Tuscan Raiders

Oven and Earth: Tuscano's pizza is cooked the traditional way - quickly and fiercely in a wood-fire brick oven

Looking back, we solidly put the blame on Giadda for making us take a second, longer look at the heaving, bouncing - er - bounty that is Italian cuisine. Few things give us fevered dreams like the image of oven-cooked pizza, thin with a crackly crust and smothered in cheese. Hell, Ryan even went so far as to delve into pie research, resurfacing with a top 10 gourmet pizza list last year. Alas, Tuscano hadn't opened yet when he was stuffing his face with mozzarella and pepperoni. Because really, it would be a shame to overlook this darling of a ristorante just a shy block away from Burgos Circle.

A high ceiling and spacious floor plan makes Tuscano the ideal dining place for after office hours meet-ups with friends, or family gatherings on the weekends

Fresh is big on the menu here - handmade noodles, sauces made daily, and gourmet ingredients picked ripe. Thanks to a wood-fire brick oven, the transformation from raw dough to crisp pizza happens in five minutes. There are other things to be had too like wild mushroom and mozzarella risotto balls - crisp golden brown spheres of flavorful arborio rice. Each lump is stuffed with a gooey mozzarella core. 

No need to be shy with your veggies either: the Tuscano signature salad mixes assorted greens with toasted pine nuts, grilled asparagus, stewed cinnamon apples, grapes, artichokes,and black olives. Everything's tossed in a light vinaigrette that helps enhance, not distract you, from the individual flavors. It's light, refreshing, and a good contrast to Italian cooking's richer dishes.

Tuscano will teach you to eat your greens with offerings like asparagus and egg pizza (right), and a lush signature salad with mixed greens, stewed cinnamon apples, and grapes.

Left: Baked Norweigan salmon on a bed of risotto. Right: The massive house pork chop is fork-tender.

Left: Sweet pear and gorgonzola pizza - one of the restaurant's unique offerings. Right: Watch the staff make fresh pizzas  by the brick oven. 

As for richer: Tuscano's Sweet pear and gorgonzola pizza brings together the natural sweetness of pears baked with sharp and salty gorgonzola cheese (also known as blue cheese) makes for a unexpected, but winning combination. Imagine the texture of cooked apples here. A bite invites you to playground of flavor - sweet, salty, smokey. You'll be surprised by how well the marriage of peaches and gorgonzola work on this pizza.


If you're like us, you'll be floored by their 14 kinds of gourmet pizzas including:

• Sweet Pear and Gorgonzola
• Asparagus and Egg
• Gamberetto
• Margherita and Goat Cheese
• Braised Lamb and Mushroom
• Smoked Salmon and Cream Cheese

Left: Pizza Gamberetto with baby shrimps, pesto, and white sauce. Right: Tuscano's high ceiling and spacious interiors draw in families and barkadas

Carnivore's won't be disappointed either with mainstays like lamb chops in balsamic jus, Milanese osso bucco, and balsamic-glazed pork chop (above). Perfectly seasoned and cooked, we love the taste of a perfect pork chop that practically melts in our mouths. The mushroom risotto it comes with provides a mildly sweet and mushy.

Our attention was easily won over by one of Tuscano's more peculiar specialties: beef stew casserole with chocolate. The meat practically falls apart as you slice it, and the sauce -- it's that perfect blend of bitter and sweet. If you've never thought of chocolate as a savory ingredient, this is the dish that will change your mind.

Left: Fisherman's Seafood and Black Ink Pasta. Right: Tuscano's beef stew casserole with chocolate.We're wondering if it's Hershey's or Cadbury.

And how could this be an Italian restaurant without cannoli? These spring roll-looking darlings stuffed with cream are an Italian staple. In this case it's drizzled with chocolate and mango bits. Stuffed beyond belief, you'll still be eyeing that last slice of pizza or final bite of cannoli. "Is it worth it?" you ask yourself. You bet it is.

Tuscano Italian Wood Oven Pizza and Restaurant
Unit 3 Ground Floor, Fort Residences Building, 30th Street corner 2nd Avenue
Bonifacio Global City, Taguig

Contact 4787503 or visit www.tuscanowoodovenpizza.com

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Kablam! for your Buck: Lech-Get-It-On!

One of the most popular dishes in the Philippines is lechon baboy or roast pig. A traditional part of any fiesta, the reddish brown porker doubles as both meal and centerpiece for the occasion. You'll always wanna be near the start of the line so you can get a good serving of the meat, and that always-first-to-go crispy lechon skin.

Alas, lechon is not perfect. The traditional cooking process can sometimes leave the meat tough and chewy (though check out our coverage of Cebu's Zubuchon lechon too), and by now you've probably asked yourself, "This is Kablam! for your Buck where we occasionally learn about an awesome tasting, highly satisfying and non-wallet-emptying treat! A whole lechon usually costs thousands of pesos!" Why, yes it is, and... well, yeah, also yes, lechon is usually expensive, but if you're after something that's just as awesome, then you're in for a treat.

