Southern Tagalog cuisine

As I promised yesterday, here are photos of the meal that my husband and I enjoyed at Patis Tito Garden Café.
 


Ensaladang Pako (Fiddlehead Fern Salad). Pako, or fiddlehead fern, is the curly top of young, edible ferns. I do not know what this variety of edible fern is, but I do know that it grows in the wild in Southern Luzon. The simplest and most common way of eating it is with tomatoes and a soy-flavored vinaigrette. Patis Tito Garden Café serves it with grated cheese, crunchy garlic bits, scallions, and a mild and creamy mustard dressing.



Petite Lumpiang Gulay (Fried Vegetable Spring Roll). Vegetables rolled in a rice flour wrapper and deep fried is a common dish in the Philippines. However, most of Manila's fried lumpia uses togue, or mung bean sprouts. Patis Tito Garden Café's location in the heart of the Philippines' coconut-producing region gives it easy access to the best and freshest ubod, or heart of palm, and that is what they use in their lumpiang gulay. Served with a vinegar dipping sauce, it was the tenderest, creamiest lumpiang ubod I have ever had.



Bulalo (Beef Shank and Marrow Stew). Good bulalo requires two boilings, the first to get rid of impurities and the second, at a very slow, very long simmer, to extract the full flavor of the beef and marrow. Patis Tito's bulalo is enhanced with onions, lemongrass, garlic, and Visayan fermented fish paste—all very mild, resulting in a delightful play of flavors—and served with green beans, young corn and Chinese cabbage. Needless to say, it is the beef marrow that gives bulalo its wonderfully sinful taste.

Unfortunately, I was not able to take a photo of our dessert, which was Turon con Latik—saba (plantain banana) and jackfruit rolled in a rice flour wrapper and deep fried, and served with latik (a native coconut caramel) and toasted sesame seeds. I took a short walk while waiting for it and by the time I got back to our table, my husband had eaten half of it already. Men.