UP NORTH, through Angeles City’s MacArthur Highway, after one of the intersections that lead to Sto. Rosario Street, a few turns inside a village called Villa Gloria and on the corner of Paul and Francis Avenues stands a restaurant that has the feel of a church. Bale Dutung — “house of wood” — is, in fact, crafted from the wooden junk of old churches, still seemingly sanctifying in all its Roman Catholic splendor, inviting people to make pilgrimages and become witnesses to miracles of gustatory abundance.

The “house of wood” might as well be called the “house of food,” where the man of the house, Claude Tayag, cooks up divine multi-course meals. His wife, Mary Ann, summons the dishes in, and the ladies of the house spoon the food onto plates.

From hereon, indulgence is a sin too easy to commit. Crisp pakô (ferns) are drizzled with a dressing of duck egg, then dotted with slices of pickled quail eggs. Juicy catfish and thick crab fat are rolled like sushi — a taste of the sea in morsels of rice. Pork flakes are roasted to an optimum level of crunch, then sandwiched in a soft tortilla. Milkfish belly and spareribs sit in a sour prawn soup, while ground-up pork jowls sizzle and jump in onion and liver sauce. Small thigh — patita — cooked as a humba, is the final step before the best dish of all: Kare-Kareng Lamang Dagat, whose yellow-orange peanut sauce underline the burst of color of the snake beans and fresh prawns.

Simon Majumdar, a regular judge on Cutthroat Kitchen, Iron Chef America, and The Next Iron Chef — whom The Food Channel hailed as their “toughest critic” — had a similar meal at Mr. Tayag’s restaurant.

He gave it a verdict of “one of the very best” he has ever eaten.

Anthony Bourdain has likewise trudged on the same path in Pampanga, featuring Bale Dutung in his show No Reservations.

DARLING OF DINERS
Mr. Tayag is one of the Filipino chefs who introduced local fare to the world stage, one of the forerunners, if you may, of realizing the prediction that Filipino cuisine is “the next big thing.” Even his name came up at the recent CNN poll wherein the Philippines placed second in a survey on the destination with the world’s best food, eclipsing Italy (3rd) and Japan (5th). A photo of his adobo was used as the main image.

“Our time has finally come,” he declared fearlessly. “We may be late bloomers in the international culinary scene, but we’ve definitely taken off for the long haul.”

The Washington Post affirmed in an article last April that Filipino food has arrived. The article quoted Andrew Zimmern, an globe-trotting American TV personality, who predicted three years ago that Filipino cuisine would become “a darling of diners.” The New York Times had also praised Filipino food, with columnist Ligaya Mishan describing sisig as “the greatest pork hash — arguably greatest pork dish — on earth.”

The Italian cookbook The Silver Spoon has included Pollo alla Filippina in its latest listing of recipes.

The definition of local cuisine, is, first and foremost, very broad. Local dishes are as varied as the 7,107 islands that comprise the Philippines. The Ilocano pinakbet and bagnet, Pangasinan bangus, Pampanga tocino and sisig, Batangas bulalo, Bicol express, Ilonggo chicken inasal, Cebu lechon, Cagayan de Oro sinuglaw, and Davao tuna panga, among others, are all dynamic examples of the national culinary scene, revealing in their diversity what makes Filipino cuisine a cohesive whole.

But it must be the linamnam — the umami factor — that makes Filipino food universally appealing. Mr. Tayag defines it as neither hot like Thai, nor spicy like Indian cuisine. Instead, the Filipino taste is nuanced, “a balancing act of the sour, salty, sweet and bitter.” He adds, “Our cuisine is a product of the intermarriage of different races and cultures. We are perhaps the only country that holds a unique position throughout Asia.”

The chef acknowledges that the attention on Filipino food didn’t happen overnight, and credit is due to the collective effort of icons like Nora Daza, who opened a Filipino restaurant in Paris called Aux Iles Philippines in the 1970s; restaurateur Larry J. Cruz, who is credited for pioneering concept restaurants; and Glenda Barretto, who has represented the country in various food festivals in the world’s major cities. To him, they are the ones who inspired what he calls “food missionaries” — the present generation of Filipino chefs who “spread the gospel” of how good local cuisine actually is.

