Authentic Kulawo at Sulyap Gallery Cafe

I have to say it straight away. Nobody cooks Kulawo better than my aunts and uncles back in Sta Catalina (Sandig), here in San Pablo. Their kulawo has a very earthy, very countryside flavor that can't be replicated here at home or found at restaurants.

That said, the next best thing is Sulyap Gallery Cafe's version at Brg. Del Remedio, Cocoland Compound, San Pablo City.

There are two types of kulawo that's made here. One is made from eggplant and the other is made from banana hearts, the latter being my favorite.

We ordered Sulyap's version of the banana hearts kulawo, which comes with a generous helping of awesome, awesome grilled pork belly. We had also ordered their eggplant version previously which is also very good, but I just really love the banana hearts one.

If you haven't tasted kulawo yet, it's basically the aforementioned main ingredients cooked with vinegar, onion and coconut milk squeezed from toasted coconut meat shavings. The authentic way is to put the shavings into a metal pot, throw in some live coconut coals and just let it burn the shavings. After that's done, remove the remaining coals, let it cool and then squeeze the milk from it. It is quite unlike anything you've tasted before.

Another thing we ordered was their Ginatang Sugpo, or large shrimp cooked in coconut milk. It's pretty common to have so much food cooked with coconut milk here in San Pablo due to the abundance of coconut. Sulyap's version is very very good. It's just like how your mom would make it.

Any visitors to San Pablo wishing to taste authentic Southern Tagalog dishes ought to head to Sulyap Gallery Cafe, not only for the food, but for the incredible ambiance. Their dining rooms are spread out among restored Spanish style houses nestled in beautiful gardens. None of the dining areas are air conditioned but it's so pretty and so oozing with history and culture that you wouldn't mind.

Sulyap is not only a place you can eat, but they also have rooms available if you want to stay overnight. They have a pool, and they have a museum! This is truly one of the must visit places whenever you go to San Pablo City.

Sulyap Gallery Cafe's website:
http://www.sulyap.net/

Burong Dalag, OMG

Ok, this is probably one of the nastiest things I've ever eaten. Basically, it's fish and rice that's left to rot for a week and then sauteed in oil, garlic and onion. That's basically what Burong Dalag is.

"Buro" is a process of fermentation that originated probably in Pampanga, an area of the Philippines noted for its cooking. And eating decomposed food too apparently.

Strangely enough, I actually like it. In fact, I love it. I couldn't get enough of it.

This Burong Dalag was just given to us by someone who knows how to do it well. My mom has attempted to do this twice and it's always ended in disaster. Apparently, there's a fine line that separates well done Buro and a totally fetid piece of horse vomit. And our attempts resulted always in the latter.

We just couldn't stand the awful smell as the thing decomposes during the week. We were told it was supposed to smell that way, but holy crap, the thing was just nasty. We ended up burying the thing underground.

I guess we'll just have our friend do it for us.

Kulawo: Proudly San Pablo Made

This is a reblog from my main blog (I've been posting food articles there once in a while, which helped me decide to put up a separate one here).

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I've been talking about Kulawo on Twitter for quite some time now. When I was younger, I didn't appreciate this exotic dish which my mom used to make a lot. Only later when I got older and my taste for food had gotten more evolved did I appreciate it. I also learned only recently that the Kulawo most likely originated right here in San Pablo City (as far as I know), and it is still very much largely unknown as a dish outside of Laguna.

Today, I decided to cook it myself.

Kulawo has been generally cooked using either of the two main ingredients: Puso ng Saging (banana heart) or Eggplant. I decided to go with eggplant. If you would like to try to cook it yourself, these are the ingredients that you will need:

4-6 large eggplants
coconut gratings from 2 coconuts
coconut shell charcoal
1 cup vinegar
4 medium sized onions
1 tsp salt
dash of pepper

First, I grilled four large eggplants in a charcoal grill. You can also grill it over a stove if you like:


Yes I grilled some Bangus as well. Don't mind it. hehe. Recipe later.

When they're all done grilling, they would look like this:



Set them aside for a while to let them cool. In the meantime, place the coconut gratings in a metal pan.

Place live coconut shell coals right on top of the coconut gratings. Keep fanning to keep the coal alive. Occasionally move the coal and sift the coconut to cook as much of it as you can. It's inevitable that you will burn parts of it, but that's all right. That's what we want.



After the charcoal has died out, carefully remove the burnt charcoal with tongs. If they had completely gone out, you can do this by hand. Make sure you sift the gratings to evenly distribute the cooked and burnt areas.



Pour the vinegar on top of the gratings and set aside for a while.

Chop the onions:



By this time the eggplants have cooled enough for you to handle them with your hands. Carefully remove the blackened skin, slice, then lay them over a pan like this:



Go back to your gratings and then squeeze the milk out of them. Add the onions to the milk, then place it all in a cooking pan. Add the salt.



Slowly cook the coconut milk on medium heat. It is generally a rule to not stir any stew with vinegar in it to allow it to cook, but to prevent the milk from curdling, you do need to stir once in a while. Let it boil for around 5 minutes until the milk and onions are cooked. Remove from heat, then pour the mixture over the eggplants.



You can eat this already if you're really hungry, but we generally refrigerate it for a while, probably an hour just to let everything settle and blend together. And here it is with the grilled bangus:



How to do the grilled Bangus? Here's a quick recipe.

Get a large Bangus from your local market. You can usually request that they clean it and cut it for you, "daing" style.

In a medium sized bowl, mix 1 large chopped onion (or 2 medium sized ones), 1 large chopped tomato (or 2 medium sized ones), 1/3 cup oyster sauce, thumb sized ginger: grated, dash of pepper. Mix well. Place inside the fish cavity and then close it. Wrap fish inside aluminum foil and then grill, arond 12-18 minutes each side, depending on the size of the fish.

All right! there you have it! You have your San Pablo City style lunch, wherever you may be. Serve with hot rice!