A Sumptuous Dinner With Tita Estrel By Taga Ibaan Ako
I’ve spent half of my life in Batangas City. Back in college days, my 12 hours a day are burned in here, but still return home at the end of the day. When started working, that’s when I decided to rent a boarding house since my job requires me to be where they are the earliest time possible. That’s when I started missing my Mom’s food whenever I return home from work. I’m a plate monster, I must admit. But I have to tighten my belt for some family and personal financial needs. I lived like a hungry rat in drainage, keeping myself up with ready-to-cook-noodles, cigars, bread and tsitsirya. Real meal was always on my mind.
Starting out with a Disc Jock job at BAY Radio 104.7, I met couple of friends with whom my hungry tummy began going through a revolution. Although I get invited for some dinner, particularly DJ Clark Kent who usually cook and prepare food like as if there’s always a fiesta during ordinary days, everything always end up with bottles of beer. By the end of the session, I again feel the hunger. But of course, I have to thank more of DJ Kent for always inviting me to clean plates full of food with fork and spoon –anytime, anywhere. This time, I have another reason to thank him.
He took me and introduced me to Tita Estrel Mercado of Mega Heights Subdivision, Alangilan, Batangas City. And in one invitation, she was a real-deal kitchen fairy god mother with great tasting and sumptuous dinner meal she prepared for us. And yes, I did the plate-monster-way again (It’s her fault, don’t hate me please). Arriving at her place, I noticed from the entrance gate itself until I reach the inside of the house, the house looks like a heavenly museum filled with Christmas color and decorations. I was told Tita Estrel’s house greets Christmas the earliest; she makes all the decorations as early as September. One could hardly focus his eyes on one corner alone for the whole place is worth the glance. (We’ll talk more of her house in full next time.)
Afterwards, I was led down the patio at the back of the house where the gang is waiting. At first, it appeared to me like an underground. But taking the last steps of the stairs, it’s actually an open area with huge gate leading to other road at the back of the house. And again, I lavished my eyes with humorous decorations as if I’m walking through the aisles of an enchanted kingdom.
Tita Estrel prepared for us (me, Dj Kent, Dj Red Raven, Maby and Omanji) three cuisines for the night: a sweet and sour tambakol, adobong pusit, and enseladang talong placed side by side in one large plate with subdivisions so as to keep the taste of their own. Good thing I haven’t had anything yet that day. I just finished work that day and I am so dead hungry I could fly with my motorbike when I was told it’s going to be a dinner!
Sweet and sour tambakol. One of my all time favorites. I didn’t spare this one of course. The way Tita Estrel made it, I can say even the best fine dining restaurants in the city can’t come any closer to this. The sauce is perfectly blended with the right color; it’s neither too dark nor too pale for us to imagine how it will weight us down on our chairs. It tastes so sweet with a stinging kick of sourness. It works well on top of smoking rice fresh from cooker we could smell its heavenly scent; more than enough to roll thunder and lightning in our stomach. The fish meat are all intact ending on our plates in full shape in their cuts, fried in a way that can sustain the heat of the sauce in the process. And yes, it’s all dressed up with carrots, round green bell pepper, and some tomatoes to blend the taste for more cravings.
I came a bit late. The result, adobong pusit was almost all drained up and weed out of the plate when I ascended on my chair at the other end of the table. I can’t resist this one as well. Throwing them breathlessly into my mouth, the pusit were so tender you hardly need to chew them. The skin we’re deep cleaned down to their tail with nothing to waste from them. Oh well, the sauce always looks a bit black. But it doesn’t draw any line of ink-after-taste once we have them on our throats. This menu was cooked the old fashioned way yet remained classy by its own right.
Ah, the enseladang talong. For enselada, we often have kangkong, okra, tomatoes, and cubes of onion. Sometimes we take on again cubed green mangoes, sometimes with cheese, carrots, and etc. There are actually different combinations we can make with enselada. But this one consisted mainly of soft-boiled eggplants mixed with the usual onions, tomatoes, and bagoong. I am a spicy one, so I took more of the onion. Compared with other enselada where talong ends up like a lifeless pole, Tita Estrel’s are soft boiled you could hear still their crunchiness between your teeth. I don’t know what’s in there, but it doesn’t taste like talong at all; they don’t even result to any tongue irritation like the usual talong would do. They're white anyway, not the violet one. And the bagoong, its taste is somehow neutralized by tomatoes; not itchy either.
By the end of the meal, we appeared like we’ve gained 20 pounds! Everyone enjoyed it. And yes, I pray to God that I will be invited again. I know, it’s gluttony already. But how can you blame me if that’s how Tita Estrel prepare and cook those things? If you’ll get the chance to have a taste of them, you’ll tell me I’m telling the truth. You might as well want to admit you’ll return for more.
Above it all, thanks to Tita Estrel.
My family lives on the countryside, commonly called “bukid”. Tatay Peping would have these plants on our backyard, tirelessly tilling open land for some agricultural plants so we can always have something to eat whenever he fall short of his earnings as a jeepney driver. He never complain about his aching back as long as we can have okra, talong, kamatis, camote shoots whenever we go hungry.Back then, I hardly appreciate what he was doing. He would often call me to help him finish the plot as he dig small holes to drop the seedlings. It irritates me a lot doing such since I always feel like playing basketball. But after a couple of months, we find ourselves feasting on soft boiled fresh vegetables on our plates with a half-filled pinch sized bowl of bagoong and calamansi. Life was that simple then. We could have complained about not having fried chicken or any meat on the table. He trained us to not to ask for more than what we have. And I'm proud to say that we all eat vegetables up to now.
