Let's Eat December Issue

LET'S EAT — December 2015

DEC E M B E R 201 5

W H AT ' S I N S I D E

I S S U E N O . 30

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MAX'S FRIED CHICKEN

WINGSTOP

FRANGO'S

DOWNTOWN COOKIES

ESSAYS

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EAT, DRINK & BE MERRY

WHITE CHRISTMAS

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LET'S EAT — December 2015

L E T 'S E A T

THE OPE NE R

ON T H E COV E R DON JAUCIAN Managing Editor

PATRICK DIOKNO Art Director

SPANKY HIZON ENRIQUEZ Writer

GABBY CANTERO Photographer

BERT SANTOS Photographer’s Assistant

ARIANNA LIM JANSEN MUSICO Contributing Writers

JL JAVIER We decided to do something very special just for this issue.

Collaborating with our favorite chefs should have been on the top of our to-do list long ago but we only finally got to do it this month. This holiday treat from Downtown Cookies is made especially for us and will be sold in their stores.

This issue also marks our collaboration with Max’s Restaurant, their fried chicken a staple in the Filipino table for many generations now. This month will be another busy season for Max’s where Filipinos longing for a taste of home will come and celebrate the holidays with their families.

Contributing Illustrator

LUCIEN DY TIOCO SVP for Sales & Marketing

ANNALYN DELGADO Editorial Assistant Let’s Eat is published by The Philippine Star 202 Roberto Oca St., Port Area, Manila For inquiries, call 5277901 local 132 or email letseat062013@gmail.com Facebook: facebook.com/LetsEatPhilStar Instagram: letseatph

Max’s Fried Chicken Photo by GABBY CANTERO

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LET'S EAT — December 2015

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ne of my favorite apps is “Timehop”, which dredges up everything I’ve ever posted on social media, and every morning, it sends me a notification to check out what I was up to—a year ago, or

FAMILY MATTERS

BY SPANKY HIZON ENRIQUEZ PHOTOS BY GABBY CANTERO

Just imagining that distinct “Sarap to the Bones” aroma of the freshly fried chicken makes my mouth water. I’m still enchanted. two, or three, or more. Ten days ago, on my birthday, Timehop reminded me that I posted this in 2013: “Birthday Lunch Tradition”. Location? Max’s Restaurant at SM San Lazaro. I scrolled down and I found out that the year before, I was there too in the very same branch, but for takeout.

I’m surprised when I’m reminded how often I enjoyed eating in Max’s Restaurant through the years, but it’s not surprising at all that I have a lot of memories about it on Facebook and Instagram. I have many pictures of the golden, glowing chicken; a macro photo of my favorite part (the butt!), reposts of their “chickenall-you-can” promos, or even a random beauty shot of the holy trinity of sauces: the bottles of banana ketchup, hot sauce, and Worcestershire. And every time I post something about Max’s Restaurant, guaranteed, it’ll get an inordinate number of “likes”, and comments such as “OMG I love/miss/need this” or “You’re making me hangry at 12mn!!!”

The restaurant is undoubtedly everyone’s favorite. For all of us, here and abroad, dining in Max’s Restaurant is always a special occasion. It’s something I still look forward to, and always have: I recall a wedding reception in 1990 at the original Greenbelt branch. A distinct

memory of devouring one whole spring chicken while having a solo dinner at the Ayala Center Cebu branch during a business trip in 2001. Nine years ago, I picked up my Germany-based Ninong Banjo at the NAIA, and he requested that we stop over at Max’s Restaurant in Greenhills for his fried chicken fix before heading home to Pampanga. Max’s turned 70 this year, but it’ll never get old.

Their fried chicken is firmly woven into the fabric of Filipino food culture.

For me, it’s an even more personal thing. One of my first memories is running around the vast grounds of the iconic restaurant on Scout Tuazon, playing hide and seek with my brother.

To my child’s eyes, that location, with its giant kalachuchi trees and ponds filled with brightly colored fish, was an enchanted forest. Max’s Restaurant has been my favorite for decades, it was my first favorite restaurant, and to this day, the thought of having lunch at Max’s Restaurant spontaneously spreads a wide smile across my face. Just imagining that distinct “Sarap to the Bones” aroma of the freshly fried chicken makes my mouth water. I’m still enchanted.

