WHILE Myke "Tatung" Sarthou's face and food from his Simpol channel or his restaurants Lore and Azadore may have somehow made his name familiar, notice how none of those things actually bear his name.
Last month, Mr. Sarthou opened his first own restaurant (that is, no partners, no corporate backing) at the Gateway Mall 2 in Cubao, named after himself, Tatung's. BusinessWorld and other media guests were invited over on July 10, giving us a taste of what that name means.
" "Everybody who comes here has a memory of a connection to me," he said, citing the full tables during our visit seated with old customers or former viewers.
The chairs for every set of tables are different, and the sampaguita-glass chandeliers look to be unique to the restaurant. A large silver mirror not matching the old-home decor seemed to be out of place and dominated the room. "When you build a home and you live your life, you don't just buy one set of coordinated furniture," he said during a group interview.
The same principle bleeds to the menu: "It's not a static table," he said, describing how he sees Filipino tables today. "It's a multigenerational table."
That means that while the food DNA of the restaurant is based on his grandmothers from either side, there would be riffs of his own throughout the menu (just like how the restaurant resembles an older home filled slowly with new things from succeeding generations).
For example: we were served a kinilaw (fish cooked in citrus, similar to ceviche) made with mixed seafood and the acid provided by tabon-tabon fruit and biyasong lime (related to kaffir). This was bathed in coconut, recalling his grandmothers' own use of coconut in their recipes.
Another starter was a plate of okoy, familiar to us as shrimp patties with vegetables. His version is more refined, more consistent, made with smaller shrimps for a milder taste. All of these were deep-fried, giving a more satisfying and uniform crunch.
We found ourselves polishing off the platter of Gambas sa Latik: shrimps, garlic, and chili simmered in coconut milk until almost only the fat remained. This rendered coconut fat was mixed with the pounded heads of the shrimp for a stronger flavor. The result was positively explosive with the flavor of seafood, and for someone who doesn't like coconut at all, we were rewarded for trying it.
Our clear favorite was the Lengua Adobo. It harked back to his memories of pork adobo with equal ratios of fat and lean meat, except this version was refined by using ox tongue, replicating the effect without all the mess. The result was a springy texture in the beef tongue, and a complex wine-like kick in the sauce, despite only using classic vinegar and soy sauce in it.
Next came a Bibingkang Talong — no actual rice cake here, just an eggplant and cheese casserole akin to Greece's moussaka, but cooked like the native rice cake, with heat on top and the bottom. It was unexpectedly delicious, thanks to surprises like salted egg yolks hidden throughout the dish, not to mention the pure heft from the meat and cheese. Another winner was the Caldereta, done the old way (with less bony cuts of meat), but the Queso de Bola grated and torched on top made all the difference, the cheese's sharp saltiness mixing into the sauce.
The meal ended with his New York Cubao Cheesecake, with the look of a Burnt Basque cheesecake, but with distinctly Filipino flair with the addition of salted egg, and a creamy texture that would be a hit in any culture.
Mr. Sarthou started his culinary career in the early 2010s with a similarly named restaurant, then just an in-house dining spot. Since its closure, he's made it big: a few restaurants under his belt, cookbooks with World Gourmand Awards, a stint on TV, and a YouTube channel with more than a million subscribers. Again, not one of those ventures uses his name, due to the unease of having your name shared among business partners (just check what happened to Jo Malone, the perfumer locked in a court battle after selling the rights to use her name to a conglomerate).
" Nakakatakot (it's scary). (But) if I don't do this now, when will I do it?" he said. "It should be reflective of not only my image or whatever, but my values," he said of using his own name for his restaurant, just as he did so many years ago.
Some might find it odd to see such an ambitious restaurant coming from a chef whose image has been commercialized (primarily known for cooking Filipino dishes more simply, not to mention partnerships with instant food companies). " Na- reconcile ko na 'yon sa sarili ko (I have reconciled that to myself)," he said.
It's all an act of balancing the commercial and creative sides of himself, as well as looking at all of it as a blessing. "You're part of the home. Halos buong pamilya kilala ako (almost the whole family knows me)," he said about his stint on TV and his YouTube channel. At the same time, he said that exceeding expectations in this restaurant was also his tribute to his viewers, whose own skills have leveled up since following his "simpol" recipes. " Gumaling na rin sila (they have also gotten better)."
"Everybody who comes here has a memory of a connection to me," he said, citing the full tables during our visit seated with old customers or former viewers.
"Ultimately, what you're looking for is not only relevance, but resonance."
Tatung's is located at the Upper Ground Floor B of Gateway Mall 2, Araneta City, Cubao, Quezon City. — Joseph L. Garcia.