(This is part 1 of 3 of my Good Bad Stuff Series. I am featuring three restaurants whose specialties may give the diner a sudden death. Find out how!)
Ever since I saw Anthony Bourdain's episode of No Reservations Philippines, I have been aching to try all the restaurants he's been to, one of which is Claude Tayag's Bale Dutung. I have to admit, I have never heard of his restaurant before. I only knew that there's a famous chef from Pampanga by the name of Claude Tayag, and I often asked my friend L if she was related to or familiar with this Tayag chef in any way, to which she would respond no. So my knowledge of the great Claude would end at that, until Anthony Bourdain featured his restaurant and I watched with glee as I learned more about Claude Tayag and Kapampangan food. On that day, I told myself, one day, I am going to be stuffed silly by Claude Tayag. I'll make sure of it.
Since then, I have been bugging Tita MaryAnn, Claude Tayag's wife, inquiring about reservations. To dine at Bale Dutung, you should form a group of 12 and schedule lunch with Tita MaryAnn ahead of time. But if you can't go there as a group, Tita MaryAnn will gladly contact you every time a slot is available (say, a group of 11 signs up?). The problem is, I don't have the necessary knowledge and means to travel all the way to Bale Dutung on my own, so despite Tita MaryAnn's efforts to accommodate me, alas, my Bale Dutung experience remained a dream.
Fast forward to 2010, lo and behold: someone else did the job for me. Enter Ultimate Philippines! Ultimate Philippines, a group of travel and food bloggers, organized the Ultimate Pampanga Culinary and Heritage Tour, a packaged trip that includes breakfast at Everybody's Cafe, a visit to Bacolor and Betis Church, and what else but the great Claude Tayag's Bale Dutung! Where do I sign up?
So on the 29th of May, GM and I went to Starbucks 6750 and just let Ultimate Philippines make my dreams come true. I won't go through the details of the filling breakfast spread at Everybody's Cafe or how glorious the 2 Pampanga churches are. The title of the post is sudden death, so let's just get acquainted with Claude and his killer dish: the lechon, alright?
Well the meal that we signed up for was Claude Tayag's 5 ways lechon, but Claude and MaryAnn, the gracious hosts that they were, didn't just stuff us with fats right away. We later found out that it was actually a 10-course meal, so there were 5 dishes to be served other than the killer lechon. The 5 dishes, namely Ensaladang Pako, Piniritong Lumpiang Ubod, Inasal na Manok at Talangka Rice, Talangka Sushi and Hito at balobalo Sushi, were healthy yummy dishes but killers in their own way too! As for the 5 ways lechon, I don't really have to say much, except that Claude surely knows how to make bad stuff soooo good! We were actually lucky to try the lechon 6-ways:
pritong balat ng lechon| fried lechon flakes binalot sa tortilla| sinigang na lechon
inihaw na tadyang ng lechon | inasadong pata ng lechon | crispy lechon skin
Due to humidity, the first lechon's skin didn't end up as crispy as it should have been (according to Claude's standards) so he fried it. We all loved the fried lechon skin. It actually wasn't as oily as expected, but it turned out pretty well and I loved how tasty it is. But Claude, wanting us to be able to try the crispy lechon skin, made another lechon. Talk about Pampanga pride! You'll know he's not just in it for the money, he's doing it for the sake of food in all its glory. Aren't we lucky to have a Claude Tayag in our lifetime?
Thanks to the following people who made this food trip possible:
GM =)
Spanky -- http://spankyenriquez.blogspot.com
Ultimate Philippines -- http://ultimatephilippines.com/
Bale Dutung -- for reservations and inquiries, email mquioctayag@yahoo.com
**Pictures c/o GM
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