Recently, I had the chance to spend an afternoon with an old friend, Jim Fuentebella, and his first cousin, Carolyn Trota-Salud. They’re among the third generation now trailblazing bigger and bolder paths for their family’s beloved brand. We had a great time trading heartwarming stories about our respective Max’s Restaurant childhood memories, and I received a little history lesson on how it all began: in 1945, right after the Liberation of Manila, their grandmother, “Nanay Ruby” cooked American comfort food for the G.I.s who loved to chat with her loquacious uncle, “Lolo Imo”, Maximo Gimenez. Yes, he’s the “Max” the restaurant was named after, and she’s Ruby Trota, the lady who perfected the legendary fried chicken recipe that’s now served in more than 150 restaurants in the Philippines, 14 in North America, and 6 in the Middle East.

MAX’S RESTAURANT HAS BEEN MY FAVORITE FOR DECADES, IT WAS MY FIRST FAVORITE RESTAURANT, AND TO THIS DAY, THE THOUGHT OF HAVING LUNCH AT M A X ’ S R E S T A U R A N T S P O N T A N E O U S LY S P R E A D S A W I D E SMILE ACROSS MY FACE. 4

LET'S EAT — December 2015

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LET'S EAT — December 2015

THE RESTAURANT I S U N D O U B T E D LY EVERYONE’S FAVORITE. FOR ALL OF US, HERE AND ABROAD, DINING IN MAX’S RESTAURANT I S A LW A Y S A SPECIAL OCCASION. IT’S SOMETHING I STILL LOOK FORWARD TO, AND A LW A Y S H A V E .

Max’s Restaurant is so much more than Fried Chicken now.

The famous soft bread rolls first baked by Nanay Ruby in the 1960s are still very much around, and they have led directly to the establishment of the Max’s Corner Bakery, where a rich variety of home style baked goods are available to take home.

And this year, Max’s Group Inc. ventured into the hospitality business with the establishment of the Meranti, a hotel built to cater to balikbayans and foreign tourists, as well as the convention and staycation markets. It’s gorgeous, and distinctly Filipino, with furniture by Kenneth Cobonpue and Budji Layug. I’ve always said that dining at Max’s Restaurant feels like going home, and now, I literally can go home to Max’s Restaurant, since their Meranti is just across the iconic Scout Tuazon restaurant.

I made it a point to ask Jim to thank all his other siblings and cousins for me, because they brought two of my favorite U.S. treats to our country, Krispy Kreme and Jamba Juice. And then there’s their acquisition of Pancake House Inc., and with it, all these world class Filipino brands: Pancake House, Yellow Cab, Dencio’s, Teriyaki Boy, Sizzlin’ Steak, Kabisera, Le Coeur De France, Maple, and Singkit. It’s amazing how in touch their family is with the restaurants most beloved by Filipinos. And it’s even more amazing how many of these brands are now, literally, under one roof in their new food hall concept called “Let’s Eat”. I have to say… that’s a great choice for a name! The first one just opened at the corner of Rizal Drive and the Burgos Circle in the BGC, and the second, at the Ecoplaza on Pasong Tamo extension, debuts in December.

The House That Fried Chicken Built is now building more brands, and it just keeps on getting bigger and better.

And if all this seems like a love letter to my favorite restaurant, well, that’s because that’s exactly what it is. On behalf of us all, to our most loved restaurant, Happy 70th Birthday, Max’s!

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LET'S EAT — December 2015

LORD OF THE WINGS

BY SPANKY HIZON ENRIQUEZ PHOTO BY GABBY CANTERO

With over two billion chicken wings sold, Wingstop remains undisputed in its game 8

LET'S EAT — December 2015

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ruth in Advertising.” It’s a tenet that’s in danger of being lost in the clutter, deprioritized and marginalized, in this unfettered era of social media, unbound from the chains of advertising regulatory bodies. These days, anyone and everyone can be an expert or a critic just by posting their opinions online. Welcome to the brave new world or marketing, where it’s becoming more and more difficult to separate the chaff from the grain, most especially when it comes to restaurants. I’m more

THE LIP SMACKIN’ MANGO HABANERO WINGS REMIND ME OF THE WOMEN I LOVE MOST, SWEET BUT WITH A LOT OF HEAT wary now, knowing that even in my beloved food blogging community, the big PR agencies have descended en masse on the previously ignored bloggers, showering them with compliments and paying them for posts. Well, I can still tell which is paid and which isn’t, since I’m already familiar with the specific cadence and stylistic tics of their prose, but can the general public? That I

doubt very much.

