MANILA, Philippines?Last Monday, several text messages told me that Larry Cruz had died.

The first time I heard of Larry?s illness was from my husband Yen. They were good friends from long ago and the last time they had lunch together was at Larry?s newest Abe Restaurant branch at the Trinoma Mall in Quezon City.

It brought back memories of other lunches, some of which took them away from Manila even on working weekdays.

My last lunch with Larry was at his Magalang rest house in Pampanga at the foot of Mt. Arayat. ?Rest house? is an apt name because there he looked relaxed, rejuvenated and excited about the many projects he had lined up for the place. One of them was converting it into a spa. It is now called Nurture Spa at Abe?s Farm.

There were many such lunches in Magalang and, always, the table had Filipino food?steamed shrimps and crabs, pako salad, bringhe, inihaw na baboy. Those were simply cooked but cooked well, presented as colorful dishes. I still have the pictures and they make my mouth water.

Larry, however, did not stop at food quality. He wanted his restaurants to have ambiance and was so successful in creating the mood and character of a place.

It helped that he collected antique furniture, home décor and paintings. His first restaurant, Café Adriatico on Adriatico Street in Malate, Manila, was a repository of his early collection. When he asked me to write the food chapter of the book ?Malate,? which he published, he told me that when the café had opened, chocolate eh (espresso) was served in a Rizal demitasse, a tiny cup with the signature of the national hero.

The interior decorator

He was so good at creating ambiance that I teased him about maybe giving up the restaurant business and becoming an interior decorator instead. He would look at me as if hurt by the suggestion but I knew he took it as a compliment.

He would recount where he acquired the lamps and the grill work around us, looking pleased with himself for getting them at a bargain.

The LJC Restaurant Group runs all of Larry?s restaurants. It seems appropriate to quote a line from a Beatles song to indicate where they are now??some have gone, and some remain.?

Café Adriatico is still there. Abe, named after his father, was opened in TriNoma, and Fely J, named after his mother, was opened at Greenbelt 5 in Makati City before his death.

Bistro Remedios (Pampango food), Café Havana (Miami food and salsa music), and Bollywood (Indian cooking) are all part of the food scene.

Gone but definitely remembered are Bistro Burgos, Ang Hang and Larry?s Bar in Makati; Solana, Jazz Box, Paper Moon disco, Prego, Camp Gourmet and Limelight Theater in Malate; Bistro Lorenzo in Greenhills; and Karihan Karitela on Roxas Boulevard.

And there were restaurants overseas now also gone? Manila in Washington, DC and Café Adriatico in Hong Kong.

There were two instances when we ate in restaurants abroad. They were memorable because he turned the excursions into adventures.

The first time was when, by chance, Larry was on his way to Hong Kong and so was my family. He brought us to a Vietnamese restaurant that he thought we should try. The Golden Bull remains a favorite, never mind that it is not a Chinese restaurant.

The other time was when a Hotel and Restaurant Association group was in Singapore to support the Philippine team participating in a culinary competition.

Our lunch and dinner were directed by Larry, who brought us to his finds?Banana Leaf Apolo for Indian food, Maxwell Market for the Hainanese chicken and an Indonesian restaurant with a name I cannot now recall.

Same ideas

He showed me his list of restaurants recommended by early bloggers on the Internet.

One could sense how the restaurateurs with us, like Larry, Glenda Barretto and Myrna Segismundo, were already thinking of how to incorporate what they were eating into their respective menus. They would look at each other and laugh because they knew what each had been thinking.

On that last lazy afternoon in Magalang, Larry asked about Kulinarya, the project to promote Filipino cuisine in the country and abroad.

He bristled at the thought that the project would ?standardize? Filipino cooking. He did not think that should be done even though I explained that was simply a guide and was not meant to dictate what dishes should be served and how to cook them.

Larry reacted that way because he was one of those who successfully made Filipino food at par with the best cuisine of the world. He used to call it ?Frenchifying? but, looking at the food his restaurants served, he learned from other countries as well.

The important thing is, in his restaurants serving Filipino cooking, we still recognize the food as Filipino no matter that the tilapia has wings. The flavors as we know them are also there.

The best compliment he gave me was to put my name on the menu of Abe. I imagine him having that mock angry look that would turn into a suppressed smile when I tell him that it must have been a reward for something I promised not to do in my early days of food writing. He asked me then not to give him the title ?Bistro King.?

E-mail the author at pinoyfood04@yahoo.com.