The Miele Guide

Margaux Salcedo, The Miele Guide’s contributing editor for the Philippines, is a food writer at the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Since 2005, she has had a regular restaurant column in the Sunday Inquirer Magazine.

Before becoming a food writer, the multi-talented lady was a newscaster for five years while she was a law student. Margaux gave up both her media and legal careers after hibernating in Bulacan for six months. “During this time,” she says, “my grand aunt Nana Meng taught me how to appreciate slow cooked provincial food. This led me to start a native hot chocolate business [called Nana Meng] with my mom, and this eventually got me into food writing.”

In 2004, she joined an essay writing contest in the hopes of including Nana Meng in a book that was to be published about Filipino slow food (entitled Slow Food, it was published by Anvil Publishing in 2005). Her essay made it and the rest, as they say, is history.

Q: Hi Margaux, first of all, can you please give us a crash course on Filipino cuisine?
A: The Philippines has been a melting pot of cultures so our cuisine reflects this. We were a colony of Spain for over 300 years before being sold to the Americans and then occupied by the Japanese. We also have Malay roots and a great population of Chinese immigrants. So, Filipino food is a blend of all these influences. A dish introduced by the colonisers would be given a local flavour and made our own.

Take, for instance, the lechon (spit-roasted pig). The concept of the lechon was introduced to us by the Spanish, who serve a specialty called 'cochinillo', which uses a suckling pig. Here we use a full grown pig for the lechon, which is placed on a spit and roasted over charcoal. For a local flavour, the pig's skin is brushed with local soft drinks (Sarsi is a favorite brand) or soy sauce (depending on the province). Different provinces claim to have the best lechon, which is a staple during special occasions, especially during fiestas.

Another Spanish-influenced delicacy is our hot chocolate. From our Spanish colonisers, we learned to appreciate very thick hot chocolate that would be served in a demitasse cup. However, we could not afford so much cocoa so we started using peanuts as a thickener. Today, we appreciate our peanut-flavoured tsokolate which we can truly call our own.

A dish possibly influenced by the Americans may be the Filipino beef steak, although this dish has become so Filipino it has lost its American heritage completely. Our beef steak or 'bistek' uses a tender cut of beef (sirloin or tenderloin), is seasoned with soy sauce and served with onions as garnish.

Pancit is an example of a Filipino dish of Chinese origin. Derived from the word pian i sit, which translates to "something cooked fast," this dish has taken on many Filipino forms: bihon, canton, habhab, luglog, malabon, molo, and palabok, to name the more popular ones.

These are essentially rice noodles fried with soy sauce and calamansi and garnished with meat and chopped vegetables. Tradition dictates that you eat this on your birthday as the noodles represent long life.

Filipino dishes, unlike other Asian cuisines, are more inclined to be sweet and salty rather than sour or spicy. Favourite ingredients are soy sauce, as with adobo and bistek, or peanut sauce, as with kare kare. We pair almost everything with rice and love having soy sauce or fish sauce or shrimp paste (bagoong) on the side to balance flavours with.

The best discussion on Filipino food that I have read is by food author Doreen Fernandez. NYU has been kind enough to share it on through this link.

Q: What is the dining scene in the Philippines like? Are there certain cities that are considered big foodie cities?
A: These are exciting times in the Philippine dining scene. In the ’80s there were maybe five good restaurants that you could name off the top of your head. Today, different cities have their own competitive restaurants, including cities in nearby provinces such as Baguio or Tagaytay. There are also a lot of up-and-coming chefs who have either worked or trained in cooking schools or four star restaurants abroad who are coming back home to share what they've learned and open their own restaurants.

The primary food enclave would still be the commercial district, Makati, where most of the established restaurants are located. However, there are also very competitive restaurants in Quezon City, which is a twenty to thirty minute drive from Makati, and in Alabang (also a twenty to thirty minute drive from Makati City but in the other direction). Taguig City, where a lot high rises are being developed now, is also fast becoming a bit of a food district.

In the early ’90s, the impression was that to be a fine dining restaurant you would have to serve either a French, Italian or Spanish menu. Back then, you would never find Filipino food served in a decent restaurant setting; you would have to find it in someone's home or in a cafeteria on the street. There were only two Filipino restaurants that stood out and these portrayed a barrio or a farm setting, with the customers eating with their hands, and the setting was very casual.

Fortunately, this is no longer the case in the Philippines today. In every mall or avenue of restaurants, you will most likely find a Filipino restaurant among the choices of restaurants to dine at. For example, in Serendra in the city of Taguig, where a cluster of restaurants is located, there is Abe, a restaurant dedicated to Pampangeno food (food from the province of Pampanga); in Westgate in the town of Alabang, another food destination, there is Kanin Club, which is also devoted to Filipino food; in the Tomas Morato area in Quezon City, another restaurant hub, there is Bagoong Club, also a Filipino restaurant.

