Tantalizing the senses in Davao

Dako buli!" The squeals and laughter of children float across the market stalls like melodies heralding the arrival of a big, smiling chef named Ed Quimson. A plump lady emerges from her fish stall to give him a whack on his behind which, admittedly, is so wide that there’s only about an inch or two of space between it and the wet, tiled counters.

"Mmmmm," she guffaws, as if to say, "There!" Manang Fay simply can’t resist. And Ed, game as ever, flashes her his trademark, almost-toothless smile. The executive chef and part owner of Makati’s restaurant Rastro is in town for a food festival. With Joseph Ong of Via Mare Oyster Bar and this writer following closely behind, he waddles through the stalls with no particular destination, picking up anything and everything that catches his eye. First buy is a fistful of glistening guso seaweed, lime-green tentacles translucent in the light of this hot, early morning in Davao’s Agdao market.

Next in the basket is a bundle of curly pako for P4, followed by a bag of peeled sampaloc for P10 and a couple of heads of shaved buko which go for P10 each. Ed takes a fingerful of the sampaloc and puts it in his mouth, squinting his eyes and wrinkling his entire face a second later. "Asim!"

As we walk through the market, he shares his frame of mind: "I’m thinking about what I can prepare." We stop by a particularly colorful stall selling aqua and purple blue parrot fish, spotted brown eels and red-pink tembongan fish. "If it curls, it’s freshly caught," he says. But what really catches his attention are the clams.

A master paella maker, he buys a kilo each of the eight different varieties of clam available locally: kepe kepe, bagongon soso, halaan, balinsaha, embaw, toawy toway and baklo-ay. Brown-shelled and still alive, they gleam on the inside, succulent and inviting.

Coming across a fish he’s never seen before, he gives in to the draw of the unknown bagis. "I’ll try brushing it with a marinade of calamansi and oyster sauce, sugar and sili, then make it ihaw."

A few hours later in the kitchen of the Marco Polo Hotel, he realizes his fantasy dishes. Steaming the clams, he pours the broth into a pot full of onions in olive oil and butter. The heady mixture tastes like the sea, making for a paella sauce that complements the sweet taste of the clams and captivates the spirit.

His other creations for the day: Alamang sauteed in sliced garlic, ginger, pepper, sili, yellow tomato, whole kalamansi fruits and white wine. Pagi or stingray filleted and grilled in a marinade of oyster sauce, kalamansi, pepper, sugar and sili. And a dish he’s been hankering for since we left Manila on the 5 a.m. flight: inihaw na baboy with cubes of tuna sashimi, slices of fresh buko meat, coconut water reduction, gata, soy sauce, guso seaweed and plenty of sili.

"If this doesn’t taste good, I’ll start dating women again!" kids Ed before we dig in. The results are divine. He can stick with the men.

For dinner, we head for Luz Kinilaw. We begin the meal with spoonfuls of creamy native durian. For Ed and I, it is a rediscovery of a once-overpowering fruit. Tonight it is enticing, a welcome way to awake our senses and prepare our tongues for what’s to come. Next comes a rather disappointing inihaw na panga, which Ed and Joseph deem too dry. The kinilaw passes the grade for Ed’s best friend Mark Cancio and I, but the chefs are not satisfied.

We get in the car and drive straight to another restaurant, Ahfat. Looking longingly into the aquariums, Ed orders five different kinds of shellfish and a fish called pigik. We are treated to juicy, melt-in-your mouth morsels of slipper lobster in sesame oil, onion leeks and ginger; fresh scallops, red lobster and clams steamed in garlic; pigik is steamed in soy sauce and garlic; and tipay, a shellfish resembling a finer version of abalone steamed in garlic and with fresh scallions sprinkled abundantly on top.

Back in Manila after my trip with the chefs, I find myself facing a bowl of steaming molo – my favorite – completely appetite-less for the first time in days. This is my first meal without them and already, things are different. My tastebuds seem to reject anything that doesn’t tantalize the senses. It’s a whole new approach to life. And I’m all the happier for it.

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Ed Quimson and Joseph Ong are guest chefs of the Spanish food festival marking Spanish National Day in Davao’s Marco Polo Hotel until today, Oct. 13.