Pandoraspace

Smalltalk Cafe:  Bicolizing Italian Food

Mr. Ketel took us to lunch at Smalltalk, a restaurant that serves Bicolano inspired Italian food.

Smalltalk looks like an Italian restaurant with a few small tables scattered around the place, a piano and old pictures displayed on the walls. The place was intimate and cozy. Smalltalk bestsellers include pasta with Bicol Express (shrimp and pork sautéed in shrimp paste, a.k.a. bagoong, coconut milk and chili), Laing (gabi leaves, pork and chili cooked in coconut milk) or the Bicolana Pizza (pizza topped with Bicol Express or Laing). I had the Bicol Express pasta and the pizzette. Both were good but I liked the pizzette best.

The pizzettes were mini-pizzas that you could top with Laing or Bicol Express. I topped my pizette with both Laing and Bicol Express. Yum! The oily, coconutty and leafy taste of the Laing combined with the spicy-salty taste of the Bicol Express goes well with the pizza dough. The combined texture of the smooth leafy Laing, the grainy Bicol Express and the dough was something novel. I loved it.

Having eaten with Boktor on several occasions, I realized that he goes for oily fatty food like lechon kawali (deep fried pork belly), inihaw na liempo (grilled pork belly) or anything porky. This time, he ordered the boneless crispy pata (pork thigh that is boiled and later deep fried). I sampled Boktor’s crispy pata and it was very good. It had all the elements I like in a crispy pata. The skin was crunchy but not hard, the meat was salty and soft and the sauce (soy sauce, vinegar, ginger and onions) balanced the oiliness of the dish.

All in all, everyone was satisfied with what they ordered. Proof of this is that, everyone stopped talking when the food arrived because they were concentrating on the food. So, the food did not actually provoke any small talk, or any kind of talk at all. Everyone was just focused on the good food.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 2nd, 2009 at 12:08 am and is filed under Palate Pleasers, The Adventures of Boktor and Pandora in Legazpi, Albay. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.