Turning Japanese
February 5, 2003 | 12:00am
Over the past holidays, Mary Ann and I woke up craving Japanese food. It’s one of those rare occasions (oh, really now, who am I kidding?) when you want something so badly and won’t settle for anything less. So we decided to drive all the way to Greenbelt 2 in Makati to eat at one of our all-time favorites, Sugi.
We left our house in Angeles City at a little past 12 noon, knowing there would be no traffic since it was a Sunday. In no time, we were parked at Greenbelt, and proceeded to Sugi right away. We got there just as they were closing the kitchen, 2:07 p.m. to be precise. They wouldn’t let us in, no matter how much we pleaded with the mâitre d’, even if we were regular customers. It being a Sunday, they should extend their operating hours, I argued, but to no avail. Oh, well, "it was their loss," was all we could say to console ourselves.
Still bent on having Japanese food, we headed straight for Haiku, located on the second floor of Greenbelt 3, to try our luck. Fortunately for us, they were still open and accommodated us gladly. Being our first time to eat there, we perused its rather lengthy menu carefully.
Haiku offers all the dishes that a Pinoy diner expects to find in a Japanese restaurant – sashimi, sushi, salads, tempura, sukiyaki, noodles, teppanyaki, and many more.
We shared the Haiku salad, plus a chirashi sushi for me, and a mixed tempura for Mary Ann. We made our choices in a jiffy, but it wasn’t as simple as you’d think.
Ordering the chirashi sushi (a dish of vinegared rice topped with an assortment of sashimi served on a shallow bowl), I requested the waiter to have some oburo (pink sweet fish powder), kampyo (soyed dried wintermelon or kundol) and chopped spring onion sprinkled on the rice before they top it with the assorted sashimi, and replace the shrimp portion with something else, as I am allergic to shrimps. (I actually make this same request at Sugi, and being a habitue of the place, the sushi chef does it automatically without having to be told. I guess, there lies the strength of Sugi – they make it their business to learn and remember each regular guest’s likes, dislikes, quirks and all.)
In Mary Ann’s case, she doesn’t like fish fillet in her mixed tempura. So, she requested it to be replaced with a piece of squid. I won’t bore you with details why she won’t eat a fish fillet, but loves fish just the same as long as it is served whole. Anyway, the waiter acquiesced to both our requests.
Haiku salad came as a surprise. It’s basically a lettuce salad with a light soy-sesame oil vinaigrette, sprinkled generously with fried potato strings and topped with crispy salmon skin. The crunchiness of the potatoes and crispy skin were wonderful contrasts to the leafy greens. And its dressing was a light alternative to the usually heavy Japanese mayonnaise. It was a perfect harmony of saltiness (soy sauce), acidity (lemon juice or rice vinegar) and sweetness (sugar or honey?), plus a tiny bit of sesame oil.
Haiku’s version of the chirashi sushi came literally out of the bento box. It is served on a plate, rather than a bowl. Knowing the rigidity of the Japanese in everything they do, this is rather unorthodox, but acceptable nevertheless. Just like the formal three-line haiku containing 5-7-5 syllables in each line, it is precisely this unrhymed quality that gives this verse form its appeal. A little asymmetry is tolerated no matter how rigid we may think the Japanese are. And so with the chirashi on a plate, it comes rather as a welcome deviation, though somewhat unexpected. But still and all, it was done just the way I liked it.
The chirashi came with a free bowl of miso soup, and midway through the meal, I ordered another serving, but this time with a request to have the broth from the soba with some tanuki (tempura crumbs) sprinkled on it (reminiscent of the Chinese crispy popped rice soup.) The waitress disappeared for a minute to ask the manager if it was possible. She came back nodding and announcing it was on the house to boot.
Mary Ann’s tempura came as expected – deep-fried to perfection, light, yet fluffy and crisp to the bite. It had none of the greasiness that comes with frying with batter, especially if done at the wrong temperature, with used oil at that. And her squid piece was there.
At the end of our meal, I spoke to the manager Rodel de Leon to compliment him for the delightful lunch we had. With all the accommodations they accorded us, we left the place with smiles on our faces, making our trip all the way from Pampanga worth it. Now, that’s what I call service. And we should thank Sugi for this accidental discovery.
As I headed back to my car parked in the basement, I reached for my wallet to prepare the payment for the parking fee. I must have turned ashen and felt my knees wobble as I discovered my back pocket empty. Mustering all the energy I had, I rushed back to the cinema on the fourth level. Still panting from the sprint, I explained my situation to the doorkeeper, hoping to get back in and search for my wallet. Just barely catching my breath, I was told to go to the ticketing counter one floor down.
Upon reaching it, I saw two men in smart uniforms (and well-groomed at that) standing behind the counter. One was making an inventory of the contents of the wallet, while the other witnessing and recording it on a logbook. Identifying myself as the owner of the said wallet, and with my driver’s license and credit cards inside it to prove it, they readily turned it over after I signed the receipt.
My special thanks to Melvin Gumeda, the cleaning man who found it. It was the best Christmas gift I ever received. Thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart.
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