There are also a few restaurants that serve Filipino fusion cuisine. Bistro Filipino, a well received restaurant at Fort Bonifacio in Taguig City serves Filipino-French cuisine while La Cocina de Tita Moning serves Spanish-Filipino food using heritage recipes.

Q: What are the top three dishes a first-time visitor to the Philippines should taste?
A: My top three would include: (1) Kare kare, which is a stew of oxtail, beef, tripe and some vegetables in peanut sauce, tempered with shrimp paste and appreciated with white rice. This introduces the foreigner to our bold flavours. A good kare kare should have very tender meat, peanut sauce that will wake you up, and must be served with very good, salty bagoong (shrimp paste). (2) Lechon, because this is pig like you've never tasted before. A good lechon would have a slightly thick but very crispy skin with very soft fat still stuck to it; we like to peel those off the pig and munch on its crunch, dipping them into a liver-based gravy. The meat is then chopped and this is eaten with rice. It's sinful. You may have to pray ten Hail Marys as penance after bingeing on this. (3) Filipino hot chocolate, to give the Filipino breakfast or merienda experience. This is appreciated with pandesal (little Filipino bread buns that are slightly toasted) and kesong puti (white carabao cheese sometimes called buffalo mozzarella) or suman (sticky rice stick) with coconut jam. This is different because it's a hot chocolate that uses cocoa with all its butter fat and has a peanut-y flavour. Imagine having Reese's chocolate made into a hot chocolate drink.

Q: Who, in your opinion, is doing exciting things in the kitchen in the Philippines and why?
A: The chefs/restaurateurs that come to mind are: (1) Margarita Fores, who is known in the country for having introduced Italian gourmet dining. She is the country's leading restaurateur/caterer and she is always coming up with exciting flavours that integrate Filipino flavours with continental concepts, such as her Cerveza Negra Ice Cream (Cerveza Negra is a dark beer - our closest drink to Guinness) or her apahap (Philippine seabass) bouillabaisse. (2) Rolando Laudico who owns the restaurant Bistro Filipino. It's a casual dining affair but with very creative Filipino-French creations such as his milk fish soufflé, which uses smoked milk fish (bangus) and queso de bola.(3) Ed Quimson. Ed Quimson is on a slow food crusade so while others are experimenting with mixing Filipino flavours for a globalised world, Chef Ed is delivering meals that his grandmother taught him, cooked the very slow and laborious way. He jumps from one restaurant to another but if you can catch him, you will immediately feel his passion for slow food, like his lengua, which uses a tomato sauce that takes two weeks to prepare. He is currently the chef for Petra and Pilar, a glamorised canteen serving Filipino food.

Q: Is there anything you'd like to see change and/or grow in the restaurant scene in the Philippines?
A: The first thing would be service. Although Filipinos are very hospitable and the guest would hardly have a problem asking a waiter for specific requests, waiters are generally unable to explain to the curious customer the intricacies of a fancy dish. Unlike, for example, in Opia (Hong Kong) where a waiter will take pains to guide the guest on how to best appreciate what is served, or even in bistros like Pastis or Balthazar (New York) where you will learn the origins of, say, the fish in your dish from the pretty waitress upon inquiry, you're pretty much on your own here, leaving you to wonder what made your particular order unique.

The second is with respect to wine. The wine lists here are limited and there is no restaurant with a truly educated sommelier. But there's a trend now toward wine appreciation so hopefully in the near future we will have better guides to food and wine pairing.

The third is to see restaurants become more competitive, to inspire the creation of a truly five-star experience. Sometimes a restaurant would have the most creative recipes but with mediocre service. Or they hit ambiance and service but are inconsistent in terms of taste. This is because in some restaurants the executive chef, who would be part owner, is not always around, leaving the recipes to the rest of the kitchen staff. Or sometimes the turnover of kitchen staff is so high that the dishes suffer while the new staff are learning the ropes. This is a problem almost all restaurants here suffer from. It must be corrected, because there is so much potential and talent in today's Philippine restaurant industry.

Q: Finally, what prompted you to become a food writer?
A: I was a writer before I became a foodie (in fact I still hesitate to call myself a foodie). I wrote primarily for television news and for a law journal. I lived on instant noodles and stopped eating meat in 1996 (I only started eating meat again in 2006 when it started to seriously get in the way of assessing the quality of a restaurant's wagyu). But in 2002 I gave up that life and lived in the province (Bulacan) where my grandaunt showed me the joys of wonderful home cooked food such as sinampalukan (tamarind-based fish stew), pindang (dried carabao meat) and lengua (ox tongue).I especially fell in love with Filipino merienda fare, particularly hot chocolate paired with pandesal (bread) and coconut jam or carabao cheese. After this hibernation in the province, I lived in New York for a short while where my friends exposed me to New York restaurants and taught me to appreciate foie gras (used to not like it), Kobe beef burgers, and warm chocolate cakes. I contributed stories about New York restaurants to the Philippine Daily Inquirer from New York, my first article being on Cendrillon, a Filipino restaurant on Mercer Street in Soho. I joined the Philippine Daily Inquirer as a food columnist a year after, reviewing Philippine restaurants.

