Bad Saint has received a lot of phenomenal press coverage in the past 3 years since it opened. Reviews often begin with the no reservation policy and the often several hour long wait on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant for a seat. But we weren’t going blind. Isabel, our daughter, had already been 3 or so times, once to take photos for a published review of the restaurant and where she had a chance to taste just about everything on the menu. And she said, “Dad, it’s worth the wait”… so line up on our last afternoon in Washington, D.C., we did. Bad Saint refers to St. Malo, and area of Louisiana where Filipinos who jumped boat (the earliest TNT adventurers) from their galleons in the 17-1800’s took refuge and presumably started to cook Filipino food. The first immigrants… I think it is a BRILLIANT name for a Filipino restaurant in the U.S.

You can tell who the regulars are, they come armed with portable seats, novels, tablets. We had shopping bags instead, to sit on the pavement while we wondered what was on the menu for dinner… The wait wasn’t so bad. But a quick tip for MM readers… just send one person to line up and have your friends come 10 minutes before opening… that’s what lots of other folks did. If you aren’t ion the first 8-10 people in line, you may have to wait even longer for a seat after opening. With just two dozen seats or so, and maybe just 2-3 tables for 4, Bad Saint can’t accommodate too many people at one seating. Maximum group size is 4 people.

A few groups were ahead of us, so we ended in four seats facing out the front windows of the restaurant. The place is tiny, but don’t dwell on the interiors, just focus on the food. The menu listed only 9 dishes that evening + one special. Out of ten dishes, we ordered 7 and the Chef Tom Cunanan sent out another 2, so needless to say, we had 90% of the dishes in that one visit. A bit of backstory, I think one of the owners Genevieve Villamora and Chef Tom were aware, had visited, followed? marketmanila.com and had spotted us in line so we have to be grateful for the extra nice welcome which was like meeting up with old friends, though we had only met them face to face this one time. Genevieve was a gracious host, and well, Tom made sure the dishes sent out of the kitchen aimed to please…

To start off this post-graduation family celebration, Isabel ordered the “Tang” cocktail, a cheeky, nostalgic 60’s to 80’s taste profile that was amusing in name, but surprisingly adult and tasty to the palate… Made with a tangerine juice reduction, fino sherry, tangerine, lime, lemongrass and rambutan bitters. Somehow, this first sip was to herald good things to come…

…Mrs. MM opted for a small bottle of French cider, that was a perfect pairing for much of the food we ate that evening. Light, crisp and clean, the Etienne Dupont Cidre Bouché is something I am going to keep my eye out for to bring back home…

…Chief of Stuff and I had two bottles of San Miguel Pale Pilsen for a direct taste of home (I think these were brewed and imported from Hong Kong, however) and a cheery toast for all to celebrate graduation, moving into a new apartment rental, no more tuition checks for mom and dad, an epic trip to the Grand Canyon and Sedona area, touring a first-time visitor to the U.S., etc. was in order. Now to the food…

Labanos at pinaitum. We didn’t order this dish, but I think the Chef thought we should try it. Thank God for that. French radishes sitting on a bed of coconut meat, burnt coconut meat and coconut cream with honey. I think it was all emulsified and chilled to set. Several garnishes such as micro greens, toasted coconut, etc. on top. The dip almost had a consistency of hummus. It was amazing. Surprisingly delicious, but really delicious, and not really reminiscent of anything Filipino, but somehow it still had Pinoy soul. For a westerner, they would just think it was an amazing dish, regardless of provenance or nationality. Note to self, it was disarmingly rich and only became obvious because of how much we would eat in total that evening.

Next to arrive was ginisang ampalaya, which was beautifully done, the twist being the addition of salty black beans (or soy beans?) that ramped up flavor and minimized bitterness, though I seek the bitter. Even Isabel, who is an avowed anti-ampalaya stalwart, seemed to enjoy it. I loved it. This and a bowl of rice, nice vegetarian meal on its own. Note the ebullient use of garnishes, not just to prettify it, it was to add flavor, texture, contrast and it really did work well. Philippine cuisine doesn’t use much in the way of herbs, so playing with other strong flavors is a good way to tickle one’s palate.