Pigging Out: Uncle Cheffy's Garlic Studded Pork Belly Lechon

 When one thinks of Uncle Cheffy, it elicits images of red brick oven baked pizzas and other cuisine of a similar global scale. Well those ovens are just as capable of making an awesome roast (part of a) pig, in this case, its tender, succulent liempo. While it may not have the same grandiose effect of displaying a whole animal, an order of the Garlic Studded Pork Belly Lechon is nonetheless impressive in its own right. 

The marble potatoes are a favorite companion to meat dishes, but one of the more pleasantly surprising aspects of the dish is the fresh salsa which goes just as well as the traditional sarsa which it also comes with. As for the meat: simply divine. It practically melts in your mouth, while the crunchy, flavorful skin does an incredibly accurate impression of its bigger cousin.

The cost of this lavish feast? Slightly over Php200 (Php95 per 100 grams + service charge). Pictured above is an order of 200 grams (the minimum), and that was more than enough to satisfy this restless food warrior's belly. Good food? Yes. Great value? Hell yes. You've just been Kablamforyourbucked.

Uncle Cheffy Brick Oven BBQ

2nd Level, Eastwood Mall, Libis, Quezon City

Contact 3837215

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Pork Barrel

"I can't believe they increased parking rates. It's absolutely crazy." My friend Kim was visibly, sincerely upset as we entered the parking basement of Ayala Center in Cebu. The bone she wanted to pick with the mall involved the jacking up of the parking fee - from fifteen pesos to an astonishing twenty. Flat rate. 

In Manila, that's what's considered a steal, and yet Kim would have none of it. She cussed in Bisaya, egged on by my heckling. 

Later on I floated the issue with other Cebuano friends who were just as peeved not to get their five pesos back. Until then I had just accepted the regular shilling out of hundreds of pesos weekly for parking (at one time, nearly P300 in Makati) in Manila as the norm, but then I realized that the locals and I operated on different wavelengths. The differences however, did not end here.

I've always felt that Manila and Cebu have always been at odds, locked in some kind of quasi-cultural rivalry that I haven't fully understood yet. But if there's one thing where Cebu constantly out-trumps Manila, it's with lechon. This was obviously made plain when two friends escorted me to the nearest Zubuchon outlet.

Pigging out: Diners flock to Zubuchon made famous by Anthony Bourdain's endorsement

Zubuchon is the creation of Joel Binamira, more commonly known by his nom de guerre Market Man of marketmanila.com. The restaurant's popularity stems from its flagship lechon cooked sans MSG or gears or additives. Instead he does things 'ye olde fashion way' with lemongrass, pepper, olive oil, and sea salt as healthier alternatives. (It's also with some consolation that the pigs themselves are raised in private backyards, and cheerfully trot around. But not for long.) 

The lechon is staked on bamboo poles, stuffed with herbs and spices, and roasted diligently over a charcoal pit by a crack team of lechoneros. The result is lusty, succulent, flavorful pork tucked under crisp, liempo-like crispy skin. In short -- a cardiologist's worst nightmare.

Let's get it on, Lechon: Zubuchon's flagship is packed with flavor inside and out

"It's all-natural lechon. I heard the pigs are raised on a diet of chicos," mulled my friend Clark who drove us to Zubuchon's newest branch along Escario Street. It was a busy Sunday night for the staff who promptly announced to us that they had, as of seven thirty in the evening, run out of lechon. And with good reason: Joel's lechon first became a hit at one of Cebu's weekend markets, and by the time word got out, No Reservation's Anthony Bourdain had also chirped in with his own  testimonial that it was the "World's best whole roasted pig" - a claim scribbled on each of the branch's glass counters.

  

Left: The staff works around the clock to keep up with the holiday rush. Right: Among Zubuchon's other pork offerings are slow-cooked adobo, dinuguan, chorizo, pork flakes, and yes, even Zubuchon-certified pork lard.

Not content with lechon, Zubuchon also offers other pork staples borrowed from the carnivorous Filipino mindset like dinuguan, chorizo, and even sisig. It's enough to make one's knees quiver. After the letdown at the restaurant, Clark and I headed to another branch that was busy plying in pigs. The restaurant was packed. The staff squeezed through the aisles made narrow by long tables of families while other customers were huddled over the counter for take-out. And everywhere - the constant tearing and tugging and nibbling of lechon skin.  

Visitors to Cebu (whose ancient name was 'Sugbu' hence 'Zubuchon'), need not return empty-handed to their friends back home. There's much to be had in terms of frozen lechon or chicharon. I took home some from the tiny take-out stand at the pasalubong section of Mactan Airport's departure gate. Clutching my two bags-worth of pasalubong, I was ready to barrel down the security check point. All it took however was a flash of the logo on one of the take-out bags, and the airport personnel already seemed to understand the graveness of my intentions. I'd either come home with lechon or not leave at all. 

The next morning, I had lechon for breakfast. That night, more of it. When that run its course, it was time for paksiw.   

The morning-after takeout lechon. Still pretty good. 

Zubuchon

Escario Building, Escario Street, Cebu City (032) 5835699

One Mango Avenue Building, Cebu City (032)2395697

Mactan Airport Departure Lounge, Mactan City (63) 0917 6274761 

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