The use of superlatives is the norm, and “No. 1” claims are commonplace. But there’s one ultimate critic that I trust most of all, and that’s none other than myself. I taste everything.

I bite into anything. I’m fearless and reckless in my quest, so that when I say that a particular food is “The Best”, I know, that—to the best of my ability, experience, and judgment—it really is.

Now let’s talk wings. Chicken Wings, to be specific. Now I’m no late bloomer to this trending food. Back in 1997, at the dawn of the internet era, one of the very first items I searched for was “buffalo wings”. The now commonplace bar chow was not available anywhere in the city 18 year ago so I had to make my own. Thanks to the brand new World Wide Web (a term now as archaic as the two search engines, HotBot and AltaVista, I loved using back then), I learned that all I needed was a lot of butter and Frank’s Red Hot sauce. So, I went to Landmark, which even back then had everything, and found a precious bottle of the sauce. I fried up a bunch of chicken wings, no flour please, and tossed them in the hot sauce and butter mixture.

Voila. Wings a la Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York!

It’s been almost two decades since my immersion into the

wonderful world of wings. I’ve seen the birth of a lot of local purveyors, and the invasion of the giant U.S. players. Honestly, most are good. But the really exceptional? The ones worth going back to, the ones that would satisfy even the most hardcore Super Bowl fan that devours wings by the pound?

Just a few. And after much introspection, I’m ready to say that as far as the best wings available in the Philippines go, and to be fair, let me qualify that by saying “so far”, the winner is: Wingstop.

The 21 year old chain, born in Texas and now with nine stores in Manila, has sold

over two billion wings. I can understand why. Their wings just soar with flavor. Somehow, their flavors steep themselves not just on the crisp skin, but infuse the tender meat underneath too. The Louisiana rub tastes like a Dorito chip.

The garlic parmesan should star in an Italian restaurant.

And the lip smackin’ mango habanero wings remind me of the women I love most, sweet but with a lot of heat!

At the entrance of the Wingstop in Glorietta is a sign that states that their mission is “To Serve the World with Flavor”. Truth in Advertising still exists after all.

Wingstop has nine locations including Alabang Town Center, Bonifacio Stopover, Estancia Mall, and Glorietta 2. Visit wingstop.comph for details.

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LET'S EAT — December 2015

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t’s been a banner year for food franchises opening in the Philippines. Every month, it seemed, a world famous restaurant was launched, an alphabet of imports: from Appleby’s to Buffalo Wild Wings to Coco Ichibanya to Din Tai Fung. All these restaurants coming in and investing here indicates that the global F&B powers that be realize that we’re a nation on a rapidly rising economic trajectory. Simply put, as consumers, we’re spending more on food than ever before, ergo, millions and millions of pesos in disposable income are now available for more luxurious and expensive food choices.

Now, the really exciting fact is this: in spite of the stiff competition from all the worldwide brands, home-grown restaurants are prospering too. For every American burger restaurant that opens, there’s an 8Cuts or a Sweet X proving that we’re at par. And in some cases, we’re even better. Barbecue, for instance, became the hottest trend of the year for local restaurants. Meat on the grill, meat in the smoker. Tambai started it all on the very last week of 2014, and Fat Daddy’s in Marikina got so famous so quickly, they’ve already opened a second branch in the BGC. Woody’s on Makati Avenue. is getting raves for their “so good you’ll slap your momma” Texas-style barbecue. Speaking of which, my favourite new restaurant of 2015? It’s literally a mom and pop BBQ operation: Frangos on Kamagong.

CATCHING FIRE

BY SPANKY HIZON ENRIQUEZ PHOTOS BY GABBY CANTERO

Frangos proves that a no-fuss approach on a grilled classic always works best

1 Frangos Butterfly-Cut Chicken 2 Portugese Seafood Rice 3 Piri Piri Shrimp

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LET'S EAT — December 2015

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Frangos is on the outskirts of the Makati CBD, close enough for lunch or a post nine-to-five repast for the corporate types working there, and a short walk for the residents of La Paz and San Antonio.

It’s owned by Don and Pia Renato, who met in Malate two decades ago, when that district had the coolest bar scene in the metro. Don ran the Verve Room and Pia’s parents had a Thai restaurant. So in a way, it was destiny. Twenty years on, the hipsters of the 1990s are married with children, and together with Pia’s brother Aldrin Mababangloob, and their culinary consultant Chef Jerome Valencia, they’re running the hippest barbecue joint in Metro Manila.

It’s the new restaurant I’ve been to most often this year and the one I recommend most to all my most discriminating food writer friends. The great thing is, every single one of them, those whose palates and opinions I trust the most, have likewise raved about this little Portuguese chicken barbecue restaurant that could.

Frangos is pretty simple, nothing fancy.

It’s just high quality poultry spatchcocked into a butterfly shape for quick and even cooking, deeply marinated using Don’s confidential blend of spices, perfectly grilled over charcoal, and served with a trio of Pia’s homemade sauces: a buttery

piri piri, chili garlic with a kick, and a creamy green harissa made from a cilantro and parsley blend.

There’s no need to be showy when something is this good. The secret of every successful restaurant is never complicated. Good food, good servings, good prices, good ambiance, and good service. Check all that, and we’ll come back. Again and again.

Frangos is located at 9595 Buma Building, Kamagong St., San Antonio, Makati. Visit facebook.com/frangos.inc or @frangos_ph on Instagram

FRANGOS IS THE NEW RESTAURANT I’VE BEEN TO MOST OFTEN THIS YEAR AND THE ONE I RECOMMEND MOST 11

LET'S EAT — December 2015

LOCAL EDITION

BY SPANKY HIZON ENRIQUEZ PHOTO BY GABBY CANTERO

In collaboration with Let’s Eat, Downtown Cookies crafts a special confection in time for the holidays— the ‘Bibingcookie’

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or Jana Berenguer, it’s all about breaking the rules: with the support of her mentor and business partner—her aunt, one of the country’s finest architects, Cookie Berenguer-Asuncion—she eschewed the corporate life and early this year, established Downtown Cookies (LGF Robinsons Magnolia; 09175615015; facebook.com/ downtowncookiesph). When the Let’s Eat team challenged her to create a one-of-a-kind Filipino dessert for this special Christmas issue, the 21-year old entrepreneur gamely said yes. A week later, she brought us something truly special and distinctly Filipino: a “Bibingcookie”, topped with kesong puti and itlog na maalat, baked on a banana leaf. It’s a cookie, it’s a bibingka, and magically and merrily, it combines the textures and tastes of both.

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LET'S EAT — December 2015

EAT, DRINK, AND BE MERRY

BY ARIANNA LIM ILLUSTRATION BY JL JAVIER

What comes after lavish Christmas feasts?

The dreaded holiday weight gain

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hristmas translates differently among different people. To a privileged few abroad, it might mean the rare opportunity to come home. To the profoundly misguided, it means rallying against a global coffee chain that supposedly butchered the holiday by way of deeply meaningless red cups. In my house, the main agenda of Christmas is coming together around food. The weeks that encompass the 25th of December and the first of January are, for the most part, an uncontested progression from one massive food fest to the next.

But all traditions are doomed to clash with evolving tastes eventually. In the case of Christmas, the adversary is the ideal body.

If you were to do a Google search of “Eating during Christmas,” it would take until page three to get past the links that guide you through “Holiday Eating Strategies” and “How to Enjoy Christmas and Keep Off the Kilos.” These will get you anywhere from sensible recipes to shameless tips on surviving December and still coming out skinny. Of course, in the interest of health, there’s a case to be made for watching what you shove into your mouth while you’re already in line for seconds. But there’s something worrisome and remotely morbid in denying yourself Christmas meals for the sole purpose of slipping on a bikini and still liking what you see.

Today we are constantly flooded by reminders to watch

our waistlines: sub white rice with brown rice, if you must have any rice at all; make time for the gym; rethink cupcakes, unless they’re sugar-free (read: pointless to anyone who isn’t diabetic). What we’re fed by the media—shout out here to the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, which, in a unique demonstration of cruelty, airs not long before the holidays—is only compounded by the way we treat people who don’t meet the “ideal” measurements.

Because it’s Christmas and at Christmas you tell the truth, I admit that I fall into the category of the fitness obsessed about 95 percent of the year— but the holidays are my adored exception. And it’s for that reason that I’ve never bought into the belief that Christmas is only intended for children. The gifts get fewer and the season’s tinsel fades to be replaced by realities of the adult variety, but the cheesy warmth that comes with sitting around good food with good people (token unsavory relatives aside) is something felt even by the harshest scrooge.

I grew up in a family that went to an average of five holiday gatherings a year, each with its own menu highlights.

