Pasta festa

Spaghetti Bolognese is a comfort food to my darling, Mary Ann. No, she has no Italian blood though her hands trulily fly in gesticulation when mad. Her fondness for this pasta is a result of her flying for 18 years for Cathay Pacific. She observed that all hotels all over the world serve spaghetti Bolognese (tomato and meat sauce) and said that like fried chicken, spaghetti Bolognese is always done right wherever part of the world she was. It thus became her ever-reliable comfort food whenever she was in a country where she did not like the local food or if she was fighting jet lag and had to eat at dawn in her hotel room. 

“But did you know that spaghetti Bolognese was not invented in Bologna, Italy, but in Little Italy, New York?” I asked her.

“Is it?” she asked. “No wonder, spaghetti meat sauce is best in American hotels.” And to this day, her favorite spaghetti is still tomato sauce with ground beef or meatballs. 

In Italy, the most popular pastas are probably the simplest: al pomodoro (plain tomato sauce), aglio olio (garlic with extra virgin olive oil) or simply with pesto. Most of their tomato-based sauces are sour because that is the natural taste of fresh tomatoes, those well-loved plum or egg-shaped San Marzano variety. To the Filipino taste buds, it is an acquired taste as we are used to putting sugar when we make spaghetti to neutralize its acidity. 

In fact, even pizzas in Italy are not overloaded with toppings the way we like it here in the Philippines. That is because we learned pizzas and pastas from the Americans and not from the Italians. Americans, as we know, being in the land of plenty, tend to oversize their serving portions and overload everything with ingredients. And if most upscale hotels all over the world serve spaghetti Bolognese, it just shows how America has indeed spread its influence the world over, and not just economically and militarily speaking. The world does not only watch their movies and sing their songs, we also eat their food and often imitate their lifestyle. It is then not surprising that most franchise chains all over the world are US origin. 

When US franchisee Pizza Hut opened in the Philippines in 1984, it just had spaghetti Bolognese and macaroni as its pasta dishes. And the most saleable pasta to the Filipinos then and until today is, not surprisingly, the spaghetti Bolognese. Sensing its customers becoming more and more adventurous with their food and demand for variety, Pizza Hut spent more than six months of research and development with its ultimate goal to better serve their customers who are mostly young women.

Pizza Hut’s New Product Development Group and its regional R&D partners from its parent company YUM! Brands Inc., did its market test last September.  Even before doing so, they did a lot of research as to what flavors would appeal to the Filipino palate. (Yum! is a Fortune 500 corporation that operates or licenses Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, KFC, A&W Restaurants, among others. Based in Louisville, Kentucky, it is the world’s largest fast food restaurant company in terms of system units — over 36,000 restaurants around the world in more than 110 countries.)

Pizza Hut painstakingly installed new fittings and did major makeover of their pasta stations to accommodate new ingredients that more than double their usual, and handling of which was more delicate due to premium-grade items like fresh basil leaves. Plate warmers and plate chillers have been brought into every Pizza Hut kitchen so guests can have their pastas on warm plates and salads on chilled bowls.

As for their ingredients, Divella pastas of penne, fettuccine, macaroni and spaghetti are imported from Italy, rich tomato herb sauces and fresh vegetable ingredients from Baguio and Tagaytay. And, of course, professional chefs were sought to deliciously blend all these wonderful ingredients together, and like true artists they have come out with their masterpiece, called the Pasta Perfetto line of 12 pastas.

“We are here to educate Filipinos on what a real, good pasta is,” said Edgar Allan Caper, advertising and promotions manager.

“ The goal is to make Filipinos eat pasta as much as they eat rice, to enjoy pasta every day without worrying about the price because now the pasta we offer is really affordable for the chef-quality pasta they are looking for,” Elaine Guzman, VP for marketing, explained.

Thanks to them, Filipino diners now enjoy the spaghetti Aglio Olio (garlic and extra virgin olive oil) at P99 but noticeably with chicken strips or shrimps as add-ons. Unlike the Italians, Filipinos love to have meat on their pasta. Most probably garlic and olive oil on noodles is sinangag na kanin to us and naturalmente we are in want of ulam. Lasagna Classico, P179, with layers of pasta, meat sauce and cheese baked and topped with mozzarella and parmesan and fresh basil is also very popular especially among young diners but must be topped with sweet béchamel sauce. Something unheard of in Italy for sure.

The Fettuccine Supremo has plump shrimps, tender squid, and fresh scallops in tomato cream sauce with fresh basil. This dish is first sautéed in garlic and olive oil and then baked in parchment paper to seal in all flavors. This is indeed supremely good especially at its value of P239, which is good enough for two people. Mary Ann, who always prefers tomato sauce to cream sauce, was surprisingly very impressed and happy with the Pesto Cream Penne (P149). She liked the combination of basil pesto and cream with a generous serving of grilled chicken strips.  

Other Pasta Perfetto that will stimulate the appetite and dare to titillate the Pinoy taste buds include Baked Mac and Cheese at P119, which is elbow macaroni with three cheeses: Parmesan, cheddar and mozzarella which kids will enjoy. 

And for the pasta lovers in the family there are several choices. Try the Fettuccine a la King at P119, a yummy mixture of pasta and the goodness of chicken a la king. The Puttanesca at P125 is loaded with rich real black olives, capers and anchovies. If you prefer your pasta baked, try the Baked Fettuccine Alfredo at P145. For a shrimply delicious meal there is the Spaghetti Shrimp Garlic and Mushrooms at P145.

Say cheese to the three-Cheese Ravioli at P165, which bursts with all the goodness of cream cheese, cottage cheese and parmesan, tossed in a light tomato sauce and drizzled with pesto cream.

All these exquisite 12-dish variety are freshly prepared upon order only by a dedicated pasta chef. And what makes it more interesting is that the Pizza Hut staff is happy to accommodate diners’ requests. You want elbow macaroni instead of fettuccine on your Seafood Supremo? The chef may not agree with you but thy wish be done. When I got my pasta on a warm plate and my salad on a chilled bowl, I knew I was in no fast-food chain but in a casual dining restaurant that serves your food right and fast to your table. And if you want to stay home, Delivery service has other choices — Creamy Chicken Penne (Single P149, Family P499) grilled chicken strips on pasta smothered with creamy white cheese sauce, and topped with mozzarella cheese and the Meaty Penne Napolitano (Single P149, Family P499), with ham, crumbled Italian sausage and beef in tomato sauce.

Now, instead of 2 pasta dishes to choose from, there are now 14 choices – and my darling who has a problem with making choices gets stressed out. As she loves to say, “Life is difficult when you have a choice,”

 As for me, “the more the merrier.”