REVIEW: 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.

        RELATED: Filipino cuisine is the Rodney Dangerfield of Asian food scene

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.

Olympian Natalie Coughlin: Fried rice & eggs breakfast of champions

Breakfast of champions: Fried rice, kale, topped with eggs with soft yolks.

So the secret is out. Olympic champion Natalie Coughlin draws on her Filipina grandmother for inspiration when she eats breakfast before a swimming meet -- fried rice, veggies with an egg on top.

Filipinos are familiar with the silog breakfast: tapsilog, longsilog, spamsilog or any variation with meat and/or vegitables mixed in with fried rice with an fried egg on top. Some say the silog recipe was the inspiration for the popular Hawaiian breakfast, the loco moco.

Coughlin, who has won more swimming medals than any other Olympian not named Michael Phelps, may have ended her days of competitive swimming but she is being kept busy taking care of her infant daughter, tending her home garden and cooking.

On the Today Show Tuesday, Coughlin demonstrated how to make her grandmother's lumpia and her favorite breakfast.

WATCH Natalie Coughlin cook lumpia and breakfast of champions

She also has come out with a new cookbook, "Cook To Thrive," a healthy twist to traditional recipes.

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TGIF Feature: Asian cuisine is 'iconic' San Francisco food

REGULAR READERS of 'Views' know I love food: looking at it, cooking it, but most of all, eating it.

Time Out: San Francisco featured an article Wednesday (May 23) headlined "10 Iconic Dishes to Eat Like A Local in San Francisco."

There it was, it listed Filipino food, for someone who wanted to taste the real San Francisco Treat. For a cuisine that doesn't get as much recognition as it should, to be listed as one of the City's iconic dishes is a big deal.

I reprinted the short write-up below to include the links to some of the places it recommends.

Filipino Food: 

Filipino food is as integral to the Bay Area as our many other Asian cultures and cuisines. Daly City is ground zero, lined with Filipino bakeries, while SF offers mainstays like Masalaor 1608 Bistro. Pinoy Heritage‘s pop-ups offer some of the best Filipino food around, perfecting classics like pancit or sisig. Beloved Filipino food trucks line blocks, including The Sarap Shop and Jeepsilog, but the most famous is Senor Sisig which has been featured on numerous TV shows, popularizing sisig tacos, burritos and fries.  

Where to get it: Pinoy Heritage; Senor Sisig

If you're in San Francisco, give Filipino cuisine a try. 

The article also mentions: Dim sum at Yank Sing (but, there are plenty of other restaurants that offer dim sum in San Francisco. Tip: Not necessarily in old Chinatown.) and sushi.

There was also a nod to the growing appreciation of Burmese cuisine:

Tea Leaf Salad

Always the trendesetter, SF has been nomshing on Burmese food, one of the rarest cuisines in the U.S., for more than 30 years. (NYC recently got their only Burmese restaurant.) Since 1992, Burma Superstar’s original SF location has converted fans to the delights of Burmese food and tea leaf salad. From family-run Burmese Kitchen to hip Burma Love, SF houses many Burmese destinations. Our favorite is Mandalay, which is truly OG since 1984.

Where to get it: Mandalay

Asian cuisine definitely has had an impact on the food scene in the City by the Bay, whether it be through fusion or the real deals. Even chefs of other cuisines have noted the flavor popping effects of soy sauce or fish sauce.

Tourists always are struck by the "diversity" of the City. I think what they really mean (especially if they are from the Eastern Seaboard or the Midwest) when they say that is: "There's a whole lot of Asians around here." Indeed, AAPI peoples make up a good portion of the City. Walking down Market Street, the city's main thoroughfare, it might look like a cosmopolitan Asian metropolis with a half-dozen Asian languages being spoken by passersby and the smells of dozens of cuisines wafting out of kitchens and food trucks.

That diversity extends to the food. If you see a group of people lining up for one of the brick and mortar restaurants or a food truck, get in it for a real culinary adventure.

RELATED:

• Filipino food: the Rodney Dangerfield of ethnic cuisine
• Adobo and lumpia in the White House

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SUNDAY READ: Documentary on Filipino food will have its world premiere at SF Int'l Film Festival, April 7

KIDLAT ENTERTAINTMENT

The chefs at Lasa in Los Angeles, featured in 'Ulam,' have received rave reviews from food critics and the public.

