Alagao leaves & Suman Itim of Crescent Moon Cafe
I’ve never eaten leaves straight from a tree before. There’s kamote tops or talbos, let alone lettuce, kang kong, spinach, and other leafy vegetables. But eating leaves from a 9-foot tree?
Crescent Moon Cafe in Antipolo serves Alagao leaves in a way that is inspired by the Thai dish Miang Kham. The leaves are served in the center, surrounded by different ingredients you can choose to stuff your leaves with. It may look simple, but the burst of textures and flavors in your mouth are not.
Ingredients include chopped basil, dried coconut, chili, ginger, chopped green mango, diced onion, and dried shrimp. The thing that binds it all together for me is their sweet and savory peanut sauce with chunks of peanuts.
The leaves and tree of the Alagao
The leaves themselves are soft and have a slight minty citrus flavor to them. That’s because they are indeed in the same family as mints, Lamiaceae. Alagao, or Premna odorata, are native to the Philippines, India, Sri Lanka, China, Australia, Indonesia, and Malaysia. They can grow up to 25 feet or 8 meters, and indeed some of the trees on the cafe premises were getting there. The dish itself is made from young leaves of the Alagao trees.
Alagao is the Tagalog word for the tree. Among the Augusan Manobo, it is called Abgaw, and is used for colds and nasal congestion. They recommend water infused with Abgaw leaves once or twice a day for 3 days or as needed. In Maranao it is called Karimog according to Rogier Kok here, but when I looked up Marano words for plant names, it is referred to here as Regao, so not sure which is which. According to Wikipedia the island of Siargao is named after the local name for the tree, siargaw or saliargaw.
Suman Itim
The cafe is in Antipolo City, which sits on the foothills of the Sierra Madre mountain range. The city is also known for its suman, so it wasn’t surprising to find it served here too. What was surprising was that it was made with a delicious sticky black mountain rice, giving the suman a rich dark appearance. This is their Suman Itim.
It was also topped with coconut creme and cashews, the latter another popular product of Antipolo. Both toppings bring their Suman Itim all together.
Eating on pieces of art
It turns out the cafe is also home to ceramics made by Lanelle Abueva-Fernando. Her studio is right beside the restaurant, which depending on the current lockdown restrictions, is open for workshops from time to time. Much of the food is served on her works, which Lanelle had been making since 1981.
Though we couldn’t get the chance to talk to her, we enjoyed her ceramics shop which was also a bit of an exhibit inside the cafe. She had these realistic ceramic donuts as well, which got us hungry for dessert again.
Visit Crescent Moon Cafe
You can find the cafe at Sapang Buho Rd. Brgy. Dalig, Antipolo City. Visit their Facebook page for the latest updates regarding protocols and workshop schedules.