Jarrett Wrisley, one of The Miele Guide’s Contributing Editors, has been living in Shanghai for the past 5 years. He began his food writing career at that's Shanghai, a local expat magazine, and later helped start the city's first English weekly, 8 Days/SH, where he eagerly picked apart the city's dining scene. Now a freelance writer, he has written about food, travel and other subjects for DestinAsian Magazine, The South China Morning Post, National Geographic, Time Out, Travel + Leisure and other publications in Asia and abroad.

Q: Hi Jarrett, let’s start off with a simple question. What most excites you about eating out in China today?
A: I think that the evolution of Chinese restaurants—not necessarily the food, which remains relatively static—is what excites me most. It’s really encouraging to see restaurants offering better service, modern décor, and more exacting cooking here. Chinese food has a reputation as a hurried, humble kind of cuisine. Chinese take-out in the West has painted a sloppy image of Chinese food in many people’s minds. But it’s not entirely undeserved: For too long restaurants here have been happy to serve mediocre food, fast and cheap, to the masses. But that is really changing now.

Q: Is the dining scene for locals very different from the scene geared towards expats?
A: Yes, it is, although as young people here are exposed to foreign travel and tastes, and outsiders in China become more interested in Chinese food culture, I’m seeing a lot more crossing over than a few years before. Five years ago in Shanghai, if you walked into an Italian restaurant or a Japanese one, you’d see mostly people from that place. Now, the Chinese are more adventurous eaters, and they’re keen to try new food, open a bottle of wine, and pick up a fork. On the opposite side of the spectrum, there are too many Chinese restaurants that are inaccessible to most foreign people—due to Chinese-only menus, language, and even hygiene. In these places you only see locals and maybe the occasional foodie or old China hand. A great formula for success here (and a bafflingly simple one) is to open restaurants that serve authentic Chinese food in a clean environment, with a wine list, cold beer and an English menu. Places like Guyi, Crystal Jade, and Ding Tai Fung have done this and are packed every night with a mixed crowd. I think the restaurant market needs to look to places like these, and incorporate the best aspects of the local and expat dining scenes, to really become a mature market.

Q: You’ve acted as guide to some of the most famous food writers in from the United States and Europe. What do you think about the representation of Chinese food in Western media? And what would you do to make it better (if it needs to be better)?
A: Hmmm. That’s a tough question. I do think there is plenty of room for improvement. Without sounding bitter, I think that magazine editors in far flung places would do better hiring local food writers in many instances rather than sending someone over who knows very little about the place, the eating culture, or the people, to piece together a story in a short period of time. When this style of reporting happens you generally end up with a story that reveals a Shanghai or Beijing food scene with measured predictability; though there are a few writers who have dropped in and done a very good job of reporting about how people eat here, what they eat, and why. Food writing in many instances has sort of devolved into guidebook-style writing, which editors seem to want these days. It’s fast and easy go-here-eat-that reporting; but food writing should be more than a list of hot restaurants and a description of who is eating in them. In terms of Chinese food’s representation in the media, I think that writers often play up the oddness of the ingredients (chicken hearts, beef tendon, pig ears) without really explaining why people eat these things, or considering that Westerners used to use the whole of an animal only a few decades ago. Many still do. This whole “adventure eating” style of food writing is really redundant and unimaginative. But people enjoy reading it I suppose.

Q: Are there any chefs in China and from China that to you are really pushing the culinary envelope?
A: Yes, there are a handful, but we could use some more. I am based in Shanghai, so that’s the restaurant scene that I’m most familiar with. It’s impossible not to mention Jereme Leung (Chef/Owner of Three on the Bund’s Whampoa Club) when it comes to innovation – I think he’s done more to raise the bar for Chinese restaurants in the Mainland than anyone else. What Jereme’s doing is not revolutionary, it’s shrewd and very simple – take classic dishes and incorporate new cooking techniques, and make it look good on the plate. His attention to detail and openness to outside ideas is something other local chefs here should take note of. But rather than see chefs in the mainland toying with molecular stuff and fusion, I think that perfecting the classics and really presenting them nicely is a good way to push the envelope here. Another favourite chef of mine, Tony Lu at Fu 1088, cooks traditional Shanghainese and Yangzhou food but he does it with the precision and focus of a Western fine dining kitchen. That is revolutionary, in a sense.