The third dish to arrive were these nearly coal black adobong sugpo. Made with squid ink (wrong guess, my bad) pureed black garlic and bay leaves (some ingredients left out), it was swoon-worthy. Again, this single dish on its own with rice would have made a meal. But I like how Chef Tom doesn’t plate up to western expectations, but rather suggests family style servings with multiple dishes to enjoy a myriad of flavors and textures. This was a dense coating of squid ink, not the watery adobos you might be more familiar with from back home. The crisped rice lightened up the look of the dish, but as Isabel put it, they look a bit like fried maggots and to some, might not be so appealing. :)

I had to include another photo of the prawn dish to show how sticky and viscous the sauce was. Note the amount of rice I was consuming with each little bit of shrimp. They deliver unlimited amounts of rice to you, which was appreciated.

Next, dinuguan na bagnet or deep-fried pork belly on a blood stew. Delicious. Only the faintest of metallic taste to the blood; I am not normally a huge fan of dinuguan, but I liked this dish a lot. More on this in the Part II of this post… coming up soon.

The post Bad Saint, Washington, D.C. (Part I) appeared first on Market Manila.

We were at the beach last week, with a very good old friend (and his family) from high school that hadn’t been back to Manila in 36 years since we graduated from high school. He tagged along to the Nassau market and surprisingly for a Tuesday morning, we found tons of things to cook for lunch that day. One of the unusual items was this giant squid or “lumot” that I have avoided in the past as I always thought it might be tougher and chewier than I would like. But my “suki” or market vendor convinced me to give it a try.

Weigh up a 1.3 kilo specimen, so fresh it was sticky with mucous.

My suki suggested the squid be skinned to ensure tenderness, so she made short shrift of skinning it (there was a part of me that wondered if it might still be alive!)…

…which took her less than a minute to do…

…and gutted and cleaned the squid as well.

Back at home, rinse the squid to ensure any remaining bits and bobs are removed. Then carefully cut and “score” the skin in a diamond pattern to help prevent curling. Use a sharp knife and cut only part of the way through the squid.

Next, add a marinade made up of soy sauce (I used kikkoman), kalamansi, a touch of vinegar, salt, pepper, homemade tamarind puree and chopped chilies. Let this marinate for an hour or so. Several readers have mentioned on IG that marinating the lumot in milk for a couple of hours helps to tenderize it as well… will have to give that a try sometime soon.

Grill over a medium high heat and note that some squid still curled, as I probably scored it on the “wrong side” (it should be inside the squid rather than outside) and baste with remaining marinade. Cook until just done, this took less than 5 minutes total.

The squid was surprisingly tender, though it had just a bit of chew, but that was a pleasant chew. Do not overcook the squid, it needs just a brush with the fire until opaque and just cooked. This was easy and supremely easy to make if your market vendor is kind enough to clean and skin it for you.

The post Grilled Lumot (Very Large Squid) a la Marketman appeared first on Market Manila.

When my eldest brother announced he was going to try and bring 10 hectares of family fishponds in the outskirts of Lucena City back from the dead, we all wished him well. So about 9 months later, when he was expecting his first modest harvest of alimango, or mud crab, of course we had to be supportive and purchase some of the bounty. He had suffered minor setbacks at the start, like did you know if you overfeed crabs they basically don’t know when to stop and die from overeating???, but was slowly getting the hang of things. He has since converted some ponds to raising bangus in addition to crab, and is doing rather well I gather. So much so he has contracted to take on several more hectares of fallow ponds some distance away from his current location. At any rate, I put my hand up for 20 kilos of alimango from his first harvest, and he had them airfreighted to Cebu for us to use in the test kitchens…

First up, a baked crab recipe with lots of garlic, butter, olive oil and lemon juice. It’s a personal favorite of mine, so easy to do, and it really tastes delicious. I have an old recipe for it in the blog, here. Folks at the office enjoyed it, but I think it rated third of all three recipes we tried with the crab bounty.

