Kate Go
Happiness is a Greasy Spoon Joint
Burp! Pardon me, but I just came from a greasy spoon joint, a few blocks down the road from the office, where I stuffed myself to dizziness. Here I am trying to write something and all I can think of is how much I want to lie down and sleep off my drowsiness. Maybe like a boa constrictor digesting its food, I will wake up when its time to eat again…like maybe in 6 months.
I love to eat. (Obvious ba?) The place does not matter to me -- be it a posh restaurant at a five-star hotel with obsequious waiters at my beck and call, or a dusty barbecue place by the side of the road where cats, dogs, newspaper boys and flies vie for my attention while I determinedly try to eat with my hands without getting too much of the puso rice under my fingernails. What’s important is that I have fun in the process.
Mind you, I don’t profess to be a gourmet. Far from it. I don’t even know how to cook (for shame) but through the years and exposure to different kinds of food, I have developed a taste for what is yummy and what is not.
Yummy for me is defined as the interplay of flavors and spices that tickle my palate and make it happy. Because my palate is happy, I am happy as well. (Babaw, no?) Whenever I come from a yummy meal, I get this goofy grin on my face, partly from the feeling of fullness that inevitably results from pigging out, but mostly from the joy that the experience of eating tasty food brings. Call it strange but I consider eating as more than just a means to nourish the body. I eat to enjoy myself, which is the reason why all my attempts to diet have met with failure. I just cannot bring myself to eat hard and tasteless pieces of low-fat "thangs" that they pass off as crackers and which purportedly provide me with enough nutrients that my body needs. Nutrition is not the point. Yummy is. And what is yummy can sometimes be found in the most unsavory looking of places.
Back in law school, we had the privilege of having a Kapampangan in our barkada. Kapampangans are known for their culinary prowess and ingenuity in concocting gourmet dishes. For that reason, our visits to Pampanga were invariably food trips as well.
An original Kampapangan dish is called sisig. Tomadors (alcohol drinkers) even in Cebu are no doubt familiar with this dish, a favorite pulutan (bar chow) with beer and other alcoholic beverages. This dish originated in a food stall along the train tracks in Angeles City owned by a certain Aling Lucing. The original version of sisig is made out of those parts of the pig that are not usually being eaten, such as the ears, nose, face, and tail. These are chopped up and mixed with onions, liver and other innards, roasted until crisp and served on a sizzling plate.
Sounds gross? It tastes great! Especially when you down it with lots of rice and Coke, al fresco with the stars above you, jeepney and tricycle exhaust as well as smoke from the grills wafting your way, beggars, cigarette and candy vendors pausing at your table every so often and dogs sniffing at your legs and giving you pitiful looks in the hope that you would toss a morsel or two their way. This is sisig at its finest and we are the not only ones who think so. From that one little stall, Aling Lucing has been able to put up other stores in the vicinity including a beauty parlor and sari-sari store. Last time I was there in 1996, I counted 5 Aling Lucing stores, all "along da riles". The main "dining" area, however, has still remained on the street and in much the same state as I previously mentioned.
In Cebu, hubby and I like to go to this carenderia (eatery) near Capitol Site. But it wasn’t love at first sight with the place. The first time he brought me there was a week before our wedding in 1992. I was short tempered from all the loose ends I still had to tie up for the big day. I wasn’t in the mood to go but I humored him.
When I entered the place, it was then a small, very dark, dirty place with mismatched chairs and tables. I remember a dark pot-bellied man in sando (undershirt) and loose shorts sitting with one foot up the seat, his elbow resting on his knee as he crammed food into his mouth with his hands. It made me shudder to look at him.
It didn’t help any that our table was tilted at a dangerous angle and that my chair was one of those high backed wooden things with cushioned back rests and seats, only this one had the stuffing coming out. My hubby’s chair was a plastic stool. But when the lechon kawali (crispy deep-fried pork) and pochero (beef bone marrow soup) came, I had to grudgingly admit that the food in that place is worth the initial revulsion I felt.
Thankfully, they have since fixed up the place a little and even added a few more tables – a testament, no doubt, to its popularity and profitability. We were there last week and I had a whole plate of lechon kawali all to myself. We joked that at the rate we were eating, we were going to be forever young. Sus, I even saw my life flash before my eyes as I munched on the crunchy skin. But at least I would have died happy, di ba?
This piece would not be complete without my mentioning the ultimate greasy spoon joint at the Lapulapu Monument in Mactan Island. Months after I ate there, I can still recall with gusto the sumptuous feast we had there. My mouth salivates at the thought of the tasty liempo (pork hind), garlic shrimps, buntot ng tuna (tuna tail), grilled fish, adobo (soy marinated) squid and lato (seaweeds) that we ate with vats of rice and washed down with gallons of coke. That we ate with our hands only added to the charisma of the place, never mind that outside tons of plastic garbage littered the area. My scuba instructor said that he once had Japanese guests who had no interest in eating anywhere else the whole time they were in Cebu.
Such is the allure of good food. Happiness is where you find it. Even in a greasy spoon joint.
Published in March 8, 1998
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