Adobo in Chicago

Long has the lament been about the lack of Filipino cuisine in the international gastronomic stage. In bursts and spurts Filipino restaurants have tried to make their marks in the capitals of the world, with different degrees of success.

Now a Chicago-based Filipina has set up kitchen in the Windy City, and from the look–and taste–of things is doing quite well, thank you. Jennifer Aranas, together with husband Cesar, opened Rambutan in the Wicker Park area of Chicago, and is introducing Chicago residents to the delights of tapa, lumpiang shanghai, kilawin, humba and yes, adobo.

Reviewed in last month’s Food & Wine magazine by Lisa Futterman, Rambutan presents Filipino food the traditional way, but "tweaked" into modern form. Chef Aranas, formerly an accountant, does an adobo, for example, with duck flavored with, among other things, pineapple and dates.

Among the restaurant’s best-selling dishes is beef tapa, marinated overnight in lime juice, sugar and peppers then seared in a cast iron pan. The tapa is served with good old sinangag and a curried eggplant dish made with Aranas’s own curry blend.

Aranas’s family originally hail from Cebu, but she grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. Abandoning the numbers of accountancy she enrolled in cooking school, then worked in various restaurants in California, specifically in the Napa Valley. After two years there she found her way back to Chicago and opened Rambutan. She is said to still consult her mother on recipes, on how things were done "back in the Philippines".

She offers Rambutan’s growing clientele with chic down-home food; kare-kare, pinakbet, pancit, turon are on the menu–you can’t get any closer to the pugon than that. Her mostly American patrons appreciate the "unique fusion of Latin and Asian flavors". Food & Wine notes: "In the current jumble of pan-Asian and nuevo-Latino fusion, Aranas’s sensible, solid home cooking stands out. Rambutan gives Americans a chance to sample a cuisine that has been missing from even the most cosmopolitan cities."