My sole basis on this so called fusion that we put together is basically I lived that life. How I lived, how I ate when I was small, where I did it, who cooked this for me, what I remembered is the basis of all of this. Whatever it is I learned when I stepped out of Negros to go to Manila is merely an infusion to that foundation that I have. In the truest form my soul is Negrense, from Bacolod gid, and that will never change. Every time I go to a country, I go to France, to Spain, I get to try new things. When I come back it’s never the other way around, it’s never I tasted it I’ll put it in. No, I’ll look for something that I know that in my heart that is good, and then I will find a way to enhance it, by adding an experience, by adding that certain flavor, by adding that certain taste, that certain texture, and from there it comes out, it refines itself.

I think you can become a chef even without the education. I think it stems from an inner type of wanting, wanting to do something so bad. That’s how I felt when I was a student, you open a magazine, a cookbook, you look and you think when do I get a chance to do this? Who will give me a break? Fortunately I was able to go to the New England Culinary Institute. On the other hand of this entire chef thing is my friend Humphrey Navarro. He worked his way up. When I left for culinary school, he started working in hotels, and now he could very well be the most award-winning, audacious, prolifically successful Filipino chef that I know of. But it’s much downplayed because he doesn’t have his own restaurant, he works for a hotel, but just the same his skills are excellent. For me to see Humphrey work his way up, without the benefits of a culinary school education, and what he has attained, and where he’s gone, and where he is still going is amazing.

I left in 91 and finished in 93 at the New England Culinary Institute. It was a culinary boot camp, it was really strict, it just instilled in you the respect for the craft, the whites that you wear, the food that you prepare. The teachers were French and American. You have the French sensibilities in classical cooking, plus the gung-ho and the happy-go-lucky approach of Americans, their fearless approach to food which I think is one thing that helped me look into my cuisine.

The main reason I went to culinary school was I really wanted to study the science of food, the history that came with it, that was my main interest. The other things that came with it, the education, technical skills were of course secondary. The third reason was I really wanted to leave the country and experience living by myself in another place and I think America was the easiest choice. We grew up watching America on TV it’s basically a transfer of environment, we can speak English, there is no language barrier, and at the same time there is a sense of familiarity, so for me from Bacolod, to Manila, my next step was outside to America or wherever that was just my immediate goal.

There are people that I feel have an axe to grind against putting Filipino food up into international standards. It becomes too hard sell na gusto namin talaga umangat tulad sa Thai ang Filipino, what the Thai has reached, what Japan has reached. But check these foods out, all of these foods are beautiful, colorful, and genuine. Line up our food right beside that our food is basically brown. It’s soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, peppercorn, and bay leaf, basically what Adobo is, if we compare ourselves to these countries talo tayo because our food is peasant food. These guys had monarchies, Thailand has a monarchy, Japan has an emperor, and they had a court to prepare beautiful food for. Where as for us we only prepare it for ourselves, using meager ingredients from our surroundings, but 80 million people eat it everyday and there’s nothing really wrong with it. That’s the problem they really want to elevate it to global proportions. I’m all for it but do it correctly, do it the right way. Just like Thailand their food is really spicy they had to tone it down. I don’t have the solution, I really don’t, but what I know I can do good is in my own way I can inject Filipino components in the place I have here. My salads have kesong puti. It familiarizes people, this is what kesong puti is, what is it made from? It’s made from carabao’s milk. What’s carabao? It’s water buffalo. Do you also eat carabao’s meat? Yes we do, you go to Batangas you go to Bohol it’s their speciality. There is richness but no concerted effort.

I begin with the main ingredient. Give me a piece of fish, Tilapia, how do you eat Tilapia? I like it crispy fried. Do you eat it with what? With any gulay that I want. Then next is you look for the sauce, what kind of sauce do I want? Do I want meaty? Do you think it will stand up to meaty? I don’t think so. I want something light and citrus, what citrus? There’s dayap, there’s calamansi, so that’s how I rate myself as I go along, and it’s not a process that I sit down and finish. It’s something that I’ll tack on the board, gallivant, come back later, think and write it down. I have little notebooks that when I go through cookbooks and find words that are interesting I’ll write it down. It’s filled with words about anything from techniques that I might have missed. If I need new infusions or stumped by something, I’ll open the notebook and look for words and find a component like say sweet and sour pickled red beets, tama atsara ang dating, matamis, pangontra sa taba, saan ito babagay, ganoon na lang yung laro ko.

When I had come back from the States after four years I was so depressed. Because I looked at the ingredients, the tomatoes were never red, the onions were puny, and we didn’t have nice oranges. My sentiments were aalis ako, ayoko dito. but I figured what if I just removed myself from this current perspective, and say if I can make good out of working with these kind of ingredients I think I’ll be better when the good ingredients finally come. It’s really just the amount of adaptability that you allow yourself to get into. I could have been stubborn and just said screw this, but I really wanted to stay and so I found my way around it. I’ve seen the beauty of freshness of ingredients, of picking the tomatoes at their peak, picking it of the vines sweet as sugar, and I envy them but I still wouldn’t give up what I have here, because we can we also have beauty the mangoes that we get in the summer are by far the most delicious fruit for me, the lanzones that we’re going to get this October I’m sure is delicious, but it is a struggle the market is not focused on restaurants the market is feeding masses, our markets are palengkes therefore the masses to be fed. Di marami yung mga specialty growers natin it’s only in the last four years that were actually getting different colored lettuces, and you take ownership of that as a cook or as a chef you take ownership of trying to find the best ingredients sometimes you do sometimes you don’t if you really want to you bring in imported but that really defeats the purpose of doing business and of giving the burden of paying the high cost to your customers as well. Profound nun a…. whatever.