THREE OF MY FAVORITE THINGS that start with "F" -- films, food and Filipinos -- combine at the world premiere of Ulam: Main Dish, a documentary by Filipino/American filmmakers about the cuisine that is making its belated mark in the culinary world.

I can barely contain my excitement.


Ulam: Main Dish, a documentary about Filipino food, will have its world premiere April 7 as part of the San Francisco International Film Festival, which begins April 4 and run throughl April 17.

“'Ulam' means main dish in Tagalog," explains director Alexandra Cuerdo. "This film truly strives to examine the 'main dish' — not only by highlighting the hallmarks of modern Filipino cuisine, but also by telling the stories of those that create it. Through pioneering Filipino-American chefs and restaurateurs, we discuss the issues inherent in the Fil-Am crossover; also, we celebrate the newfound success of the thriving culinary community that is the Filipino food movement." 

Food is so central to Filipino and Filipino/American culture. When someone enters a Filipino home, instead of the expected greeting of "How are you?" the question is more likely, "Have you eaten?"

RELATED: Filipino food the Rodney Dangerfield of ethnic cuisine

The film centers on the honest struggle for authenticity and respect for a cuisine often marginalized by the food world. Deploying rousing interviews with owners, restaurateurs, top chefs, as well as mouth-watering dishes placed front and center, California filmmaker Cuerdo follows the heartaches and triumphs of contemporary Filipino/American chefs who seek a place for their culture at the dinner table, one dish at a time.

Rene and Alexandra Cuerdo, producers of the documentary, are father and daughter. "My dad and I have a really interesting relationship. He's not just my dad — for my whole life, he's been a career mentor," said Alexandra. "We often talk about film, ideas and projects we’re working on. 

"One day, he mentioned an idea that he and his college friend, Paul, had discussed: what about doing a Filipino food documentary? For various reasons, it never got off the ground. But that idea stuck with me. I have always wanted to tell stories that reflect my identity, and being Filipino/American is a huge part of that."

KIDLAT ENTERNTAINMENT 

'Ulam/ coproducers, Rey and Alexandra Cuerdo, right.

Television celebrities Andrew Zimmerman and Anthony Bourdain have predicted Filipino cuisine as "the next big thing," for several years. But it wasn't until Filipino chefs began opening up their own restaurants in the last few years so that foodies have become familiar with the Filipino food palate of sweet, sour, salty, savory that dishes of adobo, singang, kare kare and that exotic purple ube ice cream that made fans of the foodies, gastronomical adventurers and culinary critics.

The fact that Filipino cuisine is (at long last) having a moment in America's food consciousness -- is a metaphor for the Filipino/American search for identity and a place in the American cultural milieu.

"Ultimately, we strive to document personal stories, which inform the way we think about food in the context of our own lives," says Cuerdo. 

"In Ulam, our subjects and our food are vehicles for further discussion. Food is our history, and the history of the Filipino people is complex. Filipino food and its ability to succeed is also a window into our future — and we must discuss what divides us, to find what unites us. If we are to celebrate Filipino food, and be respected as a people, we must dig deep into what makes us, and examine the future we want to create."

(Ulam: Main Dish will be presented by the SF International Film Festival 4:30 p.m. April 7 at Dolby Cinema, 1275 Market St.; 4:30 p.m. April 8 and 3:30 p.m. April 10 at Children's Creativity Museum, 221 Fourth St.)
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How to make Gordon Ramsey's Filipino-inspired hamburger

Gordon Ramsay, left, and Maura Hohman on 'Good Morning, America,'

CELEBRITY CHEF Gordon Ramsey had a taste of a Filipino hamburger on Good Morning America last week and loved it.

He was on ABC's morning talk show as a promotion for his new series The 'F' Word, which debuted May 31 on Fox, and he was tasked to pick between two hamburgers. One bite of each and it didn't take long for him to picke the Filipino -inspired burger over the chorizo burger. 

The Filipino-inspired burger, prepared by Maura Hohman was called “Pork Adobo Burger.” Hohman briefly discussed how she made the burger, by adding “quintessential adobo flavors which are vinegar, soy sauce, bay leaf, and garlic.”

Asked to comment on the burger, Ramsay said “It was seasoned beautifully. The bun, it’s a traditional Filipino bread (pan de sal).” After trying the two burgers, without heistitation, the temperamental Ramsay chose the Filipino-inspired burger as the winner of the burger cookoff. “I’m gonna go with the Filipino one,” ended Ramsay.