Q: Finally, what first got you interested in food?
A: From a young age I was an avid fan of restaurants. I could rattle off (and still can) everything that I’d eaten months or years ago and where and how it tasted. For some reason, my brain really liked storing this kind of information—cataloging my meals and remembering the tastes and sensations of eating. Around 8 or 9 years old, I really became interested in cooking, working alongside my mother, and I became really absorbed in cookbooks. But my dream was to be a writer. I sort of connected the two by accident, after arriving in China. I applied for a job as a food writer at a local magazine here and later realized that it was the perfect job for me (though I never expected to end up writing about food). I got lucky.

Mr. J.C. Okazawa, a member of the panel that helped create the shortlist of restaurants on our voting page, is one of Japan’s most accomplished food critics. Over the past 5 years, he has published 10 restaurant guide books. The Shominchelin is his latest endeavour, an alternative to the Tokyo Michelin Guide that rates and promotes moderately priced restaurants. The guide was written for locals and foreigners keen on finding great food at good prices.

Q: How did the Shominchelin guide come about?
A: The restaurants introduced in the Michelin Guide Tokyo Edition are all too expensive. I thought most of the general public would not be able to try them, so last November I came up with the idea for an affordable food guide and contacted Graphsha Inc. about publishing the book as soon as possible.

I wrote the guide myself. Of course, I had visited all of the restaurants at least once. When I was writing, I also needed to visit several restaurants again and I needed help from some friends to visit some of them anonymously.

Q: What were the main criteria for the guide?
A: Taste was the most important factor and I set a limit for the price of meals. Of course, cleanliness, service, atmosphere were all important elements too.

Q: How would you define good food?
A: Good tasting food can be found all over the world. If you need me to literally define ‘good food’, I think it is food that thrills people. However, I’ve rarely had this kind of experience in my life.

Q: Why do you think food is taken so seriously in Japan?
A: Japanese people are keen to eat food that is fresh and pure. Japan is blessed with a rich and natural environment which brings great food each season. Recently I worked with an American woman and we went to Hokkaido together. She was amazed with the grand beauty of Hokkaido and Japan. She said that her country’s definition of good food is steak and potatoes or king salmon from British Columbia. Some people say that today's food trends in Japan are manipulated by the media, which is true but they keep promoting food and traveling because these two factors do boost tourism.

Q: How do you feel about the current state of Japan’s evolving food habits?
A: I am really concerned about it. We have many issues about food, for example, the rate of food self-sufficiency, but I feel one of the worst issues is the Americanization of food. Mothers who don't cook well often give their children hamburgers and French fries. The uniformed food style is also a problem, like a big fast food chain. Since the number of these lower quality chain shops and restaurants are increasing, restaurants that offer really good food are disappearing.

Q: What is the best meal you've ever had?
A: The best meal I had was nigiri sushi (hand shaped sushi) at Bentenyama Miyako Sushi in Asakusa, Tokyo. I can't forget the taste of the flatfish with sea kelp, spotted shad (kohada) and conger eel (anago).That was in 1978. Today the 5th generation chef manages the shop but the sushi I had then was made by the previous 4th generation chef.　

Thank you for checking out this website. Thank you also for helping us determine what are Asia’s best restaurants. Of course, if you haven’t voted yet, I urge you to consider doing so. Not just because you stand a chance to win some amazing prizes (which you will), but because my colleagues and I believe that what we are doing—and what you will be doing by placing your votes—is really, really important.

We have worked very hard to try and create a credible, transparent system through which to showcase establishments that deliver excellence and exceptional dining by Asian standards. It is our hope that The Miele Guide will not only accurately reflect the opinions of some of Asia’s most respected food writers and restaurant critics—the 84 people throughout Asia who helped us to create the shortlist you will see when you vote—but more importantly, capture public opinion. It is vital that The Miele Guide reflects the tastes of the dining public in Asia.

The rationale behind The Miele Guide is quite simple actually. We are putting this guide together because our region still does not have a comprehensive Asian standard across which our restaurants can be judged and through which our very best restaurants can get the recognition that they richly deserve. Sadly, while we have many restaurants that many of my peers and I believe are as good as any of those in the West, the avenues through which these restaurants can be publicised are still very limited. The reality is that even our very best restaurants are often ignored by the rest of the world.

What we are hoping to do, through The Miele Guide, is raise the profile of Asia’s top restaurants and to make them as well known as their counterparts overseas. In simple terms, we’re endeavouring to draw attention to the culinary richness of Asia as a region. At present, there is no credible Asia-wide restaurant guide which Asian food lovers consider a benchmark reflective of our region’s taste, culture and collective culinary standards.

Our hope and goal is that The Miele Guide can set that standard. But to do so, we need your input. We need your participation. And we need your votes.