When a good meal hits the spot, it’s like hitting the jackpot. That, exactly, is the feeling you get when you indulge in the delicious offerings of Real Girl Toy Kitchen (RGTK), a brainchild of former banker Johanna Garcia.
By Büm D. Tenorio Jr.
Photography by Jar Concengco
Agood meal provides comfort to a soul yearning to break free. It gives, not only nourishment to the body, but also joy to the spirit.
From the looks of it alone, the spread Johanna prepared can bring more than a dash of joy to anyone’s Yuletide feast. The recipes seem simple, unpretentious. But come the first bite, one would know that every dish is a masterpiece.
For example, the 48-hour Angus Belly of RGTK is a roast to toast about. Moist and tender on the inside and crisped a little on top, the main course is joy and sin in every slab — lip-smacking in its juiciness. Even the soft crackling sound it makes when you cut it down to serving portions adds to the overall appeal of the dish.
Keeping Johanna’s prized entrée company is an equally delightful potato puree. It is mashed to perfection, creamy and filling. Together with the roast, it makes for a jackpot combination.
And then, there’s the Creamed Spinach. You taste it and you savor its natural goodness as you imagine milk, heavy cream, cream cheese, Parmesan and fresh spinach performing a symphony in a skillet. Hints of pepper and cayenne are present, too. As well as hints of heaven.
Even the Caesar salad, made from scratch, mind you, holds its own against a spread of otherwise more indulgent dishes. Tangy and flavored just right, the salad shows this kitchen diva’s attention to detail. Johanna meticulously ensures that each leaf is glossed with just the right amount of dressing, which in the end, results in a balanced dish. (You should see how Johanna tosses her Caesar salad — it’s art in itself.)
Johanna’s angels must also have sprinkled some potion on her chocolate ice cream that tastes oh-so divine. It is a sweet, exquisite ending to a jackpot meal, concocted by Johanna herself in her kitchen. Made from premium ingredients, RGTK offers these sumptuous pints in green tea, coffee and vanilla—all of which come with the kind of creaminess and flavor that only freshly made ice cream can deliver.
What’s more, there’s no such thing as instant or ready-made in Johanna’s kitchen. Everything is made from scratch, with the handiwork managed deftly by Johanna and her kitchen assistant.
The real deal
Real Girl Toy Kitchen, says Johanna, is a purveyor of real food. Stews are slowly cooked, the way traditional stews are made. Sauces, dips and spreads, while familiar to the palate, promise to wake the foodie in you with each sampling. Soups and salads are comfort food.
“I named it Real Girl Toy Kitchen because if you saw my old kitchen in BGC, it really looked like a Barbie house. It was so small. Real Girl Toy Kitchen was originally the name of a blog where I started to document the meals I made in my tiny, tiny kitchen,” Johanna says, laughing, flipping her curly locks.
Johanna started RGTK in 2013, the year she left her job at HSBC in Makati City. Business has been good through the years but it has become better during the lockdown that ensued during the pandemic, when people became all the more hooked to her kitchen offerings.
To good food she was born, what with her mother and grandmother performing magic in the kitchen with their scrumptious creations. But it was only when she studied and eventually worked in New York that she learned to cook.
“When I went to New York, I had to feed myself because the choices were either all fast food or fine dining. With that, you’d either get sick or go broke,” she says. (She took up Media Studies at Fordham University and then worked for a PR firm. She was in New York from 1993 to 2002. Right after 9/11, she left the Big Apple and settled in Manila.)
Her first trip to the kitchen happened in her pad in New York, which she shared with her best friend. It was memorable, to say the least.
“The very first time I actually made something (in the kitchen) was when I was living with my best friend in New York. I borrowed her red cookbook. She said, ‘I love chicken fettuccini. There’s a recipe. Can you make it?’ I made it and then we had a double date. I was excited because there were two guys coming over for dinner, then we would go out dancing. Even then, I already loved watching cooking shows,” she recalls.
“Months later after that double date, my best friend told me: ‘As soon as you left the dining table to get dressed, your date threw his dinner in the garbage, saying ‘I can’t eat this’!”
Johanna took no offense. That failed chicken fettuccini would be her source of inspiration to better herself, to better her craft, and eventually, to find the magic dust that she would sprinkle in her kitchen.
“I had plenty of disasters before I actually started getting things right. And this is why I always encourage people to cook and tell them, ‘So what if you make a mistake? It’s not that big a deal. You’re not killing anybody’.”
The first ever dish she served at Red Girl Toy Kitchen was her own recipe of Chili con Carne. It was a hit that gave birth to her other kitchen creations like vacuum Porchetta, kesong puti or burrata pizza, tempura, lasagna Bolognese, sous vide Angus boneless rib-eye, Maryland-style crab cakes, lemon tart, even bottled Adrenal Recovery Soup, made with organic vegetables, chicken bone broth, healing spices and Himalayan salt.
Save for her exposure to the kitchen goddesses of her youth, and her indomitable spirit to whip up sweet and savory enchantments in the kitchen, Johanna did not have any experience going to a culinary school.
“I didn’t go to a professional culinary school, but I always like to take short courses every time I travel. That was my idea of a vacation. Even now during the pandemic, I take Zoom cooking classes, like the one offered by Dusit for Thai and Indian dishes. I really enjoy them,” she says.
Johanna admits she’s happiest when she’s cooking.
“I feel most creative when I’m in the kitchen. When I’m working on a new recipe and making it mine, I feel like a very creative person because I’m making something. I like the feeling of nourishing people, the feeling of making people happy with what I cook. I’m on cloud nine when someone sends me a message that my food makes him or her happy. Food is my language of love. It’s my way of bringing happiness when somebody is sad or has lost a loved one,” she says.
Does Johanna have a special prayer before or after she cooks?
“I call on the kitchen gods,” she smiles. “I call on my kitchen angels when I’m finished cooking. I’m one of those new-age, alternative chicks so I download (recipes of) food with a lot of love and with a lot of whatever!”
For inquiries, call or text Johanna Garcia at 0917-8085302 or visit www.realgirltoykitchen.com. Realgirltoykitchen is on also Instagram and Facebook.
