Anaward-winningmeal
FOR FIRST time entrants to what is called the “most prestigious culinary competition in the Philippines,” Waterfront Manila Pavilion Hotel has done really well, taking home a couple of awards — two bronzes and a silver.
The Dream Team was composed of chefs Giovanni Sias, Brando Clasara, Fernando Lopez, and Willar Esustacio; the Filipino Cuisine chefs are Ariel Otida, Ilan Butcher and Junnifer Pantoni; and the pasta chef was Gilford Yutuc.
Manila Pavilion is justly proud of this achievement and invited the press over for lunch featuring the winning dishes — and it was a very good lunch indeed.
The first dish was the appetizer which competed in the Dream Team competition where they won a bronze award. The dish was composed of a crispy crepe with foie gras foam, a foie gras semifreddo with port wine reduction jelly, and a stuffed baby squid and truffle beets cream.
The dish was meant to be “complicated yet [with a] clean and elegant flavor,” according to Giovanni Sias, the hotel group’s corporate executive chef during the lunch held on Aug. 17.
The appetizer trio was meant to be eaten in this order: crispy crepe first, followed by the
semifreddo, and then the squid because the squid was meant to cleanse the palate said Mr. Sias.
The crispy crepe was as crispy as it promised but the best part was how the flavor of the foie gras foam exploded in one’s mouth. The next foie gras dish was topped by the port wine reduction jelly (port is said to go very well with foie gras) and while the jelly was a bit too sweet for my taste it was salvaged by the cold foie gras. What was for me the highlight of the whole plate was the squid: it really did cleanse one’s palate as the acidity of the truffle beets cut through the umami of the foie gras and the baby squid was cooked perfectly tender.
Next came a pasta dish which won silver. It’s a casarecce pasta dish (where the pasta is free form yet resembles a long, thin macaroni) with octopus ragu and bone marrow. It visually resembles squid ink pasta dishes because the octopus ink wasn’t removed (that’s where the tasty goodness is at), and while the pasta looks heavy with all the trimmings (it certainly did not skimp on the tender baby octopus pieces), it was unbelievably light on the tongue as the tomato base for the sauce still takes center stage while the ragu and bone marrow were subtle. It’s a very good, if not intimidating pasta dish.
The pasta was immediately followed by the Dream Team’s main course which, looking at the menu, looks overwhelming: Confit pork belly, caramelized pear, whipped potato, red cabbage cream, truffle pumpkin cream, butter cranberry, balsamic vinegar, cipollini onion and thyme
jus. One could ignore everything else on this dish and just focus on all the pork belly goodness whose rich and salty taste is cut by the thyme jus. The other items are there for decoration, especially the caramelized pear which was too sweet for me that I only managed to take one bite. Oh, but the truffle pumpkin cream was really good, I paired it with the whipped potato.
And if you think we were finished — no. Right after all that, we were served the Filipino Cuisine menu which won another bronze award. Like the main course, it looks like a hefty mouthful: sinuglaw ( grilled pork belly and fish ceviche), pork humba with caramelized pineapple (a stewed pork dish with brown sugar, salted black beans, and banana blossoms), fried rice Kalkag (fried rice with shrimp paste, sometimes with crab fat), and vegetable karekare (peanut stew). Surprisingly, the vegetable
kare- kare was presented like a lumpia ( spring roll) as cabbage leaves were used to wrap the vegetables together, with the served sauce on the side. It’s nothing fancy but it’s cooked right and tastes right. The sinuglaw, especially for someone who like kinilaw/
kilawin (fish ceviche) is heavensent. It has the acidity of the vinegar and calamansi (a local lime) so it’s very sour and so very good. I could honestly eat a plateful of it. Award-winning, S2/ 10
It was followed by the humba (this dish probably has Chinese roots because it tastes almost like pork hong ba or braised pork belly in soy sauce) which used pineapple juice as the souring and sweetening agent. The juice lent a mild sweetness which cut the sourness. The banana blossoms were made into fritters for texture.
Being a Filipino menu, a meat dish — or any kind of viand for that matter — must be paired with rice; it’s the way of things. So I immediately reached for a big spoonful of the Kalkag rice and paired it with the humba and the result was perfection. The rice was salty, umami, and bad for your cholesterol levels but it was so delicious that sin must be forgiven. The pairing completed the salty, sweet, and sour mix which practically embodies Filipino cuisine.
Unfortunately, this writer wasn’t able to stay for dessert due to another appointment. What I missed which was another Dream Team concoction: Glazed espresso chocolate mousse, saffron mascarpone mousse, green tea cream, Nutella and meringue. If the previous items were any indication, it was bound to be pretty good.
Currently, there are no plans to make the winning dishes part of the hotel group’s menu though the confit pork belly is something Mr. Sias would want to be included in their buff et menu and it certainly deserves that place. —