Modern global cuisine at Vask

The Vask Gallery presented “Modern Global Cuisine, Infinite Possibilities,” a culinary master class with Michelin-Starred chef Oscar Calleja from the celebrated Spanish restaurant Annua, in tandem with his former colleague and friend, Vask’s own chef Luis Gonzalez.

The place was packed as the two chefs showed us how they prepared some of their favorite food. Chef Oscar showed us how to make “watermelon tuna,” basically watermelon slices transforms to some tuna-like texture by simple osmosis (believe me, it was really simple!) and with proper flavors implemented, one can have “tuna sushi” using watermelons! Meanwhile, chef Luis showed us how some of Vask’s bestsellers were made, including tuna cheeks (which were kind of made to taste like beef cheeks!), foie lollipop, mussel with nori shell, parmesan stick, taho, and my favorite dessert in Vask, which is palm crisp or crispy coconut ice cream!

The recipes were pretty simple, it was the technique that was fun to watch. I never knew that simple things done to everyday food could alter their texture and flavor! The two chefs explained their techniques and often, chef Luis translated Spanish to English for chef Oscar.

Artesmar’s Christian Schmidradner also gave a talk about the importance of fishing tuna sustainably as we all enjoyed the tuna provided by Artesmar that afternoon. It was a fun-filled event and we all tasted the food prepared by the Vask team after the demonstration. