Ken’s Yellow Fin

By Al S. Mendoza

DAVAO CITY–I am still here, covering the PAL Interclub Golf and savoring the durian shake most of the time at the Yellow Fin, that restaurant along Quimpo Blvd. where the city’s best seafood menu is found.

Of course, the pride and joy of Yellow Fin is – what else but yellow fin.

The yellow fin is the restaurant’s flagship. It’s cooked four times.

First, it’s boiled in water with just a sprinkling of salt in it. Cleaned, boiled again, this time with condiments. Then it gets done, adobo-style; gets tossed next to the freezer.

When a customer wants it, it goes deep-fried.

“Customers have never stopped ordering it,” said Ken Angeles, the amiable, super-friendly owner of Yellow Fin. “It’s the all-time best-seller.”

From Monday to Saturday, Yellow Fin is packed to the rafters.

The average sale daily of the yellow fin tail is 52 orders.

“Sometimes, it breaches the 100-order mark,” said Ken, whose passion for food is matched only by his passion for the big bike.

Ken, who also owns the 25-room Viajeros Inn here, rides his Honda 1,500 cc from here to Laoag at least once a year in the company of his fellow big bike aficionados.

He also plays golf, maintaining a 14-handicap despite his being in the early sixties already.

“I started golf at a young age, switched to tennis, but now I am back to golf,” he said.

But he retraced his love affair with golf only after suffering his third spill playing tennis.

“Ken, you are doing it the wrong way,” said Ken, quoting his doctor. “Tennis is only for the young. But golf is both for the young and old. At your age, go back to golf.”

He heeded his doctor, and he said he’s never had it so good.

“I play golf everyday now the last three years,” he said. “I usually play 9 holes, teeing off at 6 a.m. I’ve never felt so good in my life.”

Since Ken also owns the famous “After Dark,” the favorite haunt of Ate Glue whenever she’s here, Ken used to hit the sack at 12 midnight.

“After Dark” is the favorite restaurant cum piano bar of the city mayor, Rudy “Dirty Harry” Duterte. Every time he goes there – and that’s almost every night – the good mayor will not call it a night until after he has sang, “MacArthur’s Park.”

“But I left ‘After Dark’ a while back when the bones and muscles have started complaining,” said Ken. “It’s now the mayor’s brother who operates “After Dark.”

Aside from the yellow fin adobo, other dishes at Yellow Fin are equally delicious – crispy pata, grilled imbao, bagaybay, Ken’s fried chicken, broiled tuna belly, pork spare ribs, sinigang or paksiw na panga, and many more.

Almost always, every travel is made memorable by the food the place offers. And, most of the time, the search, the conquest, for a good place to eat in a foreign land has become more than a challenge.

In fact, it is an art.

And Ken’s Yellow Fin is a canvas of masterpiece cuisine.

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