A Carmelo’s Christmas

From turkey, to roast beef, to cheesecake

CRISTINA SANTIAGO, daughter of Melo’s founder Carmelo Santiago, recalled fond holiday memories with her father during a tasting at her Proscenium restaurant in Rockwell on Nov. 12. “We normally meet at 10 p.m., and we eat nonstop,” she said.

The spread on the holiday table of the Santiago family — whose patriarch popularized Angus beef in the country (thus changing the restaurant scene) with his restaurant Melo’s in 1987 — included roast beef, turkey, ham, ensaymadas, empanadas, paella, pasta for the kids, and Ms. Santiago’s cheesecake. “The cheesecake was his favorite,” she said of her father.

Some of the items from these holiday tables are making it to the restaurant’s menu, and also on those for catering and take-out.

The tasting on Nov. 12 started with Mushroom Vol Au Vents encased in flaky puff pastry. Roast Beef came out next, with a recipe almost 40 years old and made with secret ingredients passed down through the family. It was butter-tender and needed little prodding with a knife and fork, and was served with a beef jus. While a personal favorite of Ms. Santiago, she told us that she doesn’t really like steak, despite being a daughter of the steak guy. “I can taste a good steak and a bad steak. It’s just that I get full,” she confessed.

The turkey came out with some spectacle: the bird was sourced from the US (for those celebrating: American Thanksgiving falls today, on Nov. 28), and came out to be carved all brown and shiny like on greeting cards. It was surprisingly moist — roast turkey is often accompanied by the complaint of dryness. It was served with a bread stuffing, gravy, and cranberry sauce — and all this accompanied by their family’s paella, and more than a few versions of her eggnog (called the Nutcracker, it’s the spiced egg cocktail but flavored with nuts).

Ms. Santiago’s secret for keeping the turkey moist is, “Slow-cooking lang talaga (just slow-cooking really),” and the same could be said for the roast beef, which to her memory is cooked slowly for 10 hours. “I’m confident with my chefs. It’s very juicy.”

The meal ended with her L’Amour Cheesecake, creamy and so delicate it was almost a semi-solid.

Uniformly, the meal was hearty and comforting, and quite hefty and heavy.

The dishes are not (yet) available for plate service: when you order either the roast turkey or the roast beef, it will always be for 10 to 15 persons. If it’s to be taken to a party, the roast beef comes in a nice little crate, with a tray, all-covered up with foil. “They end up ordering more to give away,” said Ms. Santiago of customers.

There’s one thing missing from her holiday spread, which she will be attempting next year: her father’s Chinese Ham with Honey Sauce. “It’s my dad who ma(de) it. That’s the thing I’m going to try to do next year.”

Ms. Santiago is also releasing a line of Holiday Hampers, which include the signature Carmelo’s Paté, her dessert line Sweet Bella’s Hot Chocolat, as well as a box of her Queso de Bola Ensaymada and Cheese Roll. For more chocolate-y pastry options, there’s the Nutella Croissant and Pain Au Chocolat.

For inquiries, contact 0915-903-8005 or @carmelossteakhouse on Instagram. — Joseph L. Garcia