Archie Castillo’s expensive risk

The deluge of restaurants with specialty cuisine from Italian and German to Vietnamese and Halal has made the Filipino diner more adventurous. But even then, the Pinoy palate remains loyal to food he is familiar with and fond of: his very own!

Sakura, a Japanese restaurant that also doubles as merchandiser of Japanese grocery products, acknowledges this fact. Even when the restaurant lists authentic Japanese items from sushi and sashimi to teppanyaki and maki on its menu, Sakura enhances flavors to suit the Filipino family market that comprises a big bulk of its loyal clientele. Sakura has two branches located in Glorietta 4 in Makati which have been ultra-successful for the last eight years; and the newly-opened Sakura at SM Mall of Asia (ground floor, near the south car park building) that opened last June and is now giving even the most established restaurants a run for their money.

Sakura’s thrust to be Filipino-friendly is not about being unauthentic but being… adaptive. "First of all, it’s hard to not be authentic when it comes to Japanese cuisine because most of the ingredients have no substitute," says Sakura owner Archie Castillo, also famed musical director to top singing stars. He adds: "But definitely one can enhance taste without tampering with its essence. The Japanese like their food bland if not bordering on that fishy – bonito, they call it – taste. Filipinos, on the other hand, like their food with flavors that burst in the mouth. Filipinos enjoy food they can identify whether it is salty, sour, sweet, etc. There must be a middle ground, we thought, and for sometime now, we’re proud to say that Sakura has been that middle ground."

Archie, who had us for dinner at Sakura Mall of Asia a few days back, feted us to his best-sellers. What we loved best were his creations; the Sakura-style Tuna Sashimi and Sakura-style Salmon Sashimi. The first is the basic tuna sashimi topped with ginger and onion leeks and bathed in sesame oil while the second was tweaked with funky wasabe and sesame oil toppings that jump in the mouth.

Archie asked if we would like to try his resto’s Ebi Tempura. We graciously turned down the offer saying that we were already stuffed but we were sure that his tempuras are not like what other restos offer. "Modesty aside, yes, you’re absolutely right," he says. "Most restos suffocate the main ingredients inside – say, shrimps, in the Ebi Tempura – with loads of butter so that when fried, they look bigger than they really are. Sakura, on the other hand, prides itself with serving tempura you can slice at any point and still see the main ingredient inside. Quality is always value for money." He adds that anyone who orders rice with their dishes would be delighted to discover that theirs are the long-grained kind and really sticky kind ("and not because we mix in dinorado to just make it seem so," he adds).

We trained our eyes around Sakura and found the décor of green walls and austere displays cozy and relaxing. Most of the displays, in fact, give the place a mom-and-pop feel as these are Japanese grocery items that Archie sources from his father who owns and runs the Sakura Traders in Pasay City. The commercial merchant of Japanese goods that opened shop way back in the ’70s, Archie says, is what inspired him to set up a Japanese restaurant. Among the products found in Sakura are Japanese cooking ingredients such as snacks, tea, sake, sochu and even houseware. "While waiting for the food – which is not too long as most Japanese cuisine takes only minutes to prepare – then people could browse at the items; do some shopping if they wish," says Archie.

When not being musical director or writing and arranging music for such names as Regine Velasquez, Ogie Alcasid, Marlene de la Peña (Filipino making waves in the Japanese music scene for years now), Sharon Cuneta and Rachelle Ann Go, just to name a few, Archie is in Sakura overseeing operations. He says that any restaurants’ crucial period is its first six months so he really is making sure everything in the Sakura Mall of Asia is primed to live up to the success of the one at Glorietta.

What’s especially challenging to one running a Japanese restaurant? "Making sure everything served to customers is fresh. That’s quite a feat considering we mostly serve fish. Our rule of thumb is that if our fish items don’t move within the day, then it definitely gets cooked the next day, if not thrown out. It’s an expensive risk but you don’t think of that when your eyes are on quality and safety over profit," he says.

Archie recently trained under Chef Matsuda of the Sushi Chef Institute in Los Angeles, California. Before that, he had extensive sessions with Chef Oshima whom Archie flew in from Japan so the famed chef could teach him the secrets behind Japanese cuisine one-on-one. Archie also studied courses related to culinary at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City as well as the Center for Culinary Arts Manila.

Alumni homecoming

The Saint Joseph’s School Pandacan Alumni Association is inviting Josephians to the 52nd Annual Alumni Homecoming on Jan. 6, 2007 at the SJS Covered Gym. For details, call the Alumni office at 562-5515 Mondays to Fridays, 2 to 6 p.m., Myrna Dacanay at 0920-9231060 or lawyer Noemi Ferrer at 0920-5642419.