Next up, we used the crab in some crab with sotanghon served in claypots. This was a huge hit with the crew, and a little crab goes a long way… the noodles are the delicious filler that sop up all the crab flavor that would have otherwise escaped somehow. An recipe for this dish, here. Excellent with lots of rice, in true pinoy fashion, to have both noodles and rice in one mouthful. :)

Finally, the absolute crowd favorite by a mile was the chill crab a la Marketman, old recipe here. This finger-licking, lip-smacking recipe has rarely failed to please. Thankfully, we used the most amount of crab for this preparation. Overall, the crab tasted wonderful, though a few were thinner than we would have liked (not in the overfed category)… but subsequent harvests have seen them get better and better by the month. We would love to serve either his bangus and/or crab at our restaurants in Manila (easier transport) in the future, as the idea of cooking and serving what was raised on family property just seems so right.

The post Crab Three Ways… appeared first on Market Manila.

A very tall white brunette, who was born in Manila to a British father, who later voluntarily opted to take on Filipino citizenship because he loved the country that much, and an American mother. She attended Assumption college in the early years and spoke Filipino probably better than I did by high school, and we were classmates and good friends at the International School. She is in town to visit her mom, and we had both of them over to dinner last night. As we do for all balikbayan friends, we ask them for whatever food cravings they might need to fix, and this was the resulting meal, based on her requests…

They had already had several heavy meals rich with food and desserts and requested a “green start” — so first up, a platter of seaweed. We used to head out to their beach house in Batangas in high school and this was a trip down memory lane to a time when seaweed was abundantly available and utterly simple and delicious. We have a vinegar, lime, fish sauce dip along with the seaweed but you didn’t really need it to enjoy the pops of brine liquid in the tiny grape like sacs.

We added two other salads — first a pako or fern salad with cherry and pear tomatoes and a soy vinegar dressing, and a sigadilyas and grilled chicken salad with a coconut milk, lime and fish sauce dressing. It looks like a lot. We had to refill the platters and there were only four of us. :)

A seafood heavy dinner request almost inevitably means steamed and chilled alimasag or cross crabs in our household. These ones were particularly meaty, soft and sweet. I could have eaten 3 of these with the accompanying red vinegar and garlic dip. But I was good and had just one.

Large prawns with garlic butter is another seafood staple around these parts, and these large prawns were perfectly cooked, redolent with butter and softened fragrant garlic.

Finally, our friend requested lechon, and on short notice and for four people, we opted to re-heat a kilo pack we had in the freezer. It still provided that porky hit and surprisingly, if you watch the skin closely while it roasts in a hot oven, you can get it back to pretty darned crispy condition! You know you have hit the spot bang center, when most of the food is wiped clean off the platters, the conversation goes on and on, and you manage to have serious portions of three different desserts including sans rival, a chocolate meringue cake and a dayap pie on top of it all! We are always so happy to see old (meaning from way back when, not aged, hahaha) friends, have them over to dinner, and hopefully, satisfy most of their food cravings!

The post Dinner for a “Balikbayan” Highschool Classmate… appeared first on Market Manila.

Most folks recoil at the thought of ordering a plate of octopus tentacles to enjoy with their ice cold beer or a glass of white wine. But if you had a taste of this latest unplanned octopus experiment, I am almost certain that 98+% of you would have liked this dish. I was at the Carbon market in Cebu earlier today and spied some beautiful small octopus on offer at PHP120 a kilo. I bought just one kilo (should have gotten 5 kilos!) with no ideas at the time. They were roughly 10 inches in total length, from head to tentacle tip. They were babies. Or octo-toddlers.

