Making it big at Bigby's
If you are in Iloilo City, you must hie off to Bigby’s Café & Restaurant at the Smallville Business Center and order a Titanic Treat. It’s a magic mountain of ice cream scoops—all 40 of them!—with a sinful smattering of chocolate chips, moist chocolate cake, chocolate cookies and whatever fruits are on hand. A glacial treat! “It’s a great way to melt away hot afternoons,” says pretty Joanna Lim-Yu, one of the three 28-year-olds who run this hot, hot restaurant.
Hot is the word, indeed, and Bigby’s is the place. Who would have known that it would take a tiny restaurant like this to put Northern Mindanao on the country’s cosmopolitan culinary map? The story goes that Glenda Barreto, the doyenne of the Philippine food scene, hied off to Bigby’s and promptly fell in love with the restaurant’s tijuana quesadillas, a fresh, light take on the classic Mexican pica-pica. The flour tortilla is deliciously burnt and crunchy and manageably thin—and perks you up with that wicked mishmash of cheese and garlic, which you may spice up with a dash of salsa. Mama mia!
For his part, gourmand and restaurateur Sandy Daza was so enamored by Bigby’s that he wrote about the restaurant in his Saturday column in the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Now, salad foodies will turn green with envy at the freshness of the offering at Bigby’s: the harvest of the land crisp and plentiful. The house salad is aptly called Bermuda Triangle Salad, but the one you must try is the Mandarin Oriental Salad, a mix of mandarin oranges, a delicious concoction of sweet vegetable mix and topped with crispy vermicelli! And that’s not even the entrees yet.
Most everyone who goes to Bigby’s orders the playfully named Rack-a-Bye-Baby. It’s pork ribs glistening in barbecued perfection. Believe me, it’s fabulous value-for-money. Others go for the Korean Riblets, a sinful bowl of beef ribs tender with sweet and spicy imagining, which I thoroughly enjoy. There are steaks of all sorts—porterhouse, T-bone and rib-eye. Then, there are mischievous chicken and seafood experiments, which are highly successful (Indian Seafood Kebabs and Chix Ahoy, for instance).
May I confess, though, that the entree which keeps me coming back to Bigby’s is the Pescado Al Fresco. To say that it’s “sauteed Cream Dory fillet with pesto in a pool of onion jus” is to miss the point, although it is that exactly—drowned in a crunchy sea of shredded shoestring potato. Because you see, it is more than that.
This simple dish with nuanced flavors swims into your palate as a celebration of joy, of bounty, of good taste, of fine dining, of creative exploration, of companionable bonding: a coming together of spirited intentions.
Bigby’s interiors is of wood panels and clear glass and woodsy tables and chairs, very cozy and comfy, very relaxed. On one wall, is a mask collection; on another, a pin collection and puppets from Bangkok, framed en toto, and stamp collections. It is truly a visual treat!
Bottomless
The best way to wash off such a feast is to order the bottomless, especially brewed house iced tea. It’s a thirst-quencher whose honey-slaking goodness lingers long after the last bite, or burp.
“We made sure our food gives diners a wonderful high,” says sultry Catherine Genabe, who, together with Henrik Yu, completes the young triumvirate running Bigby’s. Cathy, Henrik and Ann were all schoolmates. Even then, Cathy and Ann would bake and sell banana cake, butter cake and carrot cake in school. At the end of the day, they would eat the cakes that were not sold.
Ann studied business management and psychology under the interdisciplinary studies program at the Ateneo de Manila University. Henrik snatched up a degree in economics there, too, while Cathy pursued dentistry studies. “But I found myself enrolling at the Center for Culinary Arts across the road from the Ateneo, and that has made all the difference,” Cathy lets on. Ann enrolled there, too. And the three realized that there was only one way to go: Open their own restaurant. “It had to be hip—a cool hangout for young folks like us,” Cathy recalls. Grins Doy, “The taste of the food had to be outstanding, and the servings had to be impressive.” Says Ann, “We thought the place should be unique, with a character all its own, that will draw people to come back again and again.”
Such a playful, creative team-up makes for the big success that is Bigby’s.
Bigby’s can be found at the Ayala Entertainment Center Cebu, SM City Cagayan de Oro, SM City Davao, Limketkai Center Cagayan de Oro, Gaisano Mall Bacolod and of course, now at the Smallville Business Center, Iloilo City. Tel. No. (033)3211275. Services offered: Free Wifi access, Function room for meetings, Dine-in and Take-out orders, and much, much more.