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The following featured dishes are not necessarily on the menu of Kabila.
Let’s eat!
Food writer and regional cuisine expert
Michaela Fenix guides us through a number of the
country’s favorite family-style eats
Pinoy
kitchen
specials
C E L E B R A T I O N T I M E
REGION TO REGION
specials —
Filipino heritage dishes from north
to south — show the richness and
variety of its cooking.
On special occasions, the Filipino
table often gives a glimpse of the
country’s history and the many
foreign influences that remain. There
are dishes with Spanish names,
American salads and desserts,
Japanese sushi appetizers and
Chinese noodles. But what makes
each table different from place
to place are the local specialties,
heritage dishes that are indigenous
to the place, quite distinctive and
proudly regional.
To put together this visual feast of
a feature, we asked chef Kalel Chan
of the newly opened Pinoy specialty
restaurant Kabila (
Museum Café,
Ayala Museum Complex, Makati
Avenue, Makati City; tel: +63 2
757 3000
)
to whip up 10 delicious
celebration dishes from different parts
of the Philippines. While developing
Kabila’s menu, Kalel had traveled
the entire country, going from north
to south, researching the best local
ingredients and recipes. Scouring the
country opened Kalel up to regional
ways of cooking and helped him
better understand how we like to
eat. Kabila specializes in fresh and
simple Filipino flavors. After all,
the traditional table — hinting at
local preferences, whether flavor,
ingredient or cooking procedure
—
is one of the best ways of
understanding our own culture in all
its interesting diversity. This holiday
season, we give you a tasty sampler.
Photographs by Anna Manlapas of AdPhoto
Styling by Tata Mapa
