Since the start of the year, I’ve been a kitchen mainstay. I’ve made all sorts of pasta dishes—meatballs, Bolognese, prawns in cream sauce, anchovies and mozzarella—in addition to beef burgers, spicy prawns, honey-glazed chicken wings, and other ulam, cooking them according to my taste and not to a prescribed recipe (partly because I have a strong opinion about how I want my food to taste, but mostly because my pantry’s usually one or two ingredients short of the established recipe). I’m quite proud of the results, so much so that I often crave my own creations.

The one dish, however, that I’d love to be able to cook is callos. Last Christmas, I had one of the best callos I’ve ever tasted, prepared by my mom’s friend. My dad, who is a great cook, loved it. I equally adore the version made by Sonya Garcia (owner of Sonya's Garden), which was inspired by a recipe of her mom’s that Sonya improved on and, I must say, perfected. Also impressive is the version of my friend Binky’s mom, which she brought to the office one afternoon for me to try.

Callos is not the sort of dish you can improvise on to start so I scoured the web for a recipe and found two that were interesting—one by Market Man and another by Pinoy Cook. I shared them with my dad who tested them in the kitchen one weekend. Preparing it took all his commitment. The tripe and pata had to putter softly over the stove for hours until they were meltingly divine. But the result was worth it. The callos came out superb. My dad was so proud of it that now he lives in constant anticipation of family gatherings where he can showcase (show off) his new “specialty.”

Just recently, I read a review of Angel’s Kitchen on Spot.ph. The five star user rating piqued my interest, and since its location in Connecticut St. Greenhills was quite near where I live, I decided to drop by and take out dinner that I can enjoy while watching Silk on DVD. The mandarin chicken and the dory dish were recommended but I was distracted by the callos. I just had to order it. It was a great choice, very flavorful and tender, although I felt it would be even better after a night on the fridge and a slow simmer the following morning. If only I had leftovers.

Maybe one of these days I’ll get over my intimidation of cooking callos and prepare it myself. Maybe then I’d also be able to cook kare-kare, another dish that I’m just too scared to whip up. For now, I’ll have to settle for the restaurant variety, and that’s not bad at all.