Notes from an eyeball

Cebu, November 15 — My stomach was in knots as the taxi made its way up Villalon Drive. I was going to a party (of sorts) and I hate parties, especially that part where I have to open my mouth… to converse. I don’t mind telling you that I’m absolutely lousy at conversations. When cornered into one, I prefer to let the other person do all the talking while I supply the appropriate non-verbal responses: a smile, a raised brow, a nod. Some people think I’m shy or polite that way, but what I am, in fact, is uninterested. If you ask me, that’s as good a reason as any to avoid parties.

Now here’s irony for you: I asked to be at this particular get-together. What’s more, I have never met any of the characters I was going to have lunch with — at least, not personally. All I knew was that they loved (and lived) to eat, the mere fact of which made them, as our host put it, “interesting.” I could’ve skipped the gathering, eaten someplace else with my pals (whom I dragged along, incidentally), and still had a good time, but questions were begging to be answered: What’s our host like in person? (Tall, geeky, soft-spoken, bespectacled, hairline-challenged, certainly not overweight.) Could Lee, online punster, be any funnier in the flesh? (You bet, and he has a pretty wife, too — proving once again that the clown always laughs last.) Will avowed pork addict Joey elbow everyone out of the lechon table?

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I was going to my very first eyeball. At long last, an opportunity to affix faces to some of the names/monikers that enliven the culinary (and occasional extra-culinary) discussions at MarketManila.com, meet Marketman himself, and do some pretty serious eating — not necessarily in that order. There had only been two other eyeballs since the site debuted and this one promised to outdo them all. Heck, while those events were known by the order in which they occurred (first, second), this was — wait for it — The Lechon Eyeball, with five roasted pigs for a mere fifty guests! It was, quite literally, The Heart-stopping Event of the Year.

Still, it was a party. I hate par—

But you already know that.

Anyway, the moment I saw the long table, simply but tastefully set up under a stand of trees at the crest of a hill, with a nice view of the city below and Cebu's mountains beyond, I promptly chided myself. It only occurred to me then just how much of a logistical nightmare an affair like that could be, especially if you were the hands-on type of host. And fifty seemed a manageable enough number, until you considered that among that group were food bloggers, critics, hoteliers, restaurateurs — and since we’re on the subject, there was this lady, name of Margarita Fores…

I wanted to kick myself, really. There I was, worried about making a fool of myself (as if people came to see me, pfft), when someone actually had a ticking bomb on his hands. Consider: fifty discerning and ravenous guests, eager to pounce (and pronounce judgment) on a feast of five lechon, three of which were spit-roasted on-site, and of which two were painstakingly pricked all over and cheekily called accuchon (acupuncture + lechon, get it?); lechon sisig; lechon paksiw; fresh tanguigue (mackerel) kinilaw; steamed crabs and grilled prawns; seaweed, eggplant, and jackfruit salads — plus a stupendous dessert spread that would have enriched fellows of the Philippine Diabetes Society, but only if the cardiologists didn’t get to us first. And above it all stood our unflappable host. Or rather, he was constantly hunched over something: preparing kinilaw, putting the sisig together, grilling the corn and shrimps — all the while explaining the whys and hows of the dish he was working on, coolly parrying questions, and generally keeping his head. It was uncanny. The guy, I thought, has balls of steel. There was an alternative explanation, of course: He had to be a bit nuts, collected as he was. Either was cool with me.

To no one’s surprise, the food was spot-on delicious. The accuchon delivered, skin crisp and flesh wonderfully infused with aromatics. My friend Tots, never in thrall to lechon in the first place, pronounced it the best he’d ever had (but then so did Anthony Bourdain). It had everyone swooning and fumbling for Lipitor. If you want to know how the rest of the savory spread fared, you can read all about it elsewhere; suffice it to say that we were, to a person, stuffed to the gills. Whatever room remained in our guts promptly surrendered to the call of the dessert table, the contents of which seemed inexhaustible, so much so that everyone had to be prevailed upon to bring home loads of various sweets and delicacies (to finish us off, probably). Did someone say “over the top?” You are most perceptive.

So… how about all those other people at the party? Oh dear, I knew you’d ask. Well, they were interesting — and I do not want you to think I mean anything malicious or snide by that casual remark. My mouth was full pretty much of the time. A friend once advised me: When you eat, never think about anything else but the food in front of you; if you do, it will only detract from the experience. It was good advice, and now I’m giving it to you. Just don’t expect it to do wonders for your social life.

Photos by Claudio Sanchez-Mariscal IV