Sunday, November 02, 2008 Can.teen By Estella A. Estremera Goin Places
IT'S that time of the week again, and with no idea where to go to, I decided to visit this old place that has undergone a lot of refurbishing since it was nothing but a tarpaulin-roofed structure when it had to pack up and leave the Petron station's "customer service and training center". (That 'center' is now Jollibee.)
I bet Davao foodies must already have recognized the place by this time... yup, it's Can.teen. That turo-turo in front of D'Farmer's Market along the PDCP and Pryce Towers exit driveway, the turo-turo that once was known to cook what has become to be known in Davao as "Paksiw ng Petron".
It was a quiet night and there were very few people at Can.Teen. There was Councilor Mahipus with a companion and what looked like two of his staff, then there was Mommy Min Millan with a friend, later joined by Frank the diveshop owner, and then there was starving me...
Deng and Trish took their own sweet time to arrive while I starved. They suffered for it as well, because by the time they arrived, they too were weak with hunger.
And so we feasted our eyes on the display and chose just about anything we could point to: tortang talong, paksiw na buntot, pinaputok na tilapia, pork barbecue, and all the pork sinigang there was. We wanted more, but decided we'll decide later.
We could have just dropped down and went straight up to heaven upon sipping our first taste of the sinigang. It was sinigang as we would love sinigang to be -- sinigang that has apparently been kept boiling since morning, the soup already very thick. Hay sarap. (See you in heaven...)
The buntot is still masarap, although obviously missing was the handful of crushed garlic that used to teem in the sauce around it when the canteen was still at Petron Bajada. The tilapia was also very good and the tortang talong (although it's the torta with starch and not the torta with scrambled eggs). But maybe because we just were so hungry. But no, I think the food was really good.
"'Di ba hindi raw dapat mabusog pag gabi na?" Deng asked when we have wiped clean each plate on the table and just before a burp escaped my lips. The burp settled the conversation, no arguments. We went back for the minatamis na saging and waited for our other companion, Kurt, who ordered the buntot and the pinakbet.
He ate with gusto. Maybe he too was hungry... or maybe...
"Ngayon lang ako nakakain ng totoong pinakbet dito," Kurt said. "Yung niluluto kasi sa kampo, ang pakbet merong carrots."
Huh? I guess it's best to rely on my review. A guy who has been made to eat pinakbet with carrots will definitely have a very favorably biased view about food that looks, as it should. Like pinakbet without carrots.
