Saturday, June 07, 2008 Pino, Pilipino By Jigs Arquiza
I’VE always felt that Filipino food was more or less a “barrio fiesta” or an “at home” kind of dining, where your mom or grandmother, with the help of your female relatives, took care of the cooking. And it would always be a casual sort of affair, with everyone sharing everything.
At Pino along Wilson St. in Lahug, dining is not much different from what you’d do at home. Sharing amongst the diners is still encouraged, servings being good for at least three people. The main differences are in the presentation of the food and in the dining environment. Pino’s interiors mirror the main dining rooms you can find in huge ancestral homes, awe-inspiring and somewhat intimidating. Still, a look at their menu would calm your nervous heart. Prices are actually very reasonable, considering the quality of food and service that you get.
According to managing partner Joel del Prado, Pino hopes to elevate Filipino cuisine to a higher level. No, Pino is not trying to make haute cuisine out of Filipino food. Rather, Pino wants to make the experience of dining on Filipino food an elegant one, while still maintaining the concept of everyone sharing all the dishes.
A meal at Pino would best be started with a platter of their delicious scallops.
Served on the half shell, they come loaded, and I mean loaded, with lots of garlic and cheese, exactly the way I like it. Other seafood dishes that are equally as good are the grilled prawns, grilled baby squid, stuffed with tomatoes and onions, and the baked crab, drenched in butter and loaded with garlic flakes.
Having discussed chicken binakol with Cebu food icon Myra Magsaysay Sun recently, I was pleased to see that Pino had it in their menu and ordered it accordingly. People say chicken soup is a good cure-all, and this native version of chicken soup definitely does the job. Be careful of the greens though. Those are sili leaves and siling espada, not kangkong and string beans.
Two of my favorite native dishes, laing and tortang talong, are also available at Pino. The laing is made from taro root and coconut milk, while the tortang talong is a steamed and flattened eggplant with ground meat on top, dipped in egg, then fried. Both items tasted really great, simple dishes yet oh so satisfying.
In a Pinoy meal, rice is always present. I diverged from the norm by having Javanese fried rice, with shrimp, squid, beef and pork bits, onions and strips of pechay. It is so loaded with all those choice tidbits of meat and seafood that it can actually stand alone as a meal in itself. Ordinary steamed rice is also available, however.
Pino’s calderetang cabrito, or stewed young goat, might surprise some diners. There is no gamy aroma, and the meat is tender as can be. I would have wanted the dish to have a lot more sauce, though, as I love caldereta sauce.
For meat lovers, I’d have to suggest the Peter Luger steak. Of the items on the menu, this is perhaps the most expensive, but the serving is big enough for three people. Bring a couple of friends and split an order among yourselves, but you might end up fighting for the last piece, it’s that good. It comes with plantains, black risotto, mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes.
For dessert, we were served Pino’s version of bico. It’s not the bico we’re used to, though. It comes with a citrus crisp on top and looks like a work of art. More importantly, it tastes really good!
So what’s so special about Pino? Some people say it’s the atmosphere, like dining in colonial times, others say it’s the food, still others say it’s the feeling of being pampered as you eat. For me it’s everything. It’s the blend of ambiance, good food, good service and reasonable prices that makes dining at this restaurant an enjoyable experience.
