Rambutan, Chicago

Nation's Restaurant News, Jan 8, 2001 by Amy Zuber

As chef-owner of Rambutan restaurant in Chicago, Jennifer Aranas is living her dream of bringing upscale Filipino food to that city. And despite its large Asian population, Aranas says her mission is to target diners who are unfamiliar with Filipino cuisine.

"The city is so much more receptive to Filipino cooking than I had expected," says Aranas, an accountant-turned-chef who runs Rambutan with her husband, Cesar Casillas.

Rambutan's menu features appetizer-portion dishes as a way to encourage customers to sample several different items. Although the restaurant's menu is filled with popular Filipino ingredients, such as pork, seafood and green papaya, Aranas says her cooking style varies a bit from the traditional cuisine. Seeking to attract a broader crowd of diners, the chef uses lighter sauces and more elaborate plate presentations.

"My parents are both from the Philippines, and I grew up with lighter Filipino food," Aranas says. "I also wanted to create a menu that would cater more to the American palate."

Aranas explains that her mother's recipes inspired most of Rambutan's signature specialties. And every three months when she changes the menu, "the chef" always consults her mom first.

New customers at Rambutan often are surprised to find a heavy Spanish influence on the menu because the Philippines is an Asian country, Aranas says. She notes, however, that Spain controlled the country for several hundred years.

"I think the cuisine is more Spanish than Asian," she says. "It is not traditional for us to cook with a wok. We use regular pans, and most of the techniques involve stewing or braising."

Traditional dishes on the menu vary from a service-style fish flavored with lime to noodles with Chinese sausage, chicken, shiitake mushrooms and an oyster sauce.

Aranas has altered some of the more traditional recipes, such as a stew that typically features braised pork or chicken in coconut milk. At Rambutan the dish is made with duck instead.

"I think duck is more interesting than chicken because it has a more complex flavor," she says.

Aranas also explains that she altered the recipe for a Filipino salad made from shredded jicama, green papaya, garlic, ginger and vinegar, which is used as the preserving agent. She says that in her dish, she has "mellowed out the strong vinegar flavor" with oil, pear juice and almonds.

"The one I grew up eating was a much more severe dish," she explains.

While Filipino suppliers are few and far between in Chicago, Aranas says she able to get most of what she needs from Vietnamese and Chinese wholesalers. Rambutan recently moved to a new location that has more than doubled the seating capacity of the original space. She adds that she is pleased that the restaurant's larger dining room has not increased her costs.

"I shop every day, so we don't have any inventory," she says. "Almost nothing here goes to waste. If we have anything extra, like some green papaya, we can use it to make a soup."

Concept: upscale Filipino

Opened: 1996

Seats: 67

Size: 1,800 square feet

Average food costs: 24-26 percent

Average labor costs: 40 percent

Average per-person dinner check: $33-$37 with alcohol

Daily average covers: 120 on weekends, 65 on weekdays

Best-selling item: crispy, cigar-thin egg rolls filled with pork, cabbage and ginger

Slowest-selling item: Venison shank braised in a rich tomato-liver sauce

Menu maker/owner: Jennifer Aranas

SALADS & STARTERS

seviche of lime-marinated snapper flavored with ginger, sweet peppers, pineapple and coconut cream, served with toasted croutons 7

Crispy shrimp fritters battered with sweet potatoes and cassava, served with pickled cucumber 7

Baked turnovers filled with a seasonal mushroom medley flavored with Spanish olives and almonds, served with a horseradish-mustard sauce 7

Shredded jicama and green papaya tossed together with seasonal greens, ovendried five-spiced tomatoes, candied almonds and pear slices, served with an almond-pear vinaigrette 6

MAIN ATTRACTIONS

Blue crab meat seasoned with onions, garlic and sweet peppers, stuffed into its shell and sauteed with coconut milk, spicy sambal and a hint of shrimp paste 8

Grilled coriander-crusted rib-eye steak served with spicy black bean barbecue sauce and grilled vegetable cake 7

Grilled catfish fillet served in a miso-lemon grass fish broth with bok choy and shiitake mushrooms 7

Duck confit and seared duck breast slices in an adobo sauce flavored with pineapple, tomatoes and dates, served with a creamy regout of summer squash, coconut milk and jackfruit 8

Roasted quail filled with ground pork, almonds, raisins, caramelized onions and rice, served with an anise-tomato sauce and sweet soy 10

A mixture of bean threads and egg noodles served with Chinese sausage, chicken, shiitake mushrooms, julienne celery and carrots, flavored with oyster sauce 6

DESSERTS

Almond leche flan with caramel sauce 5.95

A tropical fruit sundae with layers of crushed ice, jackfruit, pineapple, sweet young coconut, vanilla ice cream, whipped cream and a caramelized banana 5.95