Back at the office kitchen, I added them to a pot, place them over low-medium heat with a cover on, and let them cook in their own juices. After some 30-35 minutes, they were tender as a baby’s bottom. Drain the liquid away, cut off the heads and innards and prepare a wok with vegetable oil about 2 inches deep over high heat. I quickly marinated the octopus tentacles in the juice of two kalamansis and say a tablespoon of kikkoman and sprinkled on some salt and pepper. These were then deep fried for about 3-4 minutes, just long enough to crisp the ends of the tentacles and skin surfaces, but the meat was still very tender. Drained and served hot, they were SPECTACULARLY good. Tasty, crispy, chewy and totally addictive. Every single person in the office (and most don’t eat octopus except when I cook it) loved it and the platter was wiped out in seconds! If I can manage to secure a steady supply of the baby octopus, this dish is hopefully going to make it onto the menu in the future…

The post Crispy Chewy Octopus Tentacles a la Marketman appeared first on Market Manila.

After publishing that post on a wonderful street side pad thai from Bangkok a few days ago, I made two batches of pad thai at home, and realize it is an easy dish to master, customize and make one’s own. It takes so little time and effort to make a batch that can easily feed 6-8 hungry folks. Here is a bit more guidance for those of you who sent comments on instagram or questions through my email.

Heat up a well-seasoned wok and add some vegetable oil, say 2-3 tablespoons worth. Add 3-4 eggs, cracked and dropped straight into the oil and lightly scramble them, leaving visible bits of yellow and white, not a homogenous yellow mass.

When it starts to dry out add slices of boneless, skinless chicken breast and let this braise and cook through but not necessarily brown the surface of the meat.

Add some peeled and de-veined shrimp and season with a bit of salt and/or good thai fish sauce or patis.

Toss a bit until all the shrimp and chicken are cooked through.

Meanwhile, into a pot of boiling water, dunk 250g of medium thick rice noodles for say 30-60 seconds until just barely cooked but not overly soft and limp. Better to err on the al dente side.

Add lots of bean sprouts, some brown sugar (or palm sugar syrup if you have it), some fish sauce and mix gently.

I added some homemade tamarind paste (don’t overdo it, the sourness can overpower) and a bit more fish sauce and a bit of sriracha sauce and toss some more until everything is well-blended.

Add some chopped green onions, toasted and chopped peanuts and serve with a side dish with dried thai chili flakes and real limes. This was a hit. Several platters at an office lunch were inhaled in minutes. We did this again at home (the slightly fancier version with shrimp and nuts) to good results as well. A large serving of pad thai is all we had for lunch yesterday. Followed by a macapuno tart/parcel, also homemade, of course. :)

The post Marketman’s Pad Thai… appeared first on Market Manila.

We had three generous bowls of this amazing tom yam goong alongside the three plates of pad thai and fried rice at a roadside eatery outside Bangkok. It’s hard to describe how darned good this soup was, but visually, you get clues that it isn’t your watery, dubious neighborhood restaurant equivalent of tom yam. Just look at it.

A few shrimp swimming in a sea of sour, spicy, heady, thickish broth. Whole chilies, sliced fresh straw mushrooms, green onions, tomatoes, hints of lemongrass and OMG, this was just as stunningly good as the pad thai. Several of our companions don’t eat spicy food, and if I recall correctly, all three bowls of tom yum were wiped clean. This bowl cost less than $2, and it is the result of a vibrant agricultural economy where produce is so cheap and abundant and of wonderful quality… I can’t really think of much of a local equivalent, but then again, maybe something like this bowl of crab soup for breakfast in Bogo, Cebu would qualify…

As if we didn’t have enough food, I got some stir-fried chicken over rice as well. It was good, but just not AS good as the pad thai and tom yum goong.

And in case your food wasn’t flavorful or spicy enough, how about a spoonful of this sawsawan or condiment made up of chopped chilies, garlic, lime juice and fish sauce? In terms of food highlights, this outside Bangkok road side late lunch was definitely one of the most memorable meals we have had for less than $3 each.

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One of the most memorable dishes we enjoyed on our trip to Portugal last year was this gorgeous arroz de mariscos (dotted with piri-piri sauce), at a seaside restaurant in the town of Cascais. We were hungry, the view was phenomenal, and the dish was just brilliant. I would never have guessed that a relatively simple sounding soupy rice dish (though redolent with the best of catch of the sea when it arrived at our table) would figure as one of my all-time trip favorites.

