■ BISTRO GASTRONOMY AT MOVENPICK
French favorites shared the spotlight with new offerings in resort’s Bistronomie promo.
French food might immediately come off as daunting, what with all the unfamiliar words and phonemes the language presents when trying to place an order in a French restaurant. Lucky for Mövenpick Hotel and Resort, none had to perfect French pronunciation to enjoy the hotel brand’s worldwide Bistronomie food promotion. This “bistro gastronomy” highlighted French cuisine in a more relaxed setting and was offered to Mövenpick guests worldwide for a limited time.
At the Bistronomie preview in the hotel brand’s Mactan resort, there was no host more apt for the occasion than French general manager Harold Rainfroy. He was happy to take us from a starter of rillettes de canard (duck rillettes) to a dessert of rich chocolate gateau made with 72 percent Mövenpick Swiss cocoa. In between, he showed us how French cuisine is not really worlds apart from what we know. There were several seafood dishes, such as oysters, shrimp and scallops served over ice in a seafood platter; cod fillet; and mussels simmered with garlic, thyme, wine and fresh butter. The hotel provided heavy silver mussel clips specially designed just to pull mussel meat from its shell. Who knew we needed one of those?
The Bistronomie menu also included French favorites such as cordon bleu au comte (veal rump steak) and a fresh, flavorful Nicoise salad. The pot-au-feu a la bourgeoisie (beef topside hot pot) definitely reminded us of nilagang baka with its broth of vegetables and marrowbone. See? Not so daunting, after all.