The mission, however, goes beyond just cooking — to resolving what he sees has been a marketing problem.

Early this year, Mr. Tayag served pork sisig at the five-day World Street Food Congress, receiving one of the longest queues among 24 vendors from all over the world. The congress’ organizer, entrepreneur-photojournalist KF Seetoh, approached him and the other Filipino participants, saying, “Filipino cuisine is so good, man!

Why are you hiding it from the world?”

CENTER OF CUISINE
Promoting the Philippines as a culinary destination requires not only stellar chefs, but also people who will be there to market that destination.

The Philippine government has heeded the clamor among international diners for Filipino food. Last April, the Department of Tourism mounted the highly popular Madrid Fusión Manila, with Michelin-starred chefs from Spain flown in for Filipino delegates to learn from. At the press conference for the event, Tourism Secretary Ramon R. Jimenez, Jr. said, “The more often people come here to eat, the more proof people will have that we are the center of cuisine in the world.”

Down south, the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) has also recently showcased its gastronomic delights at a food festival early this month in Cotabato City, with seven villages participating.

The Tausugs, for their part, presented the tiyula itum, a piping-hot black broth of beef, goat, or chicken, with the flavors of turmeric, ginger, and burned coconut meat. It was one of the 20 dishes served in that festival.

Regional Public Works and Highways Secretary Don Mustapha Loong, who led his village in the festival, was told by French visitors that Tausug dishes reminded them of their own food — an indication, perhaps, of the French influence dating back to the 16th and 17th century when they visited the Sulu Sultanate.

“With the arrival of new technologies and the influence of Western culture, traditional cuisine is lost to fast food,” Mr. Loong said in a phone interview. “That’s why it’s important to relish a very rich cultural history in terms of food, so that traditional food can persist.”

CULINARY TOURS
Travel agents have also taken part in this culinary campaign. One of them is Jeepney Tours, a company known for transporting guests through the Philippines aboard the iconic Philippine jeepney.

This year, the company is also steering towards the direction of food.

“Right now, the country is getting a big share of inbound guests with primary interests in beach holidays, adventures, and so on,” said its managing director Clang Garcia. “What I want to happen is for travelers to visit the Philippines purely for culinary adventures.”

At present, 98% of their clients are inbound travelers, non-residents who visit the country. The culinary tours are meant to cater first to the domestic market, then promoted to international travelers. The company is also working on a licensing program to be handled by GMB Franchise. This would mean expanding Jeepney Tours in major tourism destinations, including, with hope, outside the country. As early as now, Ms. Garcia is receiving inquiries from New York, London, and other parts of Asia.

Packages for culinary tours include day tours. Guests have a choice to be shuttled to Malabon to drop by eateries on a tricycle; or to Antipolo and Angono, Rizal, to devour food and art. Weekend Food Trips can be arranged so that happy campers can follow the Spanish and Filipino food royalty from Bulacan to Pampanga, or a food trail that runs from Laguna to Quezon.

There are also longer holidays — three-day tours — to be offered. In the Bicol provinces of Albay and Sorsogon, travelers can indulge in coco spice. In Iloilo and Bacolod, there’s batchoy. In Davao, produce abound from island to highland.

The tours will be launched at the 26th Philippine Travel Mart at the SMX Convention Center on September 4 to 6. At the same time, Ms. Garcia will be launching her culinary travel guide Food Holidays, which is worth more than two years of research.

“We will always have our staple tours but right now, we would like to put more efforts into the culinary tour, until it finds its rightful place,” she said. The aroma of sisig — or lechon, or kare-kare, or tiyula itum — will soon waft to the rest of the world, beckoning anyone out there to come and have a taste.

For inquiries on culinary tours by JeepneyTours, please contact 994-6636 and 0918-897-4670. Bale Dutung strictly requires reservations. Email reserve@baledutung.com or call (045) 625-0169 or (02) 668-4038.