at bumbaki@yahoo.com.
