Napa Valley's Carabao: a taste of Filipino cuisine

Cook at just seven years old in the Philippines, so working in one of the world's most celebrated kitchens. Chef J. Caraballo has come a long way, and now she's bringing the bold flavors and traditions of her homeland to Napa Valley with Caraballo, a restaurant rooted in family, culture, and a passion for Filipino cuisine. Joining us here in studio here, J. Caraballo, owner and chef of Caraballo, and Eric Gonzalez, co-owner of that restaurant. Thank you both for joining us today. And as we get started, we see this here. We say the name Caraballo. What does that mean? What does it have to do with this? So that's a Caraballo. It's a national animal of the Philippines, and that represents us in Napa. Yes, and that's the name of your restaurant. So I just wanted to point that out and why that's sitting there. All right, so you trained at a place, a little place called the French Laundry. No big deal, whatever. And, you know, we were talking to Eric a moment ago because you were making this dish here. We watched you. This didn't look like this a minute ago before we went to sell in a traffic center. What is this dish called? So that one is a deviled adobo egg. And what is all of the parts that are a part of it? So that is a hard-boiled egg that's marinated in adobo, which is a mixture of soy sauce and vinegar. And then marinated overnight until it gets that color, gets that saltiness and vinegar flavor. And then top it with some egg mousse. And then pickled onion, crispy garlic, and some herbs from the garden. I should also say this tool here, I mean, she made this with precision. This is an actual cooking tool, even though you probably don't have something like this in your kitchen, but she's using it to make it look beautiful the way it is right now. Eric, we were just talking a moment ago about when you have someone like Jade who's trained in The French Laundry, the co-owner of the restaurant, and you were talking about how incredible it is to see the precision to which she crafts her food. Can you tell us a little bit more about it? Yeah, no, it's amazing. I mean, being Filipino can be more proud of what Chef Jade has done to our cuisine, our culture, and just elevating everything. But when you take her her background, her Michelin star training, and then you apply it to our food. I mean, we've always had incredible food, but she just made it beautiful. She just made it like she just made it beautiful. Yeah, there we go. Pam said a moment ago we were showing some video during a tease and she's like, well, it just looks amazing when you look at it. But Chef Jade, I was looking at you, the precision to which you crafted this here. Tell me a little bit about that and how, first of all, is that common for you to craft food in this way for Filipino food? Or is it something that you decided to add your touch on as you're creating this, as you develop your own style of cooking? So growing up, I always eat and cook like home-style cook, cook like food. And then my mom would always go get my auntie. And then when I go in college, I move here in Napa after graduation. And then I learned the culinary procedures and stuff like that. Then I learned how to, like, mix it with Filipino food. Then when I work in a fine dining, that's where I kind of, like, get my attention to details. And then every time I cook now, I make it look pretty. Yeah. It's good. Yeah, so this is one of the dishes you have here. What else do you have on this table here that you're going to show us today? For now, it's a double egg, but I can, like, do, like, to show you how you can make it at home. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, give us a shout-out as we continue to talk. first of all chef i wanted to talk to you you started cooking at a very young age didn't you back in the philippines yeah and so that's where your love of it came from yep because uh my parents is OFW so they're working outside of the philippines like a overseas filipino worker so i leave on myself with my sibling so i gotta like got that take care of them yep and that's where you developed your cooking skills and then you came to uh i guess school in in yeah i went to the yeah i went to the philippines for college then i got my uh internship in cincinnati for like four months. That's like my first introduction to the American cuisine. I'm like 16 years old. Wow. 16, you? Wow, incredible. And then I came back to the Philippines. You're like a prodigy. She's only 28, by the way. Oh, wow. That's incredible. Yeah, because I came back to the Philippines to finish my college. And after that, I got an internship again to the U.S. So I came back. And then that's where my journey started. Yeah, started there. All right, well, you can go ahead and make it. I'll talk a little bit, Eric, about Carabao real quick. Tell us a little bit about the restaurant. You know, we were talking about the food a moment ago, but tell us why this is kind of a first of its kind in the Napa Valley area. First ever. Yeah, tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, just being born and raised in Vallejo, being in the Napa area for over 30 years. My wife and I kind of manifested this about 20 years ago and said, Napa needs a great Filipino restaurant. And it wasn't until a diversity scholarship that was launched at a local high school, Justin Siena. We were doing Filipino fundraisers called Ka'in Na, which means let's eat. Actually, Ka'in Napa Valley. and a friend said, Eric, you got to check out this incredible chef that just left the French Laundry. She's doing these pop-ups. My wife and I went to 15 pop-ups, fell in love with the cooking. What's the goal? Let's open up the first Filipino restaurant in Napa. How long have you guys been open now? It's been a year and four months. And what has been the reception of a restaurant like this in Napa? So first off, it's a big blue ocean, right, of just food diversity that's going on in Napa because there's some incredible restaurants. But, you know, our goal was to just share it with everyone. But what surprises us is the Filipino community, the first two months we served 4,500, turned away over 5,000. And we're a small restaurant. You've got to be kidding me. That's incredible. 99% Filipino. Wow. Flying in from New York, from Florida, from everywhere. So this is turning into something really big. It was special. One accolade last year was a chronicle already named this is one of wine country's top 25 restaurants. We were just on the Emmy award-winning show Check, Please just a couple of months ago. Yes, yeah. And just continue to count blessings. Chef Jade, tell us a little bit about, as you hear Eric talk about the story of how this restaurant has really made an imprint here. How does that make you feel? How does it make you feel that people are coming to eat your food? I was very happy and shy. Yeah. I'm always, because I always work at the back of the house of the restaurant, so I'm not used to, like, facing the guests. So I'm more into, like, looking at the food all day. And then when we open the restaurant, I have sometimes the guests requesting me to go to the table. and when they tell me that they're very proud of what we're doing so I always give my appreciation to them like thank you so much and we can't do this without you all. We're wrapping up here so go ahead and finish up what you're doing here and Eric we'll talk a little bit more about the restaurant. Where are you all located in Napa Valley? So we're in South Napa on Gasser Drive right across the street from Napa Valley College we did it strategically because we wanted it to be accessible So you're going in and out of the Yeah, exactly. You don't need to go 20 miles up the valley. Gotcha. But most importantly, the thinking was, where are all the Filipinos at? Yeah. And they're in Vallejo, where I grew up, American Canyon, the Bay Area. What about folks branching out, reaching people who are not Filipino to try this food? How's that been? And what has the reaction been from them? It's been incredible and a good representation of that and just blown away. We just broke 2,000 Google reviews, 4.9 in over a year. Wow. And there's some incredible restaurants in the Valley that have just thousands, and we're already up there. So remind me the name of this particular dish again. It's a double egg. What are other items on the menu that you're proud of, Chef? So we have a lot of classic Filipino dishes, especially like kinilaw, a double egg, and then some of the fusion dishes that kind of like relate some. The people live in Napa, we have a ceviche taco. I saw the look on your face. Eric's like, oh. I have a different kind of like representation about classic dishes like curry curry, a bisitak, some sizzling sisig and stuff like that. Okay. Well, thank you all so much for joining us today. Can I try one of these before we go to break here? As we go to break, I'm going to try one of these. Is that what we'll have? It is as delicious as it looks. Eric Gonzales. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for coming. You guys got to try this place. This is awesome. That's how it gets started right there. And then it starts to look like this beautiful thing. uh thank you so much for joining us today we appreciate it thank you so much you can take a quick break and be back right after this here on Morning Zone Two