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To caramelize the bacon, the morcon roll gets blowtorched before slicing.
There are two dozen people sitting around and in between them what looks like about a dozen different foods is piled on a table and when we say “on the table” we do not mean in serving dishes on the table, we mean on the table, atop a tablecloth of banana leaves. And we are all about to dig in, sans forks, knives, chopsticks, or any other utensil aside from our fingers, sharing a multicourse meal, taking what we like from the mounds of what’s stacked in front of us.
What could go wrong?
“Nah, it’s fine,” says the guy next to us, whom we’ve just met and who is, after all, an infectious disease doctor he tells us and so we figure…
Kamayan (kum-EYE-un) is a Filipino dining tradition. The word comes from the Tagalog kamay: “hand.”
Let’s stop right there to make this observation: The Philippines is a weird place.
We don’t mean that in a bad way. We mean it in this way: The Philippines isn’t an actual land mass so much as it is a collection of islands, more than a thousand of them, some of which have very little in common with others, and populated by more than two dozen ethnic groups. The Igorot, some of whom came to St. Louis for the World’s Fair and became famous, are just one of those.
The Philippines is also an unusual mix of East and West. The Spanish colonized some of the islands, very early on. Very much like Dutch Indonesia and later, India, the islands became a blend of Asian and European cultures. The Philippines is perhaps the most “Western” of Eastern countries. “People always seem surprised at how well I have ‘adapted’ to life in the United States,” says a guy sitting across from us. He’s a resident in pulmonary medicine. “But there wasn’t much adapting. Back home, I ate hamburgers, Kentucky Fried chicken... It’s not really a big change to come here.”
That ain’t, however, Big Macs and the Colonel’s Original Recipe in front of us. Kamayan is a uniquely Filipino tradition, an old one, going back to the days before colonialism. Kamayan is about more than just eating massive amounts of food with one’s fingers. It’s also meant to encourage friendships, strengthen old ones and create new. It’s about as informal as communal eating can get—though that’s not to say there isn’t any etiquette.
“Please use your left hand to take food from the table and put it in front of you,” we are instructed by Malou Perez-Nievera, the chef at Hiro Asian Kitchen, one with some impressive experience in a Filipino kitchen. She’s giving us a quick overview of what’s polite and what’s gauche; we’re seated, all two dozen of us, listening in a perfunctory manner, but with most of our attention on the spread before us.
There are haystacks of salad, greens topped with slices of star fruit, tossed in a light vinaigrette, something you might find on your plate in any restaurant in town, with its fork next to it. Drawing up a five-finger bite does seem a bit odd, sort of like guzzling a Montrachet from the bottle (not that we’d know), but there are plenty of napkins.
Other dishes, like the pata (right), seem almost made for a sort of elemental, cave-man approach. The pata here, in fact, is worth the price of the dinner alone. It’s a pig’s leg, slowly braised with bay leaves, peppercorns, and garlic, then deep-fried so the skin sports a rich, incredibly crispy crust. Break open that crust and the meat inside is juicy and succulent, porky-sweet.
The Filipino take on German rouladen is morcon (right), beef flattened out and rolled around vegetables, then braised in a casserole dish. It’s thought of as a Christmas or New Year’s dish in the Philippines; its appearance at the kamayan was greeted by most of the Filipino diners the way St. Louisans deprived of Imo’s might react to the appearance of an Extra Large Deluxe.
There are fried fish fillets, shrimp in a golden tempura-like batter, and a savory rice, steamed with garlic that added a gentle fragrance.
Desserts, like a chocolate and rice porridge called champorado, and a fruit compote served in fresh coconuts (below), seem like an afterthought until you dig in. (And yes, there are spoons for this course.)
There was so much food that containers were brought out for those who could stand the thought of ever eating again so they could take home leftovers.
Hiro is offering Kamayan dinners once a month. The menu changes constantly. We asked about some of the other offerings and it was like a recitation of the best of Filipino cuisine. Pork belly and cheeks, braised, deep-fried, spicy-smoky adobo chicken, mango salad. We asked a fellow diner how the fare at this kamayan compared to similar feasts back in the Philippines.
“It’s better.”
Speaking of those fellow diners, the majority were Filipinos or Filipino-American, most of them young, doctors in the first years of practice or in residency, and other professionals and if the idea of kamayan is to make friends with those with whom you might not otherwise interact every day, it worked. Those who, at the start of the evening had been strangers were exchanging phone numbers, making plans for getting together. Those whose parents had come from the Philippines but had never lived there kept talking about what many were trying for the first time, foods they heard about but never tried. Those who had been raised there were nostalgic. Everybody was full.
Kamayan is one of those unusual dining experiences, one where the oddity of eating with one’s fingers would seem to be the major draw but which, one you begin eating, seems almost beside the point. The food, Filipino specialties you’re unlikely to get anywhere else in the region, is so deliciously extraordinary it’s what you will remember.
Looking for a delectably enjoyable evening? Try the Kamayan nights at Hiro. Just don’t tell ‘em we said the Philippines is weird.
Hiro Asian Kitchen
Kamayan Night this month is Tuesday, January 12
$55 per person (plus service fee, beverages not included)
1405 Washington
314-241-4476
