Caraga makes the cut

BUTUAN CITY--One of the exquisite joys awaiting you in this

capital city of the Caraga region in northeastern Mindanao is

the pleasure of dining at Prime Cut and Steakhouse, Gardenville

Hotel's cozy specialty restaurant.

The city's old-timers know that the restaurant came before the

hotel. Or, rather, that the hotel had to be built because the

diners wanted to prolong their delicious dinners until the wee

hours.

"Tatanungin nila kung puede ba silang mag-check-in dito. Eh,

restaurant lang kami noon (Some diners would inquire if they

could check-in at our place. But we were just a restaurant

then)," chuckled Vilma Burgos-Galero, the charming

proprietress.

It turned out that the restaurant was also the Galeros' home, and

so the three guestrooms were continually let out, and the idea of

putting up a hotel was born.

"I positioned the Prime Cut and Steakhouse as the place to go

to," she laughed. She was proven right, and her steakhouse

became the place to see and be seen, while savoring

must-munch platters.

The quality of the food resulted in word-of-mouth publicity.

Out-of-towners like American missionaries and European

businessmen involved in the various industries being set up

thereabouts-like the logging concessions and the power barge

in nearby Nasipit--became regular customers.

"The Danish expats working on the power barge asked me to

cater the daily meals of their 48 crew and staff," Tita Vi beamed.

"That translated to three meals and two snacks every day for an

international group of professionals who were very exacting

about quality."

Prime Cut and Steakhouse became the caterer of all the official

visits of President Ramos in Butuan City and Agusan del Norte.

"Although the President stayed in another hotel, we were asked

to prepare his meals," Tita Vi said.

Leafing through a sheaf of letters from satisfied customers, Tita

Vi said proudly, "In fact, [then presidential assistant for

Mindanao] Paul Dominguez took time out to write me letters of

thanks for what he called 'divine meals' at the steakhouse."

The steakhouse's first home was at a building on J.C. Aquino

Avenue, the city's main highway. Later on it occupied the whole

second floor of another building, still in the city's main

commercial district.

"We were the first restaurant in Butuan to offer tickets for

smorgasbord dining," Tita Vi said. "We were also the first to

present food in fondue."

Homey

When the building was demolished to give way to a

development project, Tita Vi was tired of moving the steakhouse

here and there, and so she decided to wait for the new building

to be finished.

"But people would come to the house and ask me to serve them

steak dinners. They'd knock even at odd hours. I could not let

such business opportunity pass, so I conceded and served

them their meals at the lanai."

The next thing was, Tita Vi reopened the steakhouse in their

home.

"The diners liked the homey ambience. Plus, they enjoyed my

garden. At the time we were one of the few homes here which

had a swimming pool, and the diners thought it a treat to dine

by the pool. We were the only diner with a swimming pool," Tita

Vi said.

Someone switched on the full moon that evening I first dined at

Prime Cut and Steakhouse. It was a dinner celebrating the joy of

possibilities.

I had garlic steak, my female companion ordered something à la

pobre, and my male friend insisted on a hamburger steak. The

food, as many other guests of the steakhouse had written Tita

Vi, was divine.

Tita Vi's food philosophy rang true throughout the dinner. "You

eat first with your eyes," she had told me earlier. "Then with

your nose. When you finally bring the food to your mouth and

taste it, you savor the whole experience--of the anticipation and

excitement and full fruition--and feed your memory with such a

mouthful of pleasure. And you will savor it again and again."

Yes, I told myself quietly. This is how one remembers, by

savoring the taste of happenstance in all its glory.