Something right must have occurred in the ether when Jutz Café came to town. The rustic old house along Avenida Sta. Catalina where it is housed and the peculiar preparation of its food–the right alchemy of herbs and spices–blend together so well, it is almost uncanny. Can I say that the ambience adds this extra kick?
But it has always been around, this restaurant that hides away from the street where it’s on like a secret. Opposite it, where FoodNet is, there is always a bigger number of people, but that’s to be expected–what transpires in this spot is a culinary battle of masa and masabor. The thing is, you just can’t fault most people for having pedestrian taste. And Jutz Café is far from pedestrian.
Here, in its menu, are everybody’s favorite pasta dishes and pizza when the restaurant used to be known as Boston Café: from the ham and pimiento alfredo to the seafood diavolo to the tres cepes pomodoro. But I always go to Jutz Café for the dining fare. The Tuscan pork chop, practically an old lover of mine, has never tasted this good. (Its closest rival is the herbed pork chop in Neva’s, also a delightful–and very cheap!–restaurant, which shares the same culinary genes as its version in Jutz Café, both of them being the creations of the same Palawan-born chef.) The taste of the herbs that provide the flavorful base for the Thai chicken curry also seems more immediate in the restaurant’s Bohemian feel. The garlic fish fillet is always a slice of heaven–and I suggest starting with that fare. It has retained its old texture, a soft and satisfying wildness which is a terrific kick to the palate. What I like most about it is the symphony that explodes in the roof of your mouth when you take in a piece of the tuna with the diced garlic in a heap, soon inducing a garlicky high in the aftertaste. Eating this one dish still remains, for me, a dining delight.
Delight, I should say, is one quality curiously indicative of how we enjoy the food in Jutz Café, which follows a culinary philosophy called “masabor,” something that calls for giving each dish a base of everyday herbs commonly found in the country but unused for the most part in the local cooking world. Every dish here is pushed to the edge, and the herbs–with the expert use and combination of basil, rosemary, pepper, oregano, thyme, tarragon, and marjoram–plus some other ingredients I cannot divulge here, are what makes the richness of each dish come out in full flavor.
The place used to be known by another name–but, after changing hands, the place has changed in spectacular evolution: from the Bohemian feel it sported originally (and to which, in some large part, it has returned to), to a dingy den of some ill repute, to what it is now: a shiny well-scrubbed interior done in white and maroon, retaining traces of its artsy origin. Over time, it has become a magnet for foreigners, given its presence in the Lonely Planet guidebook.
What is new in the place are dishes that either hits or misses: there is the belly con tomato (which is grilled pork belly and tomatoes with sweet and spicy tomato marinade), the steak la Thalia (which is tender pork loin steak seasoned, spiced, and topped with buttered garlic, onions, and mushrooms), the crisp breaded fish fillet with tartar dip, the garlic chicken fillet pan-fried in lemon garlic sauce, the vegetarian adobo, the veggie spring rolls, the Spanish omelet, and–alas–the commonplace bacon-wrapped Salisbury steak (something I have never liked because it’s not steak and I doubt if it’s ever from Salisbury), which makes the usual mistake of presentation: its meat drowning in the unsightly brownish mess of gravy, a visual monotony broken only by the ridges of mushroom that is otherwise tempting. I wish I could see the bacon but I know it lurks there somewhere, underneath all that goo, a fried coil that is binding this soft-minced meat. The dish is sometimes a little frightening because it melts in your mouth, releasing this seasoned meat mash that seems bland at first but becomes, almost by miracle, subtly delicious. It is a unique take on the dish, but frankly speaking, it is one dish this restaurant can do without, given its previous emphasis on the truly startling and the “masabor.”
It’s a good thing there are always the old dishes to fall back on. And the art work on the walls, of course, which is a changing collection of new works by some of the city’s best local artists. That and the feel of everything else, it’s like falling into a good, rugged vibe.
