Fine Dining and the Filipino Abroad

One of the things that struck me in my several trips abroad, particularly in North America and Europe, is the relatively scarce, if not marked absence of places where one can enjoy Filipino food, fine dining style. This is in contrast to the prevalence of Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Mexican, Mongolian, Indian, Vietnamese, Thai, and even Singaporean restaurants which go beyond the "mom" and "pop" joints, and take an ambience which Erap Estrada once, allegedly as mentioned in his famous Eraptions, ordered when told that it is a feature of one restaurant.

For a while, I self-flagellated myself with the thought that maybe, just maybe, our food is not of the quality that befits a place with class and style. For the life of me, I could not understand why Singaporeans, whose food is not even original, or even English food, which is so boring, have to be given the privilege to be served in fine dining mode, while our food languishes in places where only the hoi polloi go. I was aghast that for a moment, I was acting so politically incorrect, as if there is something wrong with places visited by the ordinary and the people on the go. But really, one must really have to ask: is our food forever consigned to be enjoyed only in fast food joints and via carinderia style? I could not understand why, when even Anthony Bourdain, in his food show "No Reservations," praised our food and even declared for all the world to hear and see that our roast pig is the best on this planet!

But I quickly recovered from this state of depression, and assured myself that in fact this is not a sign of our weakness as a people, but a remarkable indicator of our strength. We do not need fine dining places for our food because we partake of these in the comfort of a familiar place, which is our home, or the house of a friend or extended family. When we visit other places, from Paris to London to New York to Los Angeles to Honolulu, we find places to visit and eat, places which are not from our own familiar ways. Thus, we visit Korean, Japanese, Mexican and French diners with gusto. But everytime we have a craving for our food, we eat in our own community, with its natural ambience devoid of the pretentious decorations and dizzying prices associated with places of fine dining.

But what about those who are not Filipinos? After all, Thai Restaurants outside Thailand, particularly the fine dining ones, cater to non-Thais too. Well, indeed, the absence of fine dining Filipino restaurants in major cities in the world may be taken as a failure of our culture to project itself outside. But on the contrary, I am comforted with the thought that the way we present ourselves to the world through our cuisine is more authentic, and not artificial. We present these as they are--eaten with friends and family whenever, wherever we need to and which makes us feel the value of each other's presence.

After all, in our everyday lives, fine dining is a luxury that only a few can afford, and where people are forced not only to shell a significant part of their day's pay, but also to hide and suppress a good part of their innate nature. Fine dining places, after all, are not natural communities. They are extra-ordinary diversions from what is usual, like Disneyland. Fun, expensive, but unsustainable and vicarious. Definitely not a place to enjoy kare-kare, lechon and inihaw na isda.