RELATED:

• Filipino food: the Rodney Dangerfield of ethnic cuisine
• Adobo and lumpia in the White House

Before we start talking about cultural appropriation, -- Hohman is not of Filipino descent -- this is not a Filipino dish. Hamburgers are American as apple pie. What makes it different is the use of Filipino ingredients. She at least gave credit where credit is due.
"Fusion" dishes have been around since Marco Polo introduced Chinese noodles to Italians and we know what that led to. 

Filipino cuisine is, in some ways, the predecessor of the fusion food movement. The Philippines' indigenous palate over the centuries has been influenced by the taste sets of China, Japan, Malay, India, Spain and America.

It's clear that Filipino food in all its connotations is having a moment in the American foodie scene. Ethnic cuisine has always been the gateway to other aspects of the immigrant communities and despite being the first historically recorded Asians to touch North America since 1587, Filipino food is finally receiving some attention.

Does anybody know where we can get the Pork Adobo Burger in the San Francisco Bay Area?

If you're comfortable in the kitche, you can also make it on your own:

Pork Adobo Burger

Ingredients:

For the patty

• ground beef 
• chopped bacon 
• salt 
• pepper 

For the adobo sauce

• soy sauce 
• vinegar 
• garlic 
• onion 
• bayleaf 
• pepper 

For the bun

Freshly baked pan de sal from your neighborhood Filipino bakery. (Hawaiian sweet bread might be used as a substitute, but it ain't the same.) 

Procedure

1. Combine chopped bacon and ground beef, and shape into a patty of your desired size. We recommend making one inch-thick patties.
2. Heat a pan with vegetable or canola oil over medium to high heat. Sear the patty for 3-4 minutes per side.
3. Season the patty with salt and pepper.
4. Slice pan de sal in half, and toast each piece.
5. Place a bed lettuce and tomato onion on the burger.
6. Top your burger with the adobo sauce.

For the adobo sauce:

1. In a bowl, mix soy sauce, vinegar, bayleaf and pepper corn.
2. Heat pan with oil to medium heat. Sauté garlic and onion.
3. Add the liquid mixture to the pan, and stir until reduced.

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Filipina American wins prestigious award for promoting healthy food

A FILIPINA AMERICAN healthy food advocate was named the winner of the 2016 Thomas I. Yamashita Prize.

Aileen Suzara, 31, is a Bay Area-based natural chef who focuses on sustainable foods and who works to encourage healthier eating by teaching garden and farm-based workshops, developing sustainability educational programs, and hosting community pop-up dinners. 

Aileen Suzara

The Thomas I. Yamashita Prize is awarded annually to an outstanding young social change activist in California. The award of $2,500 honors a person whose work transforms the existing social landscape - often in subtle and previously unappreciated ways - and serves as a bridge between the academy and the community. 

She is an alumnus of UC Santa Cruz’s Farm and Garden Agroecology Apprenticeship program, and recently received her Master’s in Public Health Nutrition from UC Berkeley. 

Suzara's blog, Kitchen Kwento (Tagalog for "stories"), documents and shares stories on the relationship between food, people, and the land. Aileen is a first generation Filipino American who grew up in California and Hawaii. 

"I had a semi-nomadic childhood — born in eastern Washington, then moved on to Texas, Florida, and the Mojave Desert. We ate more canned minestrone soup, Spam and microwave dinners than “authentic” Filipino food in those days," she told Off The Menu: Asian America.

"When I was eight, I found the old Filipino cookbook my mom had brought [to the U.S.] in the ’60s that became both a passport and talisman to Filipino food. It was when we moved to Hawai’i that we were at last surrounded by a local culture defined by its relationships to food—a place flavored by many cultures, including Filipino cuisine and agricultural history.

In 2014-15 Aileen was a graduate student researcher at the Berkeley Food Institute and took a leadership role in their community engagement program, which aims to build bridges between UC Berkeley and the broader food and agriculture community.

