A Spice of Home, A Taste of You

The air in this part of the city is different. It smells of frying garlic, of diesel fumes, of damp concrete and simmering tomatoes. It smells, I realize with a pang so sharp it’s almost physical, like my childhood.

I’m walking the route my grandmother, Lola Rosa, would trace for me on a napkin with her arthritic finger. Turn left at the church with the blue door, then walk until you smell the panadería. The best taho is from the cart by the old movie theater, but only before ten. She’s been gone five years, but the city has these ghostly pockets where time feels suspended. I came back to Manila on a whim, a desperate, lonely attempt to grasp at something solid. The corporate apartment I’ve rented in Makati is sterile and silent, a glass box overlooking a city that hummed with a life I could observe but never touch. My promotion to Vice President of Strategic Finance should have felt like a summit. It felt like a beautifully furnished cage. So I decided to cook. And when I realized I didn’t even know where to buy proper patis, I decided on a pilgrimage.

My phone is useless here; the GPS gets confused by the narrow, weaving streets of Santa Cruz. I’m navigating by scent and memory, following the trail of her stories. I pass a cobbler hammering nails into a shoe sole, a woman hanging laundry on a line strung between two buildings, a group of old men playing chess on a makeshift table. Their eyes follow me, not unkindly, but with curiosity. My tailored jeans and simple linen shirt mark me as an outsider, but my face, my grandmother’s face, gives me a tentative pass.

I’m looking for a specific market stall she swore by, but my stomach growls, protesting the long walk and the thick midday heat. That’s when I see it: a small, unassuming restaurant tucked between a hardware store and a sari-sari store. The signage is faded green paint on a wooden board: Kanlungan. Sanctuary. The windows are steamed over. I push the wooden door open, and a bell chimes softly.

The interior is dim, cool, a welcome reprieve. A few ceiling fans churn the air, which is heavy with the most incredible aromas—sinigang’s sour tamarind, the rich, savory scent of adobo, something sweet and coconutty. There are only a handful of mismatched tables, most occupied by elderly men reading newspapers over bowls of soup. The walls are a faded yellow, decorated with old black-and-white photographs of Manila. It feels like stepping into a living, breathing museum.

A man emerges from the back, wiping his hands on a cloth tucked into the waist of his simple black pants. He’s not tall, but he has a solid, grounded presence, like a tree that has weathered many storms. His white t-shirt stretches across broad shoulders, and his forearms, revealed by rolled-up sleeves, are corded with muscle from a lifetime of work. His face is open, kind, with dark eyes that take me in with a calm, unruffled assessment.

“Good afternoon. Table for one?” His voice is low, warm, like molasses.

“Yes, please.”

He gestures to a small table by the window. “You’re not from around here.”

It’s not a question. “My grandmother was. Lola Rosa. She lived on Castillejos Street.”

A flicker of recognition crosses his face. “Mang Ben’s daughter? The teacher?”

The world tilts. “Yes. Yes, that was her.”

He nods, a slow, thoughtful movement. “She used to come in. Long time ago. She liked my kare-kare.” He places a simple, laminated menu in front of me. “Sit. I’ll bring you some water.”

I sit, stunned. This place, this man, knew my Lola. The connection is so sudden and profound it makes my throat tighten. I look at the menu, but the words blur. When he returns with a glass of cold water with a slice of calamansi, I don’t look at the menu.

“What would she have ordered for me?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.

He studies me for a moment, his head tilted. There’s no flirtation in his gaze, just a deep, patient consideration. “On a hot day like this? She’d start you with something to wake up the soul. Sinigang na baboy. Sour enough to make you pucker, with fresh gabi to make it silky.”

“That. I’ll have that.”

He nods again, a small, almost imperceptible smile touching his lips. “Good choice.”

I watch him walk back to the kitchen, moving with an economical grace. I sip the water, the tart calamansi bright on my tongue, and look at the photographs. One shows a riverfront I don’t recognize, with bancas and washing lines. Another is of a family in front of a nipa hut, smiling stiffly at the camera. This place isn’t just a restaurant; it’s an archive.

The sinigang arrives in a deep, earthy clay bowl, steam rising in fragrant curls. The broth is a cloudy, reddish-brown, dotted with vibrant green chili leaves, tomatoes, and tender pieces of pork belly. I inhale, and the scent—the unmistakable, piercing sourness of tamarind—floods me with memory. Sunday afternoons at Lola’s cramped apartment, the windows open to let in the breeze, the sound of her telenovela on in the background, this exact smell permeating everything.

