Seven months ago, we stopped at Ormoc City for lunch on our way home from a weekend at the beach. None of us being hip to the local food scene, Jenny called a mutual friend for ideas. “Yoyo’s,” he offered without hesitation. “The food is good, but don’t expect anything fancy. And please try the adobong tangkong — my wife and I have been trying to figure out what makes it so yummy.”
Had the recommendation been less than enthusiastic (or the conveyor less trustworthy), I would have thought twice about going into Yoyo’s Seafood Place. Its worn, dusty façade did not inspire confidence. The inside was at least well-maintained, but why were there photos of worms tacked on the walls?
“Duh,” Therese said, “that’s shaved chocolate on black Sambo.”
I was practicing, ready to dish out my snidest comments for the adobong tangkong (water spinach). I can be cruel that way, I admit, and so must also own up that I really liked the dish. On closer inspection, it consisted solely of tender young greens (ganás!) — very impressive; it showed how serious they were about this lowly vegetable. Try buying a bunch of kangkong and see just how many young leaves are in there. I regret not having snapped a picture of the dish. Too hungry.
As for the thickish dark sauce, I was about to offer a half-assed guess on its constituent ingredients when Therese rescued me from making a donkey of myself. “Oyster sauce,” she said.
“Huh?”
“Maggi — I asked the cook.”
Of course. Like another friend (a judge) says, if you want to know, just ask. It doesn’t work all the time, that’s for sure, but when it does it saves you a lot of guesswork. And face.
But that post will have to wait until I get my hands on baby greens. Today I fried “regular” tangkong with beer batter left over from another dish I was working on. If your eyes are keen enough, you will have spied another leaf in there as well: basil. Use more than one cultivar if you have them to add interest to the dish. Let’s face it: however crispy the tangkong, it’s pretty one-dimensional; that’s why we profess such amazement to experience it transformed by something as equally ordinary as oyster sauce (or shrimp paste). It’s not magic, but it might as well be.
This post has no comments.
Post a Comment