As a public health nutritionist, she delves into health inequities faced by Filipino/Americans, including diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease. Healthy Filipino food might sound like an oxymoron and some may call Suzara's recipes "inauthentic," she replies:

"Authenticity is a word that comes up often in questions about food. But it’s a slippery term, as culture is constantly changing. At the root, all traditional food cultures are largely 'healthy.' And Filipino cuisine, at its roots, reflects a complex relationship with land, sea and seasons. While this is a vastly abridged and simplified history, we are all caught in a story that the public health world identifies as the “nutrition transition”—a rise in chronic disease and a marked shift away from traditional diets and lifestyles. To cook something closer to precolonial, or using what’s available to us even in the States—how do we channel that authentically today?"

Collaborating with Filipino Advocates for Justice (FAJ), Aileen supported the launch of Bahay Kubo, a garden in Union City, California that builds upon FAJ's youth leadership model with hands-on experiences in growing and sharing healthy Filipino food. In 2015, the project placed first in the Big Ideas@Berkeley competition.

She is an advisory member to the Filipino American Coalition for Environmental Solidarity and an eco-culinary educator with Sama Sama Cooperative, which works to "reclaim language, culture, and land-based traditions." Another recent endeavor was launching a youth-run kitchen site for the Ceres Community Project.

She is hard at work on Sariwa (Fresh), a sustainable Filipino foods business that connects traditionally-inspired diets and entrepreneurship as a tool for change. Developed as a pop-up restaurant at Berkeley's Eat.Think.Design health innovations course, Sariwa is now a proud participant in the La Cocina women's food incubator. 

Suzara will be feted  by the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues on Oct. 31 on the UC Berkeley campus. For details, click here.

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Savor Filipino returns, Oct. 15; a celebration of Filipino food

THE FOOD magazine Bon Appetit wrote in a recent article that Filipino cuisine is "having a moment." In that article it named Washington D.C.'s Bad Saint , a restaurant serving Filipino food, as one of the best new restaurants in the country.

Across the country, food trucks selling Filipino street food, are attracting long lines of foodies of all ethnicities.

It has been two years since Savor Filipino was first launched in San Francisco and the food scene has changed. The cuisine of the Philippines is finally attracting the attention usually given to other ethnic food. To the delight of food lovers, Savor Filipino, a food celebration organized by the Filipino Food Movement, has returned -- but it will be a bit different this year.

It is being held on Oct. 15. That's the first change. In 20f4, it was held in June to commemorate Philippine Independence Day. This year, it becomes part of Filipino American History Month.


The first time round, Savor Filipino was a bit overwhelmed when 30,000 people showed up at their venue in an open air plaza on The Embarcadero in San Francisco. This year, it will be held in a controlled environment with limited space. It will be at The Overlook Lounge in Oakland, across the bay from San Francisco.

"We learned some big lessons in 2014," said P.J. Quesada, one of the organizers. "We wanted to go big, and we definitely did. This year, we are focusing on how to create a more sustainable event. Since we are all volunteer run, 30,000 patrons will overwhelm even our devoted team! We are focusing on having the best possible experience, and so we are targeting around 1400 guests for our 2016 event."

RELATED: 

• Filipino food: the Rodney Dangerfield of ethnic cuisines
• Savor Filipino 2014 in San Francisco
• Filipino food gaining fans on both coasts

Two years ago, it was a relatively inexpensive affair but this year, it is going to cost more to sample the delicious dishes cooked up by the chefs. "These prices reflect the true cost of executing our vision of Filipino cuisine with as few compromises as possible," says Quesada.

"Like our 2014 event, we are curating the entire experience, and chefs will be focused on presenting themselves to the crowd. We enable them to make their dish in the way they envision it to be - which means that guests will be getting a different experience than a traditional food festival.

Attendees will be able to taste unique and delicious dishes native to the Philippines as it is interpreted by some of today's top culinary talent.  The chefs come from across the nation - from Boston to Hawaii. 

The Savor Filipino Day menu, served from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m., includes 10 unique tastings including Popcorn Chicken Sinigang, Pork Belly Adobo Congee, Dueling Fish Relleno, and a Mango Panna Cotta with Coconut foam.  

At 7 p.m., the evening continues into the Buksan Dinner (ticketed separately) with another 5 Chefs each presenting their own dish and paired with drinks. Here is the menu. 

For tickets, click here.

Despite the changes, the main focus is still to promote Philippine cuisine.  "Our theme this year is BUKSAN: to open or unlock," says Quesada. "I interpret that as how we can shine a spotlight on the potential of Filipino cuisine, and its oft misunderstood historic influences."

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