I take a spoonful. The heat is perfect, the sourness immediate and profound, followed by the deep savoriness of the pork and the subtle, thickening quality of the gabi. It’s more than delicious. It’s a time machine. It tastes exactly like hers. Tears prickle at the corners of my eyes, and I have to put the spoon down for a moment, blinking hard.

He’s watching from the kitchen doorway, leaning against the frame. He doesn’t say anything, just gives me that same slow nod, as if he understands completely. He disappears again.

I eat the entire bowl, savoring each bite, each memory it unlocks. When I finish, he comes out with a small plate. “On the house. For Lola Rosa’s apo.”

It’s a slice of bibingka, the rice cake, still warm from the oven, topped with a pat of melting butter and shreds of salty white cheese. It’s rustic, imperfect, the edges slightly crisp. I take a bite. The sweetness is gentle, the texture wonderfully chewy and soft, the saltiness of the cheese a perfect counterpoint. It tastes like Christmas mornings, like hope, like home.

“Thank you,” I say, my voice thick. “This is… incredible. Everything. It tastes just like she made.”

“That’s the idea,” he says, pulling out the chair opposite me and sitting down. He doesn’t crowd me; there’s a respectful distance. “I’m Mateo, by the way.”

“Isabella.”

“Isabella,” he repeats, and my name sounds different in his mouth, more musical, the ‘l’s’ soft and lingering. “Your Lola, she was a tough critic. But a loyal customer. She said my cooking had ‘lugod’—soul. Highest compliment.”

“It does,” I say earnestly. “I live in Makati now. I’ve been to all the ‘best’ Filipino restaurants. The degustation menus, the modern interpretations. They’re beautiful. They don’t taste like this.”

Mateo’s expression softens. “Here, we don’t interpret. We remember.” He gestures around the small space. “This was my lolo’s place. Then my father’s. Now mine. The recipes are the same. The neighborhood changes, but the food… the food has to stay.”

“Why ‘Kanlungan’?” I ask.

He looks around, as if seeing the room for the first time. “For the old-timers. They come here, they taste their childhood, they remember who they were. For people like you, who are looking.” He shrugs, a simple, self-effacing gesture. “A sanctuary, I suppose. For the senses, for memory.” He looks back at me, his eyes holding mine. “You were looking, weren’t you?”

I can only nod, struck by his perception.

“Come back tomorrow,” he says, rising. It’s not a smooth pick-up line; it’s a statement, an invitation extended with simple sincerity. “I’ll make you my adobo. The way my father taught me. Not the dry kind. The kind that swims in sauce, with the fat rendered slow until it’s tender as a kiss.”

The metaphor, so unexpected and sensual from this quiet man, sends a flush of heat up my neck. “I’d like that,” I manage.

I pay the bill, which is absurdly modest. As I leave, the bell chiming behind me, the humid air feels less oppressive. I carry the taste of tamarind and the warmth of bibingka in my mouth, and the image of Mateo’s calm, watchful eyes in my mind.

---

I do go back the next day. And the day after that.

The second day, he makes me the adobo. It arrives in a small, cast-iron pot, the sauce dark and glossy, a few whole cloves of garlic peeking through, pieces of chicken and pork belly submerged in the rich, salty-sour-vinegar gravy. He sits with me again as I eat.

“The secret is the balance,” he says, watching me take my first bite. The meat falls apart at the touch of my fork. The flavor is deep, complex, tangy and savory all at once, with the faintest sweetness underneath. “Not too sharp, not too salty. It should be… comforting. Like a familiar embrace.”

It is. It tastes like family dinners, like arguments and laughter, like unconditional belonging. “It’s perfect,” I say, and I’m not just talking about the food.

We talk. He tells me about taking over the restaurant when his father passed, about the struggle to keep it afloat. “They put up a coffee shop, all exposed brick and wifi, two doors down,” he says, a wry twist to his mouth. “The landlord’s son talks about ‘curated dining experiences.’ He offered to buy me out. Wants to turn this place into a craft beer taproom.” Mateo shakes his head, his gaze steady on the faded photograph of his grandfather. “This isn’t a concept. It’s a home. So, I stay. The old-timers still come. That’s what matters.”

I tell him about my life in the sleek, air-conditioned nightmare of corporate finance, about the endless cycle of presentations and profit margins, about the hollow feeling that propelled me back here. “I have a view of the skyline, but I never feel like I’m anywhere,” I confess.

“You’re trying to fill a space,” he says quietly, his fingers tracing the wood grain of the table. “Not in your stomach. In here.” He taps his chest, right over his heart.

On the third day, it’s kare-kare, the peanut stew my grandmother loved. He brings out the steaming plate, the ochre sauce studded with tripe, oxtail, and vegetables, accompanied by a small saucer of fermented shrimp paste, bagoong.

“This was her favorite,” he says, a hint of a smile playing on his lips.

I dip a piece of eggplant into the thick, nutty sauce, then dab it in the pungent bagoong. The combination is extraordinary—rich, earthy, funky, umami exploding in layers. It’s bold and unapologetic. It tastes like love that doesn’t need to be pretty, love that is steadfast and true.

“She had good taste,” I say, looking at him over the rim of my water glass.

His eyes hold mine. “She did.”

The chemistry between us is no longer a subtle undercurrent; it’s a palpable hum in the air, like the vibration from the old refrigerator in the corner. It’s in the way his hand brushes mine when he clears a plate, the way my breath catches when he leans close to point out something in one of the photographs—his grandfather standing proudly in front of the same door I entered.

“He looks like you,” I say. We are inches apart. I can smell him—soap, garlic, the clean scent of his cotton shirt.

“Stubborn, you mean?” he murmurs, his gaze dropping to my mouth for a heartbeat before returning to my eyes.

“Dedicated,” I counter.

He laughs, a soft, warm sound. “Same thing, in the end.”

That night, back in my sterile apartment, I couldn’t sleep. The silence was deafening. I missed the ambient noise of Santa Cruz, the scent of his kitchen that seemed to linger on my clothes. More than that, I missed the feeling of being seen, not for my title or my efficiency, but for the ghost of my grandmother in my smile, for the emptiness I was trying to fill. I stared at the ceiling and wondered what it would feel like to be kissed by a man whose hands could coax such profound comfort from simple ingredients.

On the fourth day, I arrive just as he’s closing. The last customer, an elderly man with a cane, is being helped out by Mateo. “Salamat, pare,” the man says, gripping Mateo’s arm. “Buhay ang alaala.” The memory is alive.

“Sige, ingat ka,” Mateo replies gently. Take care.

He locks the door behind the man, the bolt sliding home with a solid, final thunk. The fans are off, and the sudden silence is intimate, charged. The only light comes from the kitchen and the soft glow of the streetlamp filtering through the steamy window.

“I was hoping you’d come,” he says, turning to me. He’s not wearing his kitchen cloth. His arms are bare, and I see a small, faded tattoo on his forearm—a single, elegant carabao.

“What’s on the menu today?” I ask, my voice a little unsteady.

He just looks at me, and the air between us shifts. The easy camaraderie of the past days tightens into something sharper, more potent. His usual calm demeanor is still there, but beneath it, I sense a focused intensity, a decision being made. The look in his eyes isn’t just friendly curiosity anymore; it’s a deep, smoldering appraisal that makes my skin feel too warm. My heart began to drum a frantic rhythm against my ribs. This is it, I thought. A crossroads. I could make an excuse, thank him for the meals, and walk back to my empty life. Or I could step into this unknown, this terrifying, beautiful possibility.

“Something special,” he says finally, his voice lower than usual. “Come.”

He doesn’t lead me to a table. He leads me through the swinging door into the kitchen.

It’s small, incredibly clean but worn, a temple of use. Pots hang from a rack, knives are magnetized to a strip on the wall, and the air is still fragrant from the day’s cooking—a base note of garlic, ginger, and bay leaf.

“Sit,” he says, pointing to a stool in the corner. He moves to the stove, lighting a burner with a soft whoosh. “I’m going to cook for you. Not a recipe from the menu. Something for right now.”

I watch, mesmerized, as he works. He moves with a confident, unhurried rhythm. He takes a fresh pan, pours a swirl of oil. He chops garlic and onions, the knife a rapid, precise percussion against the wood. The sizzle as they hit the oil is the most welcoming sound. He adds thin slices of beef, then a splash of soy and calamansi juice. The scent that rises is simple, elemental, and utterly mouthwatering.

“What is it?” I ask.

“It’s just bistek,” he says, but he says it like a poet naming a sonnet. “But it’s about the moment. The beef is from a farmer I know in Bulacan. The calamansi are from the tree in the back. The soy sauce is the last of a batch my father aged.”

He plates it simply—the glistening beef and onions on a bed of white rice. He brings it to me, along with two forks. He pulls up another stool, sitting close. Our knees touch, a point of contact that sends a jolt through me.

“Try it.”

I take a bite. The beef is tender, the sauce a perfect balance of salty, sour, and savory, brightened by the citrus. It’s not a memory this time. It’s not a ghost of my grandmother’s cooking. It’s vibrant, immediate, and alive. It tastes of now. It tastes of him.

“Oh, Mateo,” I breathe, the flavors blooming on my tongue.

He takes the fork from my hand, his fingers brushing mine, the calloused skin of his fingertips rough and thrilling against my knuckles. He takes a bite himself, his eyes never leaving my face. “Good,” he says, a simple word, but the heat in his gaze tells me he’s not talking about the food.

The air between us crackles, thick with the scent of the meal and something else, something electric. The intimacy of the kitchen, the sharing of the single plate, the way he looked at me—it was a question hanging in the steam. I leaned forward, or perhaps he did. The distance closed.

The kiss wasn’t tentative. It was a culmination. It tasted of soy and calamansi and him—warm, solid, real. His hand came up to cradle my jaw, his thumb stroking my cheek. My hands found his shoulders, the firm muscle beneath his shirt. The kiss deepened, slow and exploratory, a conversation we’d been having for days without words. It was hungry, but not rushed. It tasted like discovery, like a truth finally spoken.

When we broke apart, we were both breathing heavily. He rested his forehead against mine, his eyes closed. “Isabella,” he whispered, a prayer, a promise.

“I know,” I whispered back. I didn’t know what I was saying I knew, but I felt it in my bones.

He stood, took my hand, and led me out of the kitchen, through the empty restaurant, up a narrow, hidden staircase at the back I’d never noticed. It led to his apartment.

It was a small, spartan space—a living room with a few well-read books, a bedroom visible through an open door. The walls were bare except for one large window that looked out over the corrugated tin roofs of the neighborhood, glowing in the twilight. It smelled like him—clean linen, sunshine, and that faint, ever-present hint of good food.

He turned to me, his face bathed in the golden hour light. “Are you sure?” he asked, his voice rough with restraint.

In answer, I reached for him, pulling his mouth back to mine. This kiss was different. It was all the longing of the past days, the emotional intimacy forged over shared meals and memories, now igniting into physical need. His hands slid down my back, pressing me against him. I could feel the hard planes of his body, the steady, rapid beat of his heart against my palm.

We didn’t speak much. Words had become unnecessary. We communicated in touches, in sighs, in the way our bodies sought each other. He undressed me with a reverence that made my knees weak, his calloused hands surprisingly gentle on my skin. I fumbled with the buttons of his shirt, eager to feel him, to map the landscape of him with my palms. When his shirt fell away, I saw the full story of his labor—the strength in his shoulders, the dusting of dark hair across his chest. I pressed my lips to the hollow of his throat and tasted salt and the clean, warm scent of his skin.

The light from the window painted us in stripes of gold and shadow as we found his bed. His skin was warm, the scent of him—soap and salt and man—filled my senses. Every kiss, every caress was slow, deliberate, a savoring. He explored my body like it was a cherished recipe, learning what made me gasp, what made me arch against him. His mouth was hot on my neck, my collarbone, the swell of my breast. When he took a nipple into his mouth, his tongue circling with a slow, torturous precision, a low moan escaped me. The sound seemed to urge him on. His hand slid down my belly, his fingers tracing through the dampness between my thighs, finding a rhythm that had me clutching at the sheets.

“Mateo,” I breathed, my voice foreign to my own ears.

“I have you,” he murmured against my skin, his breath a warm gust on my stomach. “I have you.”

The world outside—the honking jeepneys, the distant shouts of children playing, the city’s endless hum—faded into a distant chorus. There was only this room, this bed, this man who cooked with his soul and kissed like he’d been starving for me. The feel of his body over mine, the weight of him, was an anchor. I ran my hands down the powerful muscles of his back, feeling the shift and play of them as he moved. I kissed the side of his neck, tasting the faint, tangy trace of calamansi from his skin.

