MILLIE: Sundays are precious for me. It’s the only day I am able to catch up on my beauty sleep, tired after a long and stressful week. When my mom was alive, Sunday was family bonding time. I remember the Sunday family lunches at home or out-of-town picnics she would arrange, great excuses to get the family together. Nowadays, our Sunday get-togethers are rare and few. Blame it on the fact that my two sisters have to spend it bonding with their respective in-laws and both my brothers are busy at work. But last Sunday was special. I did not mind getting up early to lend support to my brother Ray who had joined a grilling competition at the Legazpi Sunday Market. His entry, “Beer Can Chicken,” won second place, but that’s getting ahead of the story.
KARLA: The competition was dubbed “First Grilla in Manila,” sponsored by PAGCOR and Tenderbites from Del Monte. The competition started out early in the morning and each of the seven teams was asked to present two grilled dishes. Each team was provided with a slab of 2.5 kilos of Angus beef from Tenderbites, five gallons of water and a P200 allowance for the teams to purchase ingredients from the Legazpi Sunday Market for their side dishes. It was a contest in which mostly professional chefs and culinary students came to compete. The contestants were judged from top to bottom at the grills. They were only allowed to have a total of three people on each team. Someone always kept a close eye on their every move and would warn the participants of their violations. A total of three hours was allotted for preparation and cooking time and the dishes had to be ready for judging by 11 a.m. But the whole contest was a judging period. The judges would go around from team to team checking on their mise en place and interviewing the participants about what they were preparing or the manner in which they were grilling their entries. The breakdown of the criteria for judging was presentation or visual appeal; originality or creativity; cleanliness; palatability (of course); flavor, which represented the largest chunk of the scoring percentage; and most importantly, barbecue correctness, as overseen by one of the judges, no less than the Adobo Queen, Nancy Reyes-Lumen.
As the contest progressed, a lot of shoppers and bystanders asked what Tito Ray was doing. For the spectators, it looked quite odd seeing a chicken on top of a can of beer and therefore, many questions were asked. Despite the pressure Tito Ray was under, competing against professional chefs and all, he took time to talk and explain to the people walking by and admiring his Beer Can Chicken. The “Legend of the Beer Can Chicken” goes that there once was a group of guys who wanted to include beer in their everyday activities… so they came up with the “Beer Can Chicken.” Why beer? Well, rumor has it that beer is the best ingredient for tenderizing. Compared to vinegar, citrus and wine, beer tenderizes meats and keeps the texture as is and makes the meat juicy. Taste-wise, it’s much easier using beer since the acids in vinegar, citrus or wine sometimes overwhelm the taste of the herbs and spices. Tito Ray seasons his chicken with herbs, spices and “secret ingredients” and uses only San Miguel beer products. This is because San Miguel Beer is one of the top 20 beer brands in the world and, of course, it’s no. 1 in the Philippines. He says his objective is to create international barbecue flavoring techniques and “Filipinize” them. Tito Ray may not be a chef but he’s a “master griller” and definitely a “charcoal fanatic.”
MILLIE: Ray was forced to retire a year and a half ago and since then, has spent a lot of time fishing and hunting for adventure. He discovered late in life that cooking was in his genes. He wanted to develop a product that would surpass common barbecue tastes. So he looked at international flavors and techniques and tried to adapt these to Filipino flavors, until he came up with his own unique product. But success did not come easily; he researched, experimented and went through a lengthy trial-and-error process. We had our fill of burned barbecue when he was starting out. His family would sit and eat whatever he was working on and offer constructive criticism. But Ray was persistent, and eventually they gave their seal of approval. He painstakingly worked hard every Sunday, braving the scorching heat of the sun and his charcoal griller. His wife Teeter would attend to customer orders while his youngest son Robbie acted as the cashier. But it was gratifying for Ray to meet Sunday market-goers who would try his barbecue and actually return the next week, a sign that his cooking held promise. Chef Ester de Leon, who has tried most of his barbecue flavors, gave him a big boost. So did PAGCOR president Butch Francisco, who encouraged him by buying from him every Sunday. This gave him the confidence and strength to persevere.
Winning the competition was like the icing on the cake. Competition was tough as all the participants were either professional chefs or culinary students. Ray was a neophyte in this respect, but as a third-generation restaurateur at heart, one can only conclude that barbecue is “in his blood”!
My dad is especially happy and proud of Ray’s smoking success and we hope and pray this will jumpstart something big in the future. We all wish him continued success in his endeavors!
For orders and inquiries, you may contact Ski Ray BBQ & Grill through Raymund A. Reyes (727-1709) or 0917-6277635. Visit http://www.skiraysbbq.com. Or visit him at the Legazpi Sunday Market from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
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Send e-mail to milliereyes.foodforthought@gmail.com and karla@swizzlemobilebar.com. Find us on Facebook: Food for Thought by Millie & Karla Reyes.