New concept by Hapag coming very soon
Filipino restaurant Hapag in Quezon City, helmed by chefs John Kevin Navoa and Thirdy Dolatre, is one of the best and most popular in Metro Manila. It was not surprising that their pop-up (named Aya) at The Balmori Suites lobby in Rockwell was always packed and the dishes earned raves on social media from the Manila food community. Their month-long pop-up ended last Aug. 13, but fear not, as they will be opening Aya, a permanent bar concept serving Filipino small plates —also at The Balmori Suites — by the fourth quarter of this year! The starters and desserts served at the pop-up will be included in this new bar concept, along with new main courses!
I personally prefer starters over main courses, so I ordered six appetizers and loved them all! We started with Sinuglaw, catch of the day ceviche (which was tuna that day), smoked pork belly coconut-tubâ (Philippine palm wine) leche de tigre, roasted pineapples, and pickles.
The gamet (seaweed from Ilocos) kropek with fermented red pepper aioli was interesting. This was made by dehydrating gamet arroz caldo (rice porridge) and frying it.
This was followed by the Kilawing Baka of hand-cut raw beef tenderloin, fermented mustard aioli, itlog na maalat (salted egg) gel, imbaliktad (an Ilocano dish made with medium-rare, stir-fried beef on garlic, onion, ginger and vinegar) sauce to be put on root vegetable chips (instead of toasts). This was more like a beef tartare and was so full of flavor!
One of my favorites was the shrimp and vegetable okoy fritters with a pinakurat (fermented coconut sap from Iligan), chives, cream, and ikura (salmon roe) sauce. I also loved the Pares Toast — beef and tendon pares on a pan de Kalinga toast, garlic aioli, pickled red onions and lasuna (an elongated red onion from Ilocos) chimichurri.
The Sugpo at Buro was considered a starter but was large enough to be a main course. These were two huge grilled tiger prawns topped with smoked buro-bagoong (fermented shrimp paste) butter. These were quite filling, so I opted to have one dessert, Strawberry Taho made of Auro white chocolate and whipped tofu mousse topped with mulled wine arnibal (sugar syrup), and pickled Baguio strawberries.
All these dishes tasted as good as they sounded. You can try them when Aya opens hopefully by the end of October. Watch out for it!
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