How Cibo Introduced Me to a New Way of Eating Out

(SPOT.ph) As a lifelong Quezon City girl who rarely ventured further south past Camps Crame and Aguinaldo, I suppose you could say my palate up to the 1990s was staunchly Pinoy or Chinoy, shaped by the Cubao and QC restaurants I and my family patronised from my childhood: Aristocrat, Charlie's Wanton Mami House, Barrio Fiesta, Max's, Ma Mon Luk, Hong Ning Panciteria, the hole-in-the-wall sinigang na ulo-ulo place hidden away in a narrow side-street along Mindanao Avenue. The teenyboppers and young adults for whom Tokyo Tokyo was the pinnacle of accessible Japanese food in the late '80s and early '90s were growing up and moving on to more sophisticated and expensive pleasures; for us it remained an occasional treat, tucked away near the end of the old SM City Annex, past the Savannah clothing shop and the Bobby Novenario atelier. Pasta and other Italian or Western dishes, we could make at home, courtesy of my mother -- a wonderful yet indifferent cook.

But as a producer working on ABS-CBN's Assignment, I was forced out of my beloved QC bubble because my colleagues, who later became my friends, were younger and cooler and more adventurous, and Metro Manila was their playground. Filming days took us deep into the bowels of Pasig and Mandaluyong, Makati, Parañaque, Las Piñas and Taguig. And along the way, to  malls new and unfamiliar to me: SM Megamall, the Shangri-La Mall, Glorietta and Greenbelt.

It must have been on one of those long filming days that our then-associate producer Melissa asked a few of the show writers to meet up at this place called Cibo at Megamall. I'd been to this mall before, with its vast spaces and its crowds; and ever the agoraphobiac, I didn't relish having to go again. But Megamall it was, and so I went.

Finding Cibo

I eventually found Cibo in a section of the mall that was blessedly quiet and crowd-free, on a low-traffic floor lined with furniture and carpet shops. There was space enough just for a few tables, and a small white counter in the corner with a few service staff also dressed in white. My first thought was how antiseptic it seemed, so white and bright, gleaming and almost hospital-like.

I'd arrived ahead of everyone else, and I was hungry after missing lunch. So I ordered a sandwich from the small, lean menu: a panini (that's where I first heard of such a thing) with prosciutto and gruyére, and some kind of lemon soda. I wasn't very hopeful that such a white, antiseptic place could produce the kind of hearty, salt-of-the-earth food I liked. But hey, it's just a ham and cheese sandwich, right?

When the panini arrived, it seemed to affirm my lack of enthusiasm. It came on a large white oval plate, lined with grill marks, half-wrapped in a square of oil-absorbing paper with CIBO printed on it. It wasn't filled with an obscene amount of prosciutto or gruyère, and I may have even wondered if there was enough of each. There was a tiny flute of some kind of white sauce which turned out to be aioli, and a tiny pot of thin potato chips, browned at the edges. I waited a minute or two in hopes that I'd soon be joined by my companions, but hunger got the better of me, and I tucked in.

Just a ham and cheese sandwich, yes. But what a ham and cheese sandwich it was: the bread sliced not too thick and not too thin, the prosciutto savoury and not eye-wateringly salty, the gruyére melted without becoming little more than greasy, waxy goo. If my memory serves me right, there was a smear of pesto inside, adding a note of herby freshness to the sandwich.

And then there was that aioli. I dipped a chip in it, and it was like a gateway opened. What is this glorious thing? I thought. Punchier than mayonnaise, lighter than hollandaise - it made me feel like leaping that white counter in a single bound and congratulating every one of the white-clothed wait staff. I spread a little on the panini and there it was, the perfect harmony of salty and fatty, creamy and herby and gently pungent.

Manila traffic being what it already was in the late 90s, I managed to finish the whole thing before anyone in my party arrived. The wait staff took away my plate, and I must have bowed in thanks as I'm still wont to do. Melissa finally got there and she ordered the same thing, and because she didn't see me polish off the first one, I happily ordered another (now you know, Mel) -- this time with the grilled vegetables. I no longer remember what we talked about when everyone arrived, only that there was gossip and griping and laughter and jokes of the very corniest kind. But I still remember those panini: the silkiness of the prosciutto, the juiciness and char of the grilled vegetables, and that aioli that I wanted to make, if not buy, in vats and barrels afterwards.

The genius of Margarita

Many times after that, I would brave the crowds at Megamall to eat there: always a panini, always with the limonata, always by myself. Cibo was my introduction to a newer, more contemporary way of eating out: upmarket yet still accessible, low-key and casual, the food unfussy, yet elevated by the best ingredients and a thoughtful hand and palate - the hand and palate and genius of Margarita Forés.

In the years that followed, I would move to Singapore but still keep track of her in the news and lifestyle pages: what new restaurants she opened that would go on my list of places to eat the next time I came home for a visit, what exciting new project she was involved in, what new ceiling and ground she broke. New, new, new: there was always something new with her, it seemed, and she was so young and energetic and so full of ideas that new appeared to be her default setting and her North Star.

I'm generally not one to mourn famous people, though I have mourned Robin Williams and Anthony Bourdain. Bourdain's passing hit me quite hard, because he was my constant literary and culinary companion in my early days here in Singapore, when I was lost and alone and in profound culture shock.

Chef Forés' passing has hit me almost the same way, and it's mostly because of that profound and singular moment of gustatory  revelation in 1997. Just a ham and cheese sandwich, after all is said and done. And yet. While I never met her, I feel like I did anyway, all those years ago, on a plate, in a spirit and an approach to food that felt fresh and streamlined and stripped down to the bare essentials of flavour and excellence.

This morning I thought I'd make my son something similar to that astonishing Cibo panini to honour that memory. No panini press, hence no grill marks; no green pesto, just red; no gruyère, just gouda. I toasted it in a pan until the gouda had melted into a velvety blanket over the prosciutto, made a quick aioli, and served it with the thinnest chips I could find. He loved it, and asked for another, as growing tweens will do. It's a good thing I made spares. Because as I learned that first time, you always need a second one.

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FH Batacan is the author of Smaller and Smaller Circles and Accidents Happen and Other Stories.