Fine Dining
Fat Michael’s Place is a hole in the wall that serves simple, and simply delicious food
By Teodoro Y. Montelibano

There is some ambi-guity about how Fat Michael’s Place – this quaint res-taurant tucked away in a quiet corner in Makati City’s un-pretentious Bangkal area – was named.

“My husband’s name is Miguel,” says co-owner Dave Camaclang, who is a woman, the lady of the house. “I have a son who’s named after him, Miguel Jr. and my youngest is Mikael,” said Dave, who added that Fat Michael’s is really named after 25-year-old Miguel Jr., a fine arts student who dropped out of school because he wanted to cook. “I wanted to put up something which he can handle, but you know, he’s not even fat anymore. He’s thinned out already!”

The ever-smiling Dave let out a guffaw as she explained the origins of Fat Michael’s. I sat across the table, listening to her even as I proceeded to finish off the contents of the good-for-two paellera which had contained some of the most delicious paella I’ve tasted in Manila under P200!

A companion and I were having two of the house’s most popular dishes – pan-seared fillet of lapulapu in thyme and olive oil and rosemary chicken barbecue along with the paella and certainly, there is no ambiguity about this place when it comes to how tasty the food is!

Jude, Dave’s younger brother and the cook, reigns supreme in the kitchen, although Miguel Jr. pitches in when Dave – who also cooks – and Jude are not in. When the Camaclangs opened their doors in 2001, Jude’s friends from the fashion world – he’s a wardrobe consultant and is active in the local fashion show circuit – were among the first customers in Fat Michael’s Place. “We initially had about ten entrees in the menu,” said Dave, “and Jude, who has a good set of friends, asked his people to come and try our fare. They liked all the dishes!”

Equally amazing was how Fat Michael’s reputation as a place where one can come as anyone pleases and partake of simply prepared but delicious, good food rapidly spread by word of mouth.

There was enough of a buzz among food lovers to the point that some food critic from Singapore-based Asian Wall Street Journal came wandering around to knock on Fat Michael’s doors one night. “We were bursting at the seams that night and when he introduced himself to me, I told him, oh, please! Don’t expect anything much about our food, it’s just plain simple fare that comes out of our kitchen,” Dave related. Well, the food writer came out with his account on Fat Michael’s Place and it wasn’t much of a flattering piece. For one thing the writer didn’t understand what all the fuss on the restaurant’s food was all about.

Dave laughs it off, “I did tell him it’s just our take on food we like to prepare and eat. Maybe he was a little put off because we weren’t able to seat him right away and he could not understand what all these people who were crowding in our place were there for.”

The Camaclangs’ furniture refurbishing business wasn’t doing too well in 2001. It was Dave’s mother-in-law who thought the couple should, perhaps, get into the food catering business. “We liked the idea,” said Dave, “but what my mom-in-law suggested was that we open a carinderia. I told myself, I wouldn’t know how to prepare carinderia food exactly so I thought I’d just cook food the way I like it and see how it goes.”

The local subsidiary of Intel, the multinational semi-conductor com-pany, had its offices in the area and its employees, along with Jude’s friends from the fashion industry, basically comprised Fat Michael’s regular customers initially. Each of the menu’s original ten entrees were lapped up by the customers and in addition to these items in the menu, a special was featured daily. Most of the specials oft-ordered were in-corporated into the regular menu and today the list of daily offerings come to 28 – 11 dishes under meat and poultry; five under seafood, including a thin-pie, crispy grilled seafood with kesong puti pizza, salads, pastas and what to many, is the place’s signature paella.

Two friends who were chefs in local deluxe hotels gave them tips in sauce preparation and other cooking aspects, but that’s about it. With no formal training, Jude and Dave took hold of the kitchen and churned out food that has been making regular customers happy even as it made fans out of new ones.

Fat Michael’s fame and repute has led to a steadily expanding clientele which at present includes as diverse a mix as advertising honchos, business executives, print media practitioners, socialites, and yes, even restaurant owners and renowned chefs themselves.

Fat Michael’s is decorated by Dave, who also dabbles in interior design, with Japanese paper lanterns, silk brocade curtains, and silk scarf-covered lamps and beads hanging from the ceiling. Regular patrons come to the smallish apartment to dine on such favorites as New York sirloin steak, corn and chops, sirloin and spicy chicken kebabs, chicken tostadas, grilled tangigue or gindara steak panfried on a heavy skillet, gambas paired with saffron rice, marinated squid, the earlier mentioned pan seared fish fillet, chicken rosemary barbecue, and of course, the paella.

There is nothing fancy about the cuisine; it is uncomplicated food and the Camaclangs, as well as Dave’s brother, Jude declare emphatically that these are just fare they themselves are wont to have on the family table. “We’re not fine dining,” Dave says, her face starting to crease into another smile, “rather, what we are is fun dining.”

Except for the daily specials, all items on the regular menu are unbelievably priced below P200; the specials – a pepper steak one day, a good-sized roast pork loin with glazed apples on a bed of garlic and spiced rice and such, the next – are a little over P200.

One main reason why the Camaclangs are able to offer good food at these prices is because, for one thing, overhead cost is low. For instance, Dave’s husband’s family owns property in the area, including the unit – one of several low-rise two-storey apartments – which houses the restaurant.

The price, and the kind of food one gets for such, is what keeps Fat Michael’s Place’s customers – as much as 35 on the ground floor and about a dozen more in Jude’s upstairs bedroom converted into space for dining during business hours (11 am till 11 pm) – coming back in a steady stream to the restaurant.

Guests come and dine as they fancy. Several notable personalities have been espied curling up on a sofa by a table in one corner with one of Jude’s many hardbound books which share space with back issues of imported fashion and lifestyle magazines stacked all over the restaurant.

The delicious fare aside, what’s particularly charming about Fat Michael’s is its lived-in feel. “Our regular guests regard our place as an extension of their own home, their own dining room,” said Dave, “and that’s exactly how we treat them – like family coming to dine in our home.”

Fat Michael’s Place is located at 1154 A Rodriguez Avenue corner Gen Lacuna Street, Bangkal, Makati City. Call telephone 844-2638 for reservations as well as directions to the Tagaytay City branch.