By Dolly Dy-Zulueta | Photos by Rafael R. Zulueta
But now the variations are no longer relegated to the chosen ingredient but also to the cooking technique, as well. So, yes, it’s possible to have dry sinigang and still savor the fullness of flavor that the classic dish provides.
Over at Westgate, the dining destination in Filinvest Corporate City, Alabang, there is one Filipino restaurant that makes and serves at least three different kinds of specialty sinigang dishes. It’s called Neil’s Kitchen, and it’s owned by a seasoned chef named Neil Ramos. The entrance to the restaurant, which occupies the spacious second floor of one of the clustered buildings at Westgate, is discretely located. Once inside, a winding staircase that gives you an illusion of a lighthouse, leads you to the main dining hall on the second floor, where a feast of Filipino specialties awaits diners.
Chef Neil has a best-selling Sinigang Trilogy, and it is made up of three different sinigang dishes—Sinigang Paella with Grilled Pork Belly, Sinigang Noodle Soup, and Sinigang na Salmon sa Miso.
Sinigang Paella is rice cooked in sinigang broth. It involves a long process because Chef Neil makes sinigang from scratch and uses the broth to cook the rice into paella. Afterward, he grills the pork, fries up some kangkong leaves to a crisp, and serves them with the Sinigang Paella.
Sinigang Noodle Soup is Chef Neil’s answer to the Japanese ramen craze. He prepares the pork belly like the Japanese chasu by rolling it into a roulade, tying it to keep the round shape and cooking it for hours. When diners order it, he has the pork grilled and sliced thinly. As for the sinigang broth, it is infused with gabi (taro) to thicken the soup, then Chef Neil plays with the preparation and presentation of the vegetables—using traditional Japanese pickled radish instead of fresh radish, and grilling the siling pansigang (finger chili) to give the broth a smoky flavor. Each order comes with extra soup.
Sinigang na Salmon sa Miso is not your typical salmon sinigang cooked in miso. Neil’s Kitchen’s version is dry sinigang. A personal favorite of Chef Neil, who uses salmon fillet instead of the traditional fish for sinigang, bangus, this dish starts with the traditional process of cooking Sinigang na Salmon sa Miso. Then some salmon meat is pureed with the soup and used as the liquid to cook the rice. The salmon fillet is grilled separately and served on top of sinigang veggies, while the sinigang rice is molded beside it.
These three contemporary versions of sinigang are very popular at Neil’s Kitchen because they have a classic and familiar taste and, yet, they are presented differently. It was, in fact, the Sinigang Paella that started it all for Chef Neil. The debonair chef has actually been in the catering business for quite a few years now. He lived in the United States in 2007 and noticed that the Filipino food scene in San Francisco was not moving much. Where he was, Mexican food was the top choice, but he believed that Filipino food was 20 times better than Mexican food.
“Filipino food is the most diverse in the world,” he says.
So he thought, why not reinvent Filipino cuisine? He thus experimented with bagoong Paella and kare-kare, although he was known for Continental cuisine, and one thing led to another. He paired adobo and kaldereta, sinigang and paella. The idea clicked. So, aside from the four major influences on his food—Spanish, American, Chinese and Japanese—he made Filipino cuisine the core of his restaurant’s menu.
Chef Neil converted the commissary of his catering business at Westgate into a cozy restaurant and called it Neil’s Kitchen, which opened in January 2015. In such a short time, Neil’s Kitchen has become Westgate’s best kept secret, and those who have discovered it keep coming back. It’s a happy secret that they love to share with other foodie friends.
Just recently, Zomato, in partnership with Filinvest Corporate City’s Westgate, took a group of foodie friends on a Food Crawl around selected restaurants at Westgate, and one of the restaurants that made its mark on the group was Neil’s Kitchen.
Image credits: Rafael R. Zulueta
