Baguio’s Chaya brings back the old Japanese charm

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines – Most of Baguio’s best restaurants are inside reconverted old homes. We are thinking of Canto Bogchi Joint, Gypsy Baguio, the new Mario’s and Amare Cucina, Lemons and Olives, and Chaya. There’s that transference feeling that you’re eating home-cooked meals. 

But Chaya is something else. That old house near the Roces compound in Legarda Rd. wasn’t retouched as much. You feel like you are eating in an extended dining room or in the garden. 

Whenever I go there, I see myself in that hauntingly melancholic house in “The Smell of Green Papaya” except the smell is more miso than pho or green papaya.

Chaya is a favorite of many Manila writers, artists, and editors, or maybe because of our influence. You don’t need to act “restauranty.” You can talk for hours but not on the weekends when the reservation protocol has to be followed. 

Chaya’s artistic vibe emanates from its owner Sonoko Taguchi, who is also the head chef. A longtime Baguio resident, Sonoko’s close friends in the city are mostly artists and writers. 

This shows in the plating of Chaya’s dishes, making you just want to gaze instead of consume them. Even the color of her Japanese glazed plates match the swathe of sauce and sliver of udon.

So it was so easy for Chaya to be part of the Gastro-Art promotion of Baguio. And it is so natural for Sonoko to choose Leonard Aguinaldo as her featured artist. Add to that Perry Mamaril’s centipede lamps on the ceiling of Chaya. 

Perry who used to work at the late-lamented Purple Yam in New York City would have whipped his own food offering there but he let his undulating bamboo creations hog the limelight. 

Aguinaldo is more known for his “okir” which is the rubber mat etched and colored with printer’s ink. In recent years, he decided to display rubbercut prints instead. Some depict the Cordilleras of your old postcards with the Aguinaldo dry humor. 

He displayed almost thirty black-and-white and colored prints on the walls of Chaya. But the most intimidating is the huge linocut mural pasted on one wall. It is the same one he displayed at Gajah Gallery in Singapore during the Tiwtiwong Retrospective. 

Displayed here, it became more haunting than nostalgic. Here is a huge portrait of the Aguinaldo family when he was born and how they carved their memories from Candon, Ilocos Sur to Baguio.   

Only Sonoko’s featured food was able to wrest the attention from that mural. 

We remembered eating with Sonoko a month before and she thought out loud: Where can I find someone to carve me a pair of chopsticks? All that time, she was also picking her menu and the one she chose was indeed apropos for the artistic palate. 

 For aperitif, we had silk tofu with mulukaya (or as we Ilocanos call it, saluyot) with bonito ponzu sauce. Oh yeah, it did slid into our throats with the ponzu giving the citrusy guhit or tickler. 

Gunkan sushi with kinuday (Ibaloy smoked pork), white beans Japanese pork curry and pork chashu kinuday are the main course. The chashu is the melt-in-your-mouth pork perfect for the white beans, also known as buker among the Cordillerans. 

Watercress salad is the best topping for this Cordilleran staple masquerading in kimono. The dessert is Cordillera arabica coffee jelly. There are also the Cordillera Kokomo chocolate bars with labels made by Leonard. 

And then we had also the classic Chaya offering of vegetable tempura, salmon ceviche, sushi paradise, and the colorful Chaya salad direct from the garden. 

Down them all with Sonoko’s cold or warm sake until everyone would go gastro-crawling indeed. – Rappler.com

Photos by Perry John Mamaril, Mervine Aquino, and Chaya Baguio