Rob Pengson proves why he’s one of our most talented Chefs
Chef Rob Pengson, formerly of the pioneering degustation restaurant The Goose Station, is back, and working like a man possessed with a mission, and most definitely a vision.
After a two-and-a-half-year hiatus, Pengson opened Esqinita last May in Poblacion, a fun hangout that glorified Filipino and Asian street foods. He also established a catering commissary, an online business school, and a cooking school, not to mention helped his sister open a new restaurant in Davao. Whew.
But through it all, he had a dream: of opening his own signature restaurant, a new playground where he could cook the way he wanted to, and showcase his style of Filipino cuisine to the world. It would be called Beso Beso, in homage to the “kiss-kiss” culture we inherited from the Spanish.
“The concept of Beso Beso is Filipiniana-European,” Rob explains. “Maybe ‘New Filipino’? The influence is the entire culture of the Philippines: part Spanish, Chinese, Asian, and Malay. Everything we take we flip it on a Filipino side, but it’s food that can be had with wine. That’s very important.”
Wine is essential to Rob, who drinks it not just for pleasure and as a social lubricant, but also for its health benefits. “I need to limit my sugar intake, and cocktails have a lot of sugar,” he notes.
Before anything else, he takes us on a tour of the restaurant, which he designed himself and built in four months, with his mom Cristina Heras as the contractor. Beso Beso’s vibe is warm, friendly and welcoming, much like Rob himself. On the walls are paintings by his young sons Santiago and Sebastian, as well as commissions from local artists. One depicts badass chef Marco Pierre White with the visage of Jose Rizal, whom I’m assuming is one of Rob’s heroes. (At The Goose Station he did a special tasting menu inspired by the life of Rizal.)
“It’s a very famous Marco Pierre White picture — he has one leg up and he’s preparing his pig trotter dish, but then we put the face of Jose Rizal. It’s to inspire our students,” Rob explains. “Sometimes Filipinos are apologetic that they’re not world-class, so we want them to have that mindset that Filipinos can be world-class, like Marco Pierre White.”
Another painting depicts a “millennial Igorot” with the beautiful face of a mestiza, while at the entrance is a Pinoy twist on Rene Magritte’s “The Son of Man” — all playfully illustrating Beso Beso’s Pinoy-meets-the-rest-of-the-world concept.
I remember back in 2009, when molecular gastronomy was all the rage, that Rob excitedly showed me his Goose Station kitchen toys like a smoker that produced aromatic fumes. What does it say that 10 years later, the more mature chef is showing me a secret passage that staff and guests can duck into if they see someone they’d rather avoid?
Kidding aside, even if his kitchen wasn’t fully powered yet (half the burners had no gas and they were still waiting for equipment to come in), Rob was determined to launch Beso Beso in time for the Christmas rush. “We have a lot of bookings already; one was catering for a school with 600 pax.”
The way pinoys like to eat
Anthony Bourdain once said that cooking is a young man’s game, and Pengson is wise to be mentoring twenty-something chefs behind the pass, like Mark Sanchez, who cooked alongside him at Esqinita, and now Kim Valones, who’s fresh from short stints at Gaggan and El Celler de Can Roca. This frees Rob to do a myriad of duties, like front-of-house service, something the charming, personable chef does really well.
“During the day I teach,” he informs us. (He plans to open a multi-disciplinary arts school, Aleanza, in February 2020.) “I come in midday, around 2 p.m., so I can office a bit, and then transition to the chef part at the end of the day, so it’s fun.”
It’s evening now, so Rob figuratively puts on his chef’s hat and regales us with the Filipino brand of hospitality that he wants Beso Beso to be known for. I try the house cocktail, a Guyabano Tequila Sour, which goes fabulously well with the house’s crusty sourdough-sitaw bread and charred-eggplant butter, an addictive spread that Rob first introduced at Esqinita.
The seven-course tasting menu highlights ingredients and dishes Filipinos love to indulge in when they’re eating out, like crab fat, sisig and wagyu. They may not be the healthiest foods on the planet, but they satisfy the Pinoy’s deepest cravings and line the stomach perfectly for alcohol.
First up was “Dirty Ice Cream,” a chia seed-coconut cone topped with a swirl of cured foie gras “tocino” mousse and pili nuts. Though Rob claims he didn’t bring back any Goose Station dishes, I seem to recall eating a foie cone back in those days.
Anyway, it’s different this time around: once you consume the savory top you encounter the sweetness of Baguio strawberries — a nice surprise and clever progression from amuse-bouche to dessert in two bites.
Another mini-masterpiece is Sutokil, inspired by Rob’s recent sojourn to Davao. Chef Kim Valones explained the three-part portmanteau: “Sutokil stands for sugba, or grilled — we did that with the mussels; tinola or tola — we did that with the clams; and kilaw for the oysters.”
With its stunning presentation evoking a rocky beach, these were three bites of heaven for me.
Next came Relleno, in which half a crab shell is filled with torched crab fat and salted egg with a side of corn. Though I wished for something more acidic than corn to balance the richness of the talangka, this was so decadently good I polished off the whole thing. The generous portion also started to make me feel full.
On this note, I would suggest that those with smaller appetites order the Express Menu, which gives you a lighter but no less substantial five courses and a choice between Chilean sea bass, mushroom sisig and wagyu rib-eye for your main.
For those with appetites big enough to handle all seven courses, like the Philippine polo team — which came in full force to support Rob, whom they used to play football with as kids — serving a palate cleanser in between the Relleno and the next three dishes might help.
All about Umami
Rob says the fish course, Nanam, is all about umami, so he dialed the umami level up to 11 on sea bass with a sea urchin-soy sauce and black garlic, seaweed and furikake oils.
Sisig is given more refined treatment than a sizzling plate and raw egg on top, mixed with two kinds of mushrooms and bruléed in a leek topped with sabayon. Plump pigeon will also be added once they arrive from France.
At this point, the convivial chef broke out a bottle of Godet Antarctica Icy White, a special clear cognac a friend gave him as a gift. It went well with the main course, Bistek, a Pinoy staple elevated with wagyu rib-eye gold, red wine instead of vinegar and a flavorful oxtail “paksiw” in lieu of sautéed onions.
I loved the dessert, Cacao, where the flavors of ginger tea, Don Papa rum and barako coffee deftly enhanced the star ingredient.
Just as this dish illustrated the world-class excellence of our Davao chocolate, Beso Beso proves that Pengson and his team are first-rate. For local diners, the very reasonably priced tasting menu (P3,500 for seven courses; as low as P1,200 for five) is an interesting exploration of the way we like to eat, and how a handaan might taste when filtered through the sophisticated palate of a chef. For expats and foreigners, the degustation is a fascinating tour through, not just Philippine cuisine and heritage cooking techniques, but also the Filipino psyche, with its colorful presentation, assorted influences and jostling flavors coming together to produce ultimate harmony.
What a comeback for Rob, whom I’ve always believed is one of our most promising young talents. Ten years later he’s taken his rightful place again on the frontline of Filipino chefs who are creating exciting, modern and playful food that embodies what being Pinoy is all about: that we are the halo-halo. The secret is in the blending, the fusion — the imaginative mix-mix.
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Beso Beso is on the 2/F of the Aleanza Institute of Arts, Autometics Center, 2257 Don Chino Roces Avenue Extension, Makati. Open from Tuesdays to Saturdays, 6 p.m. to 11 p.m., for reservations call or text 0917-179-2562 or 0917-719-0105. For more info visit www.aleanzainstitute.com/beso-beso, Instagram @besobesoph and Facebook: Beso Beso Filipiniana-European Restaurant.
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