While we only ordered a serving “good for 2”, the three of us had a hard time finishing 80% of the generous serving. And I noted that it arrived looking almost as though it were a thick soup, or a stew. This was definitely not paella, definitely not risotto, and yet had the best of both of those other dishes in it…

I had looked up various recipes, none of which would seem to yield what I was looking for, and in fact my first attempt at the dish was a bust. So this time around, I decided to just go with my instincts. First, I made two broths… one with bisugo (red mullet) and aromatics for a flavorful fish broth. Next, I made a shrimp broth. But not just shells thrown into a pot of water and boiled. Here, I sautéed shrimp shells and heads in some butter, then deglazed the pot with some white wine and after the alcohol had burned off, added water to make one of the best looking and tasting shrimp broths I have made in recent memory. I used a chinois (no, that’s not a person, silly) to strain the solids out. The broth/s are ESSENTIAL to this dish, and if you don’t make them from scratch or with great care, I think you are making a mistake. I suspect for the restaurant’s version, they had a nice mixed seafood/shellfish broth from all the trimmings in the kitchen.

So into a large enameled pot I added olive oil and sautéed some chopped onions and some garlic. I added some of my sofritto for my basic paella and some saffron (I am pretty sure the original dish didn’t have saffron so you can skip this) as well. Then 2.5x the amount of water as the rice (7.5 cups for 3.0 cups of rice for example) and let this come to a boil. I then added arborio rice and swished it around every once in a while. Watch the absorption of broth and be prepared to add up to a cup or so more broth. When it’s about 15 minutes into the cooking, add the seafood (use LOTS to approximate the dish up top) and continue until the rice is cooked but the dish is still slightly soupy. Season all along with salt (lots) and pepper if you desire. This version was rich and delicious and almost heady with seafood essence from the broth to the actual seafood. In fact, I may have gone a bit OTT, and could pull back next time, as sometimes, just sometimes, too much is too much. :)

Another favorite from that Portugal trip were these amazingly bright red (prior to cooking and also after cooking) shrimp/prawns that were done so simply with just olive oil and garlic.

They were wickedly overpriced, but since I doubt we will ever return to this particular area more than once or twice for the rest of our lives, we ordered them anyway. And they were worth every euro. :)

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Seafood Sunday seems like a good idea. It’s market day if you happen to be by the seashore (or even if you are not), it’s time to enjoy a long meal at the lunch table with family and friends, and it happens to be Lent just in case that affects your dietary choices.

Hit the local markets and stock up on whatever looks fresh… young squid, fresh fish, prawns, shrimp, etc.

Marinate seafood briefly in soy, kalamansi, dalandan, olive oil, lemon, salt and pepper, whatever you like and throw it all on the grill. Here some baby squid cooked just right (not overcooked), some shrimp with leftover Iloilo made prosciutto wrapped around it (it was delicious, but you can leave out the meat if you desire)…

…some prawns and some small talakitok or jacks grilled whole.

An eggplant and tomato salad for that texture and acidic contrast to the incredibly fresh, slightly briny seafood. And yes, somewhere off camera is a nice big bowl of steamed rice. In this case, no utensils required. But Mrs. MM had a fork and knife. :)

The post Seafood Sunday a la Marketman appeared first on Market Manila.

This is my kind of food delivery. I saw another motorcycle just seconds before drive by with two platters of food which I couldn’t quite make out. I missed the photo op while fumbling to get my camera, and just as I turned to continue crossing a street, a second motorcycle came zooming on by… Strapped onto the back seat was a platter filled with cold fruits de mer (or mixed shellfish) on ice, with some sauces as well. WOW! I love platters of cold crab, shrimp, oysters, mussels, etc. but I never knew you could call to have ready to eat platters delivered! It was quite cold out, so I suppose they weren’t concerned about spoilage… :)

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