Straightforwardly Filipino : A Satisfying Lunch at Chef Tatung Garden Cafe

“Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.”
-Harriet Van Horne

If you’re a regular follower of our blog, you may know now that I have exchanged a career in nursing for an unknown future in the culinary industry. I’ll be honest; there were times when I had doubts if I’ve made the right decision of switching careers, but I always find inspiration from people who have experienced the same things that I’ve been through and have become successful. One of them is Chef Myke “Tatung” Sarthou of Tatung’s Garden Cafe, who decided to brush aside writing and production work to put on a chef’s garb and start a restaurant business.

Hidden along the residential community of Sikatuna Village in Quezon City, a home-turned-restaurant stands with a luscious menu offering a modern take on Filipino Cuisine.

It’s a rainy Saturday morning when we were invited for a lunch at Tatung’s Garden Café. The façade gives little clue that there’s actually a restaurant inside.

Chef Tatung truly understands Filipino cuisine. He shared that Filipinos eat with flavors that are close to nature, and that our cooking is greatly influenced by our environment. That is the reason why in creating his dishes, he made sure that his food tastes like what they really are. A chicken dish should taste like it’s made of chicken. It’s as simple as that.

They have a relatively small menu, but considering their seating capacity of 20-30 persons, it’s only adequate. People have enough dishes to choose from.

Now let’s move forward and talk about all the food that we had during our unforgettable lunch at Tatung’s Garden Café.

First to arrive on our tables was the Shrimp Okoy (Php 120). It was a plate of crispy shrimp and vegetable fritters served with garlicky sauce. Regular shrimp okoy that you can buy in a carinderia is very oily. Chef Tatung’s interpretation, however, is not oily at all. Actually, it was light and at the same time quite filling, too.

I love eating sisig, but I always feel guilty after finishing a whole plate by myself. That is why I totally enjoyed munching on Chef Tatung’s guilt-free Chicken Sisig Lettuce Wraps (Php 240), which is made of minced garlic chicken fillets with chopped onions, green chilies, and taro chips embedded on crisp Romaine lettuce with mango sauce for dipping. It’s a lot less fatty than the regular sisig, but it’s seasoned very well that you’ll savor it until the very last leaf.

The third dish that came out was Chef Tatung’s Molo Soup (Php 180). It’s a clear soup with shredded chicken and shrimp, accompanied by pork and shrimp dumplings. Again, like the first two dishes, it was perfectly seasoned. The filling for the dumplings was full of flavor, which is mellowed out by its starch-based wrapper.

Palabok is very dear to our hearts since it’s a close relative of our hometown’s famous dish, the Pansit Malabon. Chef Tatung gives the Palabok a modern twist by adding squid ink sauce, hence the name Palabok Negra (Php 240).  The dish is a serving of rice noodles with squid ink sauce, topped with smoked fish flakes, squid rings, shrimp, chicharon, spring onions, and hard-boiled eggs. I always thought that squid ink will taste undesirably fishy, but with this dish, it added a unique richness flavor of the sea. I really, really loved it.

At first, one would think it’s an ordinary chicken curry dish. When I tasted the Chicken in Roasted Coconut and Yellow Ginger Sauce (Php 320), I found that the flavor was very compound. It’s not a typical curry dish at all. Chef Tatung then explained that he roasted the coconut flesh first before creaming it, and that he used yellow ginger instead of curry to make the sauce, ending up with a richer and more profound flavor. It may be a simple-looking dish, but this one actually reflects Chef Tatung’s incredible cooking technique.

Tamarind-glazed Butterflied Tilapia – Php 270.00

Living in Malabon City, I think, I have already reached my quota of eating Tilapia, so I try to avoid it now at all cost. But how could I resist when the tilapia was prepared like this? It was very tempting, and from its look you know it’s very crispy. The reduced and well-seasoned tamarind sauce was the icing on the cake for this dish. I loved that the sauce was a mix of sour, a little of sweet, and a little bit of bitter. It’s a perfect accompaniment for that butterflied tilapia indeed!

The Honey-Glazed Slow Roasted Pork Belly (Php 400) is, hands down, my favorite dish among all that were served for us that day. The pork meat literally melts in your mouth as it touches the warmth of your tongue. The pork bellies were so tender because they were roasted inside a brick oven for 4 hours on a bed of garlic and lemon grass. This proves that great food really take time to prepare!

Mutton, when cooked right, doesn’t taste gamey at all, and this Calderetang Kambing with Quezo de Bola (Php 580) was just that. An untrained palate would think it was just plain beef. But for people who know a thing or two about various types of meat would easily recognize the difference in the texture and flavor of the mutton from the ordinary beef. This dish tickled my appetite since it’s more on the spicy side, which is always a plus for me. The grated cheese finish also added an interesting depth to the flavor, making this dish quite irresistible.

Tatung’s Favorite Fried Rice (Php 160) displays Chef Tatung’s uncanny play with textures. He adds an extra crunch and nutty flavor by mixing peanuts with rice, together with ingredients such as shrimps, carrots, scrambled eggs, spring onions, and turmeric for that enticing yellow color.

I was too excited for our halo-halo dessert that I almost let this Warm Tsoknut Chocolate Cake (Php 80) slip by. At first bite, I tasted something that reminds me of my childhood. I read the dessert’s description on the menu and my heart jumped a beat when I read “Tsoknut.” It’s one of my favorite sweets when I was still a kid, and I haven’t had any for the longest time. I wanted to finish the whole thing alone, but I had to control myself since it’s for the four of us in our table.

From the moment we arrived at Tatung’s Garden Café, people at our table were already raving about how good the Fresh Fruit Halo-halo with Gata (Php 140) was, so I was pretty much looking forward for it the whole time. True to its name, it has fresh fruits like watermelon cubes and sliced bananas. It’s coupled with a scoop or two of the buco-leche flan ice cream. And instead of milk, they used “gata” or coconut milk to bind all flavors together. It’s such a refreshing dessert, and I can’t wait to come back for more.

For refreshments, we were served Homebrewed Iced Tea (Php 70) and Fresh Tuba Shake (Php 110).

Their Homebrewed Iced Tea tastes really distinct. I’m guessing that they used different tea flavors to come up with their own unique-tasting iced tea.

I have had authentic tuba before and its flavor wasn’t to my liking. I find it too sour and I get this feeling that my mouth is being drawn out of its moisture. That was the reason why I was quite skeptical of trying Tatung’s Fresh Tuba Shake. Surprisingly, it was not too sour at all.  The drink was a nice balance of tanginess and sweetness that truly appealed to my tastes.

As you might have already guessed, we had a truly fulfilling and memorable lunch at Chef Tatung’s Garden Cafe. We are looking forward to coming back here with friends or our nanay so they can also have a taste of these Filipino dishes with a twist, straight from Chef Tatung’s kitchen.

Chef Tatung’s Garden Café
17 Matipid St. Sikatuna Village, Quezon City
(632)3526121 / 09158463234
cheftatung@gmail.com
Official Website: http://cheftatung.com/
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