My Story Part 1-Cape Cod
Life was modest
I remember enjoying most of my childhood outdoors, playing street games with my cousins and folks who lived in the village. The sun was so generous to us kids back in the 90’s, generous enough for us to roam the streets of our gated-village and create a good foundation for our childhood—just playing games, sing alongs and not worry about what tomorrow will bring.
You’ll know where the folks are by seeing how many mountain bikes are carelessly parked outside somebody’s house. Once in a while, you’ll hear somebody’s mom or aunt yelling at a friend because of how untidy he is. By 4pm or 5pm, we’re already back in our own homes preparing for dinner with the family.
I am the youngest of 5, 3 sisters and a brother. My dad, a businessman who is into selling construction materials. My mom, a jack-of-all-trades who tried to balance supporting her husband and taking care of her 5 children. We get to travel at least once a year, go on multiple excursions out of town and eat 3 meals a day. I attended a very conservative private Chinese-Christian school. But still, on top all the blessings, one thing that my parents strongly believed in is to not shelter any of their kids and to actually expose us to hardships and real-life situations.
I started taking interest in music the same year my brother started taking guitar lessons. at the age of 6 or 7, I was already playing the drums and did my recital at a university which didn’t go well. The following year, I started to play the guitar, practiced 4 hours a day and formed a band with my cousins. We would jam to Sweet Child of Mine or Enter Sandman and other local Filipino songs in the afternoon. Music, at that time, was my way to express creativity. There was a burning desire to become better and better. I was set to make music as my career path in life.
One day, my dad and I were driving when he asked me, “Son, what do you want to take in college as your career?”
I quickly answered, “Conservatory of Music!”
“You crazy head, there’s no money in music.”
That moment on, I had to look for another option. I have to admit that my dad was right. He wanted me to become an engineer to complete the family business’ trinity—him as the contractor, my brother as the architect, and me as the engineer. Together we would create a solid real estate business buying empty lots, build on them and sell them. Now that I am 31, I keep on telling him that I should have listened. Hahaha.
The Journey
I have fond memories of my mother cooking 3 meals a day without repetition. Mind you, this lady cooks for 9 people—our family and 2 house helpers. We do our grocery shopping (a fancy word for such a dirty task to do, I’ll explain later) once a week. In South East Asia, there are two types of primary shops you go to for supplies:
1. Formal grocery stores that are indoor and air conditioned, where everything is organized in isles and shelves. This is where you buy dry goods such as canned vegetables, cleaning materials, garbage bags, dairy and etc. Think Target or Walmart.
Then you have,
2. Open-air local markets (Wet Markets) where nothing is regulated, everything is under a huge roof and all the shops are organized by stalls. This type of market is where you normally get fresh produce, proteins and other local things.
These markets operate early in the morning. The earlier you are, the better quality of products you can get. You’ll see butchers unloading freshly slaughtered hogs, cattle and etc. They are then broken down to the sub primal parts, then further down to specific cuts and sold by the kilo. My mom and I would fall in line to get what we need at around 4:00am.
You will also see fishermen and fishmongers help each other out unloading the catch of the day and submerge them in ice baths—fresh octopus, stingray, salmon and pompano, to name a few. My mom’s trick here is to start picking and ordering what she would buy, have the fish monger remove the gills, scales and insides and have them set it aside for us to be picked up later. Smart.
Then, we move on to buying produce. My mom is known by probably 1/2 of all the vendors in our local wet market. They all light up whenever they see her because she has such a great humor, and her jokes all contained sexual innuendoes which make them giggle. They would ask her whether Im the middle child or the youngest. They’ll say “Ay, ang pogi naman neto! Maraming mapapaiyak to pag laki.” which translates to “Your kid is so handsome. He’ll make a lot of girls cry in the future.” Funny times. By the time we are done with produce, we’ve already bought at least 70-90 lbs. of supplies.
Mind you, my mom stands 4’10 and for her to carry so much is one of the reasons why I always go with her. I couldn’t bear the thought of my mom struggling to carry all the stuff by herself. It’ll take her at least 2-3 trips going back and forth to the parking lot. By 7:00am we are done from the chaos of the market and drive to our favorite breakfast spot. That was my life being exposed to the chaos of what it means to be living modestly. I loved every minute of it.
I started helping out in the kitchen and asked questions about cooking. Thankfully, my mom allowed me to immerse myself in cooking, my sisters did too. Well, we all cook except for my dad and brother. I started off re-creating favorite things that my mom made for me like pizza pan de sal, spring rolls, filipino adobo, filipino spaghetti, etc.
I finally decided to take up culinary in college. The tuition was expensive, but my father supported me anyways. Success did not come naturally. I failed the most expensive subject, cooked garbage food for 2-3 years at home and endured a lot of disappointment. It took me four years to get my bread recipes right. A lot of mistakes and discoveries were made. It took me years as well for my father to say “Wow, this is good.” He would normally stand up and walk out of the dining room when I was just starting out. In midst of everything, my mom always told me that “You can be whatever you want to be and you will be good at it.”