When he finally entered me, it was with a sigh that seemed pulled from the very core of him. Our eyes locked. There was no frantic race, only a deep, rolling rhythm, a slow build of pleasure that felt less like taking and more like coming home. He moved with a controlled power, each stroke a deliberate act of connection. I could feel the texture of his palms as they slid beneath me to cradle my hips, the slight abrasion a thrilling contrast to the slick, hot slide of our bodies joining. The tension that had been coiling in me for days, for years, unfurled in a wave of intense, shuddering release that was quiet and profound, a cresting warmth that washed through every limb. He followed me over the edge, his body shuddering against mine, my name a broken whisper against my neck, his own release a hot pulse deep inside me.

---

Later, much later, we lay tangled in his sheets. The city lights had come on, twinkling through the window. I was curled against his side, my head on his chest, listening to the strong, steady thump of his heart. His fingers traced idle patterns on my bare shoulder.

“I have to go back to Makati tomorrow,” I said softly, the words feeling like a betrayal of this perfect, quiet space.

His hand stilled for a moment, then resumed its gentle motion. “I know.”

“I don’t want to.”

He shifted, turning so he could look down at me. In the dim light, his eyes were dark pools of tenderness. “This is your grandmother’s neighborhood. But it’s not your life. Not yet.”

“What if I want it to be?” The question hung in the air, brave and terrifying.

He was quiet for a long moment. “It’s not an easy life, Bella. The hours are long. The money is just enough. That coffee shop next door… it’s just the beginning. This whole block could be condos in five years.” He said it not to dissuade, but as a simple statement of fact. “Your world up there… it’s shiny. This one,” he gestured around the small room, “it’s got cracks in the walls.”

His honesty was a cold splash of reality, but it only clarified my feelings. “My shiny world is empty,” I whispered. “It has no taste. No soul.”

He smiled then, a slow, beautiful smile that reached his eyes. “Then you come back. Kanlungan is here. I am here.” He kissed my forehead. “The adobo will still be simmering.”

I laughed, a wet, happy sound. “That’s your romantic promise? The adobo will be simmering?”

“It’s the best promise I know,” he said, completely serious. “It means I’ll be here. It means the food will be hot. It means there will be a place for you.” He paused, a faint, self-conscious smile touching his lips. “I’m not a man of big speeches, eh? I’m a man of a steady fire and a well-seasoned pot.”

It was the most romantic thing I’d ever heard.

I stayed the night. In the morning, he was already gone downstairs. I dressed and followed the smell of coffee and frying garlic. He was in the kitchen, already prepping for the day. He handed me a cup of strong barako coffee and a plate of sinangag—garlic fried rice—with a perfectly fried sunny-side-up egg on top, the yolk runny and golden.

“Breakfast,” he said, as if last night was the most natural progression in the world. Perhaps for him, it was.

I ate at the same small table by the window. The food was simple, perfect, fortifying. It tasted like a new beginning. When I finished, I went to the kitchen. He was deboning a chicken with swift, precise strokes.

“I’ll be back,” I said.

He looked up, wiped his hands on a cloth, and walked over to me. He didn’t kiss me, not with his hands covered in chicken essence. But he leaned in, his forehead touching mine again, our own private ritual. “I know,” he said, echoing my words from the night before.

I walked out into the bright morning. The sounds and smells of Santa Cruz enveloped me—the sizzle of someone else’s breakfast, the clatter of shop gates opening, the smell of exhaust and flowers and baking bread. For the first time since I arrived in this city, I didn’t feel like a tourist, or a ghost chasing memories.

I carried the taste of him with me—not just the memory of his kiss, or the feel of his work-roughened hands on my skin, but the deeper flavor of his steadiness, his integrity, his soul. Mateo and his food, I realized, were not a sanctuary from the world. They were an invitation into a real one—a world of substance, of history, of heat and feeling. A world that tasted, finally, like my own.

The drive back to Makati felt like crossing a border. The gleaming towers rose like sterile monuments. In my quiet apartment, I opened my laptop. The screen glowed, filled with spreadsheets and timelines. I looked at it for a long time. Then I closed it.

I knew the way back to Makati. But more importantly, for the first time, I knew the way home. It was left at the church with the blue door, until you smelled the panadería. It was a faded green sign that read Kanlungan. It was a man with calm eyes and a steady fire, waiting for me to pull up a chair.