High-end Filipino cuisine introduced to the food-and-wine-centric Napa Valley

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Mathew and Jade Cunningham open Napa Valley's first Filipino restaurant.

REVIEW

A mixture of curiosity and excitement got the best of me: What happens when a classically-trained chef cooks Filipino food?

For the answer, I made the trek to the Napa Valley, California, home of best wines in the country and the center of some an increasing number of James Beard quality restaurants. My visit to Carabao Eatery, a restaurant that opened recently featuring Filipino-inspired cuisine.

Carabao, breaks new ground as Napa Valley's first Filipino restaurant. It is owned by French Laundry alums Jade and Mathew Cunningham. Jade Cunningham, born in the Philippines, trained at the Michelin-starred French Laundry (several minutes drive away) and you can see how their time there has influenced the restaurant's modern take on Filipino cuisine. 

A word of caution: Don't expect to find dishes like your lola made. Carabao is not a carinderia or turo-turo (point-point). Carabalo's mission is not to replicate those time-honored and nostalgic plates but to present them in a way that is worthy of a five-star restaurant, with fine ingredients and by so doing, make them new again.

Don't get me wrong. The Filipino flavor profile is still there, evoking those same familiar tastes of lola's kitchen, but the lessons learned at the French Laundry carry over to Carabao's dishes in a new way with perhaps different elements than lola is used to.

Take my favorite dish, for example - dinaguan, an ultra-savory pork stew with pig's blood, vinegar and chili. Just hearing that might be off-putting for those unfamiliar with the dish but put those cultural biases aside for a real treat. You'll be talking about it for days.

In Carabao's version, a slice of lechon kawili (crispy pork belly) is used instead of the usual chunks of pork shoulder. It is sliced and topped with colorful edible flowers and thin slices crispy pig skin. This meaty element is ten placed in a bowl of cooked pig's blood that in my mind, was a good as my mom's homecooked recipe. I had to use my spoon to get all of the remaining dark, savory sauce. It is accompanied with garlic rice. This dish can be shared for two.

Carabao''s dinaguan, deeply surprising yet satisfying.

Another pleasant surprise was the adobo deviled egg. You may be familiar with the taste of adobo (soy sauce, vinegar, chicken stock and garlic) and you must have had a creamy deviled egg. You would think the combination would be improbable, but Carabao makes it work. It was delicious.

We also shared the Kinilaw, fish with chilled citrus cured sliced hamachi with smoked coconut cream, pickled red onion gel and calamansi (a cross of a lemon, orange and lime)  vinaigrette, which helped familiarize and open the palate for the flavors to come.

Tortang Talong, stuffed eggplant.

Filipino cuisine is often criticized by non-Filipinos  for being too meat-centric. The vegetable dishes are there. You just have to know what to order beyond the more familiar adobo and pancit. For us, we tried the Tortang Talong,stuffed charred eggplant, marinated cherry tomato and smoked coconut bechamel. Cooked over an open grill gives it an added smoky flavor. This a great example of using French technique with Filipino ingredients.

Leave room for dessert. Carabao's overall excellence and innovation extended to dessert where the halo-halo and mango tort with mango sorbet were standouts. Serving the hallo-halo in a bowl instead of tall glass makes it easiser to mix all the ingredientw and to share.

There is a bar and I was tempted but I reallly wanted to have the calamansi juice. Calamansi is a small citrus, a cross between a lime, lemon and orange. It made for an ideal refresher and palate cleanser between the exotic flavors of the other dishes. 

In summary, Carabao presents Filipino food in innovative ways that offers excellent Filipino cuisine in a casual atmosphere. The young multi-racial servers are attentive without being overbearing and are more than eagar to share their knowledge of the dishes, which may be unfamiliar to some.

ED DIOKNO

Refreshing halo-halo tops off the Filipino cuisine of Carabao Eatery.

Other reviewers praised the kare-kare, a meat based stew with vegetables and peanut sauce, and sigsig, pork, citrus, onion, chili peppers topped with a fried egg. These are dishes that merit a revisit. Also, just because the Filipino dishes have humble origins, don't expect lola-style prices either.

Some advice: Order dishes to share. Instead of having one after another,  order them together so you can compare, praise and recall those sensory memories of nanay's kitchen. Eating, sharing stories, comparing, praising, savoring, being present and communing wth each other is the Filipino way. Mealtime is a time for connecting with each other and not just an energy boost.

The eatery takes its name from the the hard working, dependable and silent water buffalo used throughout the Philippines for plowing rice fields, hauling cartloads of goods and people. It symbolizes resilience, a connection to the land and Filipino hospitality.

With only 12 tables, the restaurant was crowded from the moment it opened its doors for dinner. The room has a airy light-filled tropical ambiance without resorting to the cliche's. (No rattan furniture here.) In the two months since it opened, they have served 4,500 diners, but, sadly, have had to turn away 5,000 walk-ins. Presently, Carabao is open for dinner only. Reservations are a must.

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Carabao is a welcome addition to the wave of Filipino American fine-dining restaurants in Seattle, San Francisco, Southern California, Hawaii and New York making Philippine cuisine more accessible to the diverse American clientele. 

The trend is led by Chicago's Kasama, the first Filipino American restaurant to earn  a Michelin star (but, probably not the last). On the verge of discovery are extraordinary FilAm chefs like the Cunninghams, Tim Flores, Nicole Ponseco and Lord Maynard Lara , who are redefining and refining what Filipino cuisine is and can be. At the same time, the customer base of Filipino Americans are more adventurous and accepting of food that goes beyond the boundaries of lola's comforting creations.

The combination creates a simmering stew of expectations and fulfilling the prediction of the late Anthony Bourdain that  Filipino food deserves a place in the American food scene.

I estimate that 85% of Carabao's clientele were Filipino Americans, which says a lot about the FilAms in northern California, hungry not only for flavors and memories of the motherland but also hopeful to support businesses like Carabao because acceptance of one's food opens thte doors to the entire often-misunderstood and underestimated culture of the Philippines.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news, views and chismis from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X or at the blog Views From the Edge. Now on BlueSky.