Guava is ripe

It always leaves a good taste in our patriotic palate when restaurateurs invent delicious and creative ways with Filipino food.

Larry Cruz invented a chocolate ah fondue with suman, manga, and ensaymada, and the ahs have not stopped coming at his venerable chain of restos. Vicky Rose Pacheco and Ricky Gutierrez cooked up the sinigang na corned beef and sizzling sisig tokwa for Sentro, and Filipino food sizzled with excitement. Claude Tayag was one day dreaming and put together buco, pandan, and gelatin for dessert into what is now immortalized as Claude’s Dream. Maritel Nievera of Cabalen experimented with kaimito and produced a delicious salad for her buffets. Myrna Segismundo introduced lechon roulade, while Glenda Barretto made a crispy lechon kawali with bagoong, and Pinoy lechon choices are richer than ever. Gaita Fores used chico with Italian prosciutto and now Philippine fruits have never been as appreciated.

Why indeed, do we have to be so obsessed with apples and caviar and other imported, pricey stuff when we have an abundance of mangoes and bagoong in our country? In the hands of imaginative chefs and restaurateurs, our local ingredients get a new flavor and a new twist. And we will always be craving for Filipino food.

That’s what I felt when I first tasted the cooking done by Bernard Dee and his wife Nellia Silverio-Dee. They weren’t just cooking. They were creating.

For a birthday dinner hosted by gourmet-businessman Ben Chan for Lucy Torres-Gomez, Bernard and Nellia created a feast of Filipino and Spanish delights, and guests kept going back to the buffet table for more seafood paella, fabada, chilled gazpacho, and fish baked in wine. For another dinner that Ben gave for sister Nene Lim, there were malagkit na kanin with slices of meat, lechon with paella, and a lot of seafood delights. They used local fruits and vegetables like never before done. But what I couldn’t forget was the guinatan.

Bernard and Nellia have been catering for the past l0 years, and we told them: "You should really open a restaurant. We can’t forever be waiting for Ben Chan’s next dinner to enjoy your cooking."

So when Bernard and Nellia opened their restaurant called Guava at Serendra right in front of Market! Market! at The Fort, I was one of the early customers hungry to be amazed again. Me and my hungry friends – four Filipinos and two Australians – simply stopped talking when the dishes came. The food was too good; we were running out of words.

First came the pandan-wrapped ubod in watercress salad. Ubod ng sarap with shiitake mushrooms, shrimps and wansuy.

Then the ampalaya salad. The best eye-opener for people who have never liked ampalaya! The vegetarians among us were ecstatic. We can’t describe it; you have to taste it.

Pritchon came looking like Peking duck, but tasting better, said our Australian meat-loving friend. Carved on the spot, the pritchon came with six sauces to choose from – chili garlic, sour cream and chives, sour cream and garlic, sweet soy chili, peanut sauce and black bean sauce.

Pininoy na foie gras came next. Chicken liver grilled to perfection on baguette crostini and drizzled with guava sauce. Again, our Australian friend was dazzled.

Pritong tilapia with sweet sampalok sauce made me rethink my jaded taste for tilapia. It was seasoned tilapia fresh from the Silverio farm in Bulacan, laid on a bed of tamarind sauce. So delicious.

Grilled sugpo with dulong was baked and butterflied with lots of dulong in olive oil. Tender and wonderful.

Double-Treat Crabs came with two sauces – buttered aligue and buttered garlic chili sauce. When you’re feeling crabby, this will soothe your palate.

Chicken Adobo a la Guava – chicken meat layered from white to dark in a light adobo sauce and spiced with roasted garlic – convinced my Australian guest there was nothing like this Down Under, or anywhere in the world.

For rice, there were five choices – kangkong at chicharon rice, dulong rice, tinapa rice, plain rice, and aligue rice, our choice. We did not regret it, even if we felt sinful that day.

For dessert came the dish we had been hankering for since Ben Chan’s last dinner – guinatang mais halo-halo with bilo-bilo surprise. "The surprise there," explained Nellia, "is the glutinous rice stuffed with ube, banana or camote, and made into balls."

The restaurant’s signature drink, guava juice, was refreshing, just right, not annoyingly sweet.

"There are other dishes you must come back for," Nellia said. First is Nellia’s fave creation, paksiw na salmon, vinegared with roast capsicum, fried garlic cloves, and baby pearl onions.

Then there are dishes that sound intriguing and enticing by their names alone: Monggonisa, kare-kare with bagoong tsokolate, Asado Gone Bananas, Two-Faced Laing, and pinakbet sa bagnet.

How do dishes like these get created in the kitchen of Bernard and Nellia? Bernard, looking the most hip chef in his bagets cap and his never-boring printed pants, explained: "I started cooking years ago when I got frustrated at times and couldn’t get the food that I really wanted. So I would read cookbooks, assemble ingredients, and experiment in the kitchen."

Bernard comes from a family of gourmets and restaurateurs. Brother Sonny Dee co-owns W Restaurant with another brother Rikki Dee, the food court innovator who is now better known for the excellent restos he co-owns – Kai, Mangan, and Ebun. For the past 12 years, Bernard has been taking culinary lessons here and in San Francisco with wife Nellia. He further honed his culinary talent in Hawaii and Guam, where he worked with a five-star hotel.

Nellia has always been a creative person. I first met her as the young, restless and artistic owner of December boutique ("Because every day should feel like Christmas," she once said) and the popular Salon, in the ’70s and ’80s. Today, she is still young at heart, restless and artistic, always cooking up new things. Like Bernard, she was born to cook, finding happiness in serving good food and pleasing the most hard-to-please gourmet. "And cooking Filipino comfort foods in a modern way, without losing the very essence of how they were prepared long ago," Nellia added.

"Guava is actually a collaboration between five cooking friends – Sandra Fernandez, Cristy Castillo, Ditas Villareal, Gari Palmani, and myself – and a chef, that’s my husband Bernard," Nellia explained. "These were five friends brought together by their passion for cooking, and a shared dream of wanting to showcase the dishes they have learned."

After years in the kitchen, the fruit of their labors is ripe for the picking and Guava is finally open.

Bernard and Nellia Dee and friends, take your bow.

Guava is ripe.

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Guava Restaurant is located along the front driveway of Serendra, across Market! Market! at The Fort. For reservations and inquiries, call 856-0489.

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E-mail the author at milletmananquil@yahoo.com.