Selamat Pagi Pah! Ibu! Selamat Datang! (Good morning, sir! Ma’am! Welcome!)

It’s an iconic greeting that’s often shortened to “Pah – gee – Pah!” We would leave the residences as early as 6 a.m. specifically to avoid the morning rush hour. If we hit the road any time after 6:15, a 30-minute drive becomes a two-hour nightmare. That facility we conduct our business in had a buffet of homey cooking with soup, main course, vegetables, sambal and of course, rice. I can tell you, the exotic aroma of spices pervading the dining hall was rather intoxicating.

I still recall that first day ever, and the only word that came into my mind before entering that dining hall was curry. Each mouthful was always a different kind of curry. One day nutty, smooth and saucy, next day pasty, fiery and fibrous, then later a saucy and savory soup. But there’s always something more – something special about all that spice that makes it a new discovery at every encounter.

INDONESIAN ROOTS
On the day we came to visit, Ma. Teresa “Tess” Doctora and Ma. Luisa “Louh” Eugenio emerged from the kitchen in matching batik tunics and batik bandana, which we later learned is mandatory headgear in the kitchen. The prospect of retiring apparently did not sit well with them because their first question was “What are we going to do now?” They did not need a referendum to figure out what they do. After 28 years, the sisters decided to call it a day and retire back to the Philippines, deciding to just cook Indonesian food simply because they liked it. “We are the COO with a K . . . or cook!!” says Tess, between bouts of laughter and a snide retort from Louh. “Our mother was also a cook and we acquired that”.

‘APPETIZE’ THIS
The Murtabak is a roadside stand that one would typically find on the streets of most Indonesian towns, right alongside the mee goreng (fried noodles) and the bubur (rice porridge) stands. Unlike the rest though, they can be sweet (manis) or savory with eggs (telur). The batter is set on a round, large pie pan and left to cook covered for a few minutes, with ingredients liberally sprinkled over it before lifting the whole chef-d’oeuvre out of the pan where it is set down and split down the middle. This is where the single fold transforms the cake into a half moon sandwich where it is cut into neat little squares. With the eggs incorporated into the mixture and sprinkled with seasoned ground beef and onion leeks, it is at once a heady concoction of the slightly sweet cake, the saltiness and the creaminess of the amalgamated eggs, and the beef and leeks, all producing textures on different levels and with just the slightest bite of customary chilis.

IN ALL ITS DIFFICULTIES
It all started just off Katipunan, almost directly across Ateneo. Right from the beginning, they were committed to do all the cooking. It wasn’t until 2006 when they ventured into the Legaspi Sunday Market. Fast forward 10 years later and you will still see them, diligently serving up paket after paket (package) as a testament to its popularity. “Usually by 11 we have to make changes because we usually run out of the bakwan (corn fritters), because it’s like maruya.”

The idea behind Warung Kapitolyo as a restaurant started sometime in 2013. The area was purely a residential enclave, and there was simply no way a restaurant would get a permit to operate in a residential area. Without exception, they still stuck by it. Contractors were still called in, interior designers dealt with, raw materials sourced in spite of everything.