LUCENA CITY ? Judith Serrano-Reyes was not able to fulfill her dream of becoming an architect when she dropped the course at the Adamson University several decades ago. But she now pioneers the trend of revolutionizing the popular ?pancit chami? here by introducing a foreign version of it to local taste buds.

?I want to contribute to the growth and development of our own chami to encourage city folk to also try and experiment with other variations and taste. Others would find my noodle dish exotic and totally strange to the local palate but that?s the challenge and excitement of it,? says Serrano-Reyes, three-time winner of the annual ?Chami Food Contest? here as part of the Maytime ?Pasayahan sa Lucena? festival.

Chami is a flour-based noodle, a little wider in strip than the regular one, sautéed in various variations with nourishing mix-up of chopped cabbage, liberal dose of pork or chicken liver, chicharon, particles of meat, boiled quail eggs and slice onions as toppings.

It is believed that Macao cooks introduced the chami noodle locally, when most of the ethnic Chinese manned the kitchen of Lucena?s restaurants several generations back.

Serrano-Reyes notes how local chami fans often show lack of appetite when served with nonconventional taste of the pancit.

?If the chami taste and look are strange, most often Lucenahins would not try it. Our taste when it comes to the chami that we know is very stereotyped. We always want it to be sautéed with soy sauce and sprinkled with meats. Our palate is not that adventurous when it comes to local noodle dish,? she observes.

?But in most classy restaurants in Manila and abroad, the culinary trend is continuous food evolution, especially among noodle dishes,? Serrano-Reyes says.

Though she admits that she also used to share the same conventional palate when it comes to chami, which was one of the specialties of the City Rendezvous, the family-owned restaurant in Lucena?s downtown area that was popular during the early ?60s until it closed shop in the late ?70s.

?But I never milled around in the kitchen of the restaurant. I was still a teenager back then. I had no interest in cooking, not until I got married in 1991. I had to learn the basic because I was then living with my in-laws,? Serrano-Reyes recalls with a laugh.

She entertained the idea of tinkering with the traditional menu of the local noodle during her Singapore vacations in 2006 and 2007, after her friend introduced her to different menus of rice noodle, a popular dish among hawkers in the Lion City.

Immediately when she returned home, she whipped up her local version of ?Phad Thai,? a stir-fried rice noodle dish with shrimp, fish sauce, chicken, chili pepper and bean sprout, and garnished with crushed peanuts. The noodle recipe is one of Thailand?s national dishes.

?I used local noodle, shrimp and bean sprout because these are always available in the market and also to minimize the cost,? Serrano-Reyes says. Her dish became an instant hit among friends and family circle.

Wanting to introduce to the public her experiment of the local noodle, Serrano-Reyes joined the 2008 Chami Food Contest and submitted her ?Phad Thai? version.

The contest requires participants to use the locally made noodle.

She renamed the dish ?Phad Luchina? after the festival theme, Luchina, in recognition of the influence of the local Chinese community to the culture and progress of Lucena, the provincial capital of Quezon province.

Her creation won third prize.

Emboldened by her initial triumph, Serrano-Reyes again joined the same noodle-cooking contest in the following year and submitted her version of ?Laksa,? a saucy and spicy noodle dish popular in Malaysia and Singapore characterized by lots of condiments ? meat, fowl or sea foods.

The sauce concocted from a mixture of tamarind paste, coconut milk, ginger and chili and broth is poured into a bowl of noodle cooked al dente and topped with assorted garnishing.

She baptized her innovation of the local noodle dish as ?Laksa-Rap.?

Impressed by her culinary creativity, the judges granted her the grand prize trophy and P8,000 cash.

Last May, Serrano-Reyes again joined the same contest considered as the Mecca of local noodle chefs.

She submitted another nonconventional noodle recipe ? chami spring roll (lumpia), a mixture of sauteed noodle, crab meat, shrimp and squid in special wrapper.

The dip is a mixture of finely chopped garlic, garlic chili sauce, lime juice, sugar and fish sauce. Her piece won third prize.

?My victory was a testament that Lucena is now also becoming receptive to foreign version of our chami,? Serrano-Reyes says.

The spicy taste of her noodle is not a total stranger to locals.

Some restaurants have long introduced the ?tamis-anghang? version of the chami ? a mouth-watering harmony of noodles, soy sauce, sugar and siling labuyo.

Serrano-Reyes always buys her noodle from a factory owned by a local Chinese family and with an outlet at the city public market.

?Rice noodle is expensive. But our local noodle is incomparable. I always bring packs of it in Manila and even send it to my friends abroad,? she says.

Several restaurant operators in the city are also one in saying that the noodle factory provides the best noodle for any kind of pancit, especially chami.

Serrano-Reyes? newfound identity as an award-winning noodle chef has opened a door of opportunities for her.

?My friends and family circle endorse my menu. Through word of mouth, I?ve found a new job after my stint as a former Makati City hall employee,? she says.

Aside from cooking her special noodle concoctions, she also offers various meat and sea food dishes to her growing customers.

?Most of them are curious about the taste my foreign noodle concoctions and they keep on calling back to order for more. Maybe because of the unique exotic taste and the affordable price,? she says.

Her foreign chami concoction, according to Serrano-Reyes, is most sought during family reunions and yuletide parties.

?The chami taste bud of Lucenahin is now getting adventurous and I?m happy with the trend,? she says with a smile.

So famous is the noodle dish among city folk that cooking it has become the main source of livelihood for several local cooks and entrepreneurs.

In almost every barangay in the poblacion, one could easily find a makeshift panciteria, licensed or underground, that offers a variety of noodles with chami as the principal menu.

The competition among city?s chami cooks is stiff as one has to offer a creative concoction of the noodle dish to maintain regular customers.

The basic selection includes white chami, sweetened chami, balibag sa toyo, chami with sauce and tostadong chami, among many other mixtures.

(Judith Serrano-Reyes can be reached through her mobile phone 0919-4461537 and e-mail address: 64.judith@gmail.com)