Inside the Toyo Eatery x Baan Tepa collaboration dinner: A marriage of Filipino and Thai flavours

In true Toyo Eatery fashion, the tasting menu commenced with a trio of kilaw, beginning with local mackerel—a fish well-known to any Toyo regular. However, this kilaw, like every dish on the menu that evening, was a collaboration between both restaurants. That night, the raw mackerel was dressed in tart tamarillo sauce that immediately brought our lips to a tight pucker, before revealing its potent spice from the fermented chilli paste. While the cooling samplaoc granita granted some relief, the chilli continued to prevail, engaging the senses in an interesting play of temperatures. The first drink in the beverage pairing explored another interesting dimension of spice: texture. Made with bourbon, lemongrass syrup, tublay lemon, coconut milk, angostura bitters, salt, and siling labuyo, the clarified Labuyo shot displayed a stark contrast between its milky body and sharp sting from the chilli.

The kilaw course gradually increased in spice with the meatier, firmer tuna, served with a dressing of makmao (a Thai berry) and patis made with etag (cured and smoked pork from the Mountain Province), with a more prominent, lingering heat. Finally, we were taken from sea to land with the goat laab: a herbaceous mixture of raw goat meat, calamansi, and aromatics, accented with nutty toasted rice and a crunchy, earthy chip made from gamet (dried local seaweed). Right off the bat, we were introduced to key tenets of Thai cuisine like spice, sourness, and funk. While these flavours are well at home in Filipino cuisine, it seems chefs Navarra and Debhakam took the opportunity to lean further into these profiles, and to delicious effect.

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We were soon presented with deep-fried asuhos from Mindanao, donning an unusual yellow tinge. Marinated in kamin (Thai turmeric), the crispy fish was cooked with lemongrass, topped with garlic chips, and chillies, and served with a wedge of tublay lemon—a bright and thoughtful touch to the earthy, salty, slightly bitter bite. The two-biter fish were gone in a flash, and an intriguing bamboo steamer promptly took its place. Lifting the lid revealed a colourful surprise: plump Aklan oysters were the star, steamed then treated with tublay vinegar and embellished with Thai spices, Toyo’s homemade banana ketchup, and gamet.

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As our next course was finished on the pass, pours of 2020 Cristom chardonnay filled our glasses, preluding the rich, flavourful noodle dish that was now making its way towards us. Dong dang, a distinctively thick and chewy rice noodle popular in Northeastern Thailand, has become a Baan Tepa signature. Extruded through a special manual press, it is a laborious noodle, but one that is well worth the effort (with only two presses on hand, I’m told it took the team two hours to push and cut the dong dang for the one-night-only collaboration). The short noodles were stir-fried with an unctuous prawn sauce made with prawn head stock, topped with crunchy fried alamang and wonderfully fragrant kaffir lime leaves. On the side, two sweet, meaty prawns were grilled to perfection in inasal oil, which chef Debhakam suggested we eat with our hands and dip into that luscious sauce.

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By this point, we’d had quite a bit to eat, and so our waitstaff led us upstairs to, as they jokingly put it, “walk it off.” This unexpected field trip took us to a part of Toyo Eatery none of us had seen before, or even knew about. Concealed behind a wooden panel we found the attic, home to the restaurant’s R&D space. Gathered around the kitchen bench, we watched in anticipation as the teams prepared two crave-worthy snacks. The first was a small Panaderya Toyo sourdough bun with fermented sticky corn and four types of cheese, namely queso de bola, manchego, mimolette, and taleggio. The second, a skewer of three-cut pork BBQ (another Toyo Eatery classic), this time topped with som tam (Thai papaya salad) in a clever parallel to atchara, and a Thai fish sauce with a pungent funk that would be quite menacing in the wrong hands.

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Our excursion to the attic, though rewarding, appears to have been a distraction. As we made our way back down, we quickly noticed that the table was now covered in banana leaves, which could only mean one thing: kamayan, a practice not commonly seen throughout Thailand. “If you go down into the deep south of Thailand, where there’s a big Muslim community, they will eat with their hands,” shared chef Debhakam. “In central Bangkok, it’s not really common practice. The most we’d do is with crudites, but it’s not like this, not hardcore.”

For this Thai-Filipino feast, the chefs prepared a sinangag featuring two rice variants from different parts of Thailand: mao doi from the highlands of Northern Thailand, and a sticky kam noi from the Isan region known for its aromatic profile. In addition, a quick pickle of labanos, tomatoes, and red onions with kaffir lime, as well as a warm crab and pomelo salad were plated in small bowls. But it’s the centrepiece of the kamayan, served in a piping hot cast iron skillet, that really caught our attention: curry sisig. “Chef Jordy has been taking me around to try traditional Filipino food,” Debhakam narrates. “This is my first time here [in Manila], so everything is new and amazing. We got introduced to a dish called sisig, which we really loved, so we decided to do a hybrid of dry roasted curry and the sisig.” Unlike curries that use fresh spices, dry roasted curries found in the Southern parts of Thailand boast a much deeper spice profile. Complete with a funky kaeng liang soup made of fish trimmings, the kamayan brought our savoury courses to a memorable crescendo.

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Even through to desserts, the restaurants’ penchant for unexpected flavour combinations triumphed. The Thai sour fruit salad features a dollop of smoked coconut cream; slivers of fresh guava, dragon fruit, green mango, and garcinia (a fruit popular in Thailand); shaved ice with grated black lime (a funky ingredient made by curing and dehydrating fresh limes); and a topping of pili nuts and alamang—yes, fried krill! Last but not least, the famed Thai tea was turned into a sweet and velvety cream, balanced with a slightly bitter ice cream made with damong Maria (local mugwort), crunchy silvanas wafers, lychee honey, and 10-year-old calamansi aged by Navarra since 2014, mixed with reduced coconut vinegar.

Although the collaboration dinner between Toyo Eatery and Baan Tepa was a one-night-only affair, much about it will remain ingrained in memory. Most importantly, to have two top chefs create such an impactful meal with local, sustainable ingredients suggests an optimistic future—one where fine dining not only co-exists with but actively supports the people, systems, and environments that form the cornerstones of our cuisines.

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