To us, the Christmas season translates to the leche flan I believe only Manang Carmelita can do right, the other halves of

its eight egg yolks put to use in fluffy angel food cake. It means my sister’s signature lemon merengue pie, its white peaks expertly whipped and its sugary crests toasted to a perfect light brown.

It’s apple pie that I labor over every year, fighting the elements to roll out butter-based dough unfit for Philippine temperatures—all for the look of unadulterated satisfaction that takes over my lolo’s face at first spoonful.

He’ll cut a slice that my lola always says is too large, plop it onto a bowl of too much vanilla ice cream, and he’ll tell me that it’s delicious like always, even when I’ve burnt it.

It means strawberries brought in from Baguio the night before, plopped onto thick whipped cream and sprinkled with muscovado. Sometimes it means lechon, but only if you arrive at dinner early enough. And after everything, it can be a break from the ostentation in the form of my mom’s homemade chocolate chip pancakes and a cup of freshly brewed coffee. And if that means packing a couple of extra pounds, there’s always the 364 days of buffer time to lose them before next Christmas.

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LET'S EAT — December 2015

WHITE CHRISTMAS

BY JANSEN MUSICO ILLUSTRATED BY JL JAVIER

If you’re a ‘90s kid raised on Hollywood Holiday fare, you might have a different notion of what Christmas should look like

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anta wants his milk and cookies. It’s canon. You just don’t go leaving him a cup of tsokolate and a plate of mayonnaiseslathered pandesal with scraps of ham and expect him to visit your house on Christmas Eve. It just doesn’t work that way. But try telling your mom that when she’s forcing you to go to bed early so you can wake up in time for noche buena.

The thing about spending Christmases in Manila as a kid raised in the early

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‘90s is that you grow up with this image of what a perfect Christmas should be. It’s frenzied, festive, and most importantly, white, as in Caucasian.

You can blame Hollywood for that. There were idle days in December I spent bingeing on VHS movies rented out specifically for the break. These included The Santa Clause, The Muppet Christmas Carol, and my personal favorites, the two Home Alone films, which chronicled the

adventures of ten-year old Kevin McAllister, played by a then-cute and scrappy Macaulay Culkin.

In the second film, Kevin gets left behind in New York during the Christmas rush with nothing but hefty wads of cash and his dad’s credit card. He ends up checking into The Plaza Hotel and does something any self-respecting kid at that age could only dream of: order room service in the form of cheese pizza, candy, and a fully stocked ice cream buffet. Back then, our Christmas Eve dinners were primarily composed of processed holiday ham, champorado, and queso de bola. So imagine my childish frustration upon seeing Kevin’s lavish holiday spread.

It was bad enough we didn’t have snow in the tropics, but it was worse since no establishment delivered pizza on Christmas, or at least that’s what my folks wanted me to believe.

In The Muppet Christmas Carol, when Ebenezer Scrooge, played to perfection

by Sir Michael Caine, finally discovers the true meaning of Christmas, he goes all out to give the Cratchits an extravagant feast—a table lined with roast pork and stuffing, several bowls of bread and greens, treacle tarts and jelly with cream, and, at the center of the spread, a beautiful roast turkey. The meaning of the film and Christmas in general was obviously lost on me. All that time I was only thinking of how nice it must have been to enjoy the holidays like Mr. Scrooge and the rest of the Muppets, eating so much Christmas pudding and downing mugs of hot eggnog. I didn’t even have a clue what those were or what they tasted like, but they just sounded so proper for the occasion.

Perhaps it was the westernness of it all, this great British-American fantasy that fueled that thinking. I’ve outgrown it now, or at least I think so.

Spending these past few holidays out of the country has made me see that there is no ideal way to pig out on the holidays, no clear-cut set of elements that make the perfect Christmas feast.

That one time my family spent Christmas in China reminded me of that scene from A Christmas Story, when the Parkers had dinner at the Chop Suey Palace and giggled at the novelty of having Peking duck served to them in lieu of the traditional turkey. That scene may be incredibly racist in hindsight, but it does get to the point: It’s not about the food; it’s about the people you share Christmas with.

Although, let’s be real, the food does count.

The best Christmas salu-salos in our family are always home-cooked and potluck. My lola’s kare-kare and pansit with my dad’s caldereta, a steaming pot of sinigang with hot rice.

They may not be the normal smorgasbord of themed fruit pies, peppermint chocolate, or roast meat, but it’s our version of Christmas, and that’s all that matters.

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