“You will be a good chef and you will make people happy.”
Moving forward, I was in my senior year and had to take my internship. The university was offering internships to France, but I decided to go to the US instead. I found myself going to Cape Cod, MA for 6 months. Before I left for the US, my dad and I had a fight. Long story short, I was punching my dad out of so much anger that my mom and sister had to separate the both of us because my dad was about to hit me. My dad’s 6’1 and I stand 5’7. My mom locked me in my brother’s room while guarding the door because my dad was kicking it, telling me to “Be a man and come out so we can finish what we started.” I didn’t talk to the both of them after that and just left for the US and wanted to prove to them that I can live on my own.
America, Here I Come
My internship started. I was living with 3 other colleagues renting out a basement apartment of a famous Boston jazz singer. Her house sits directly on top of our apartment. This lady would check the apartment on a daily basis whenever we were out and would always make sure that we wipe the wall dry every time we take a shower and complain about other things.
My first day at work, a Jamaican cook came up to me saying “I want to slap you in the face,” and I was so confused as to why he would say such a thing. I’ve only been there for 5 minutes. He then explained that I was so disrespectful because I didn’t even say hi to him nor introduced myself. Funny times. That’s my introduction to landing a job in America.
I thought working in an actual kitchen would be easy since I come from a wonderful college. I didn’t know that I was in for a rude awakening. I got assigned at the sauté station. A typical sauté station is normally in charge of vegetables, pastas, side dishes and etc. It all depends on the set up and menu of the restaurant. I struggled so much at first, couldn’t keep up with the volume. Cape Cod is a summer destination for wealthy white folks. Our hotel had 3 food outlets- a fine dining restaurant, a tavern and a grill. When I started, I was working at the tavern doing 200-300 covers a night, pushing 400 during the peak of the season. Imagine an inexperienced graduate, working the line, didn’t know what he was doing, getting yelled at by a sous chef every single day. What’s worse was when they moved me to the grill where they do 1000 covers a day. The grill was so long that I can probably lay down on it after a tiring shift and just cremate myself.
The dish that I hated the most was building a lobster nacho tower, dear lord. We sold 50-100 of those every day. We had to build it layer by layer: nacho chips, cheese, olives, peppers, lobsters, nacho chips, cheese, olives, peppers, lobsters, nacho chips, cheese, olives, peppers, lobsters—In the oven for 10-12 minutes and it comes out piping hot with melting cheese.
And then, the inevitable happened. We got kicked out from the apartment because of my roommates. The owner of the house got so upset with them because of some foolish reason and she had to confront all of us and just told us that we were out. The owner then told me that I had a couple of days to find a house—that was her grace period for me. I was so afraid. I didn’t know what to do. Luckily, my other colleagues who also come from the same university took me in. I couldn’t sleep in the living room with them, so I told them that I was going to set up camp in the basement next to the washing machine, the dryer and the water heater tank. My bed? It was comprised of four hollow blocks as the base and a beach chair that I laid out flat and topped it off with a blanket.
Heaven. 2013
I worked hard and made those 6 months count. Slowly but surely, I was starting to climb up the ranks and earn the respect from the hotel staff. I was able to execute everything with precision and speed. It felt wonderful. Cape Cod gave me a lot of experiences that I will never forget. After my internship, I had a month to roam around the US. I went to visit my girlfriend in San Francisco and was amazed by the city. I tried to land a job at the top restaurants in the city despite not having any papers but to no luck. It’s a city that I would fall in love over and over again.
I came back home to the Philippines without either of my parents knowing. I hugged my father from the back while he was rinsing the glass that he just used. He was so surprised that I was there behind him. The only thing he said to me was “Did you eat already?” and the rest was history. I love my dad; our relationship has been the best ever since our fight happened.
The big leap of fate, not faith
December 2013. After a month of being idle, I started searching for michelin star restaurants. One name that popped out was L’atelier de Joel Robuchon in Hong Kong. It is the only restaurant (that is closest to the Philippines) that has maintained its 3 Michelin Star Rating for 6 or 7 consecutive years. I was so fascinated by all the photographs of the food and wondered to myself, “What does it feel like working in a place like this?” I know that I didn’t stand a chance of being hired because of the lack of experience. But, for some reason, luck granted me my wish. I began emailing the chef saying that despite not having the experience, I am willing to take an internship and stay there if hired. I never expected a response.
Until one day an email notification popped up from the restaurant saying “If you are willing to stay for a year, then we can accomodate you.”
This email defined my life.
This was the beginning of a bittersweet journey that I thought I wouldn’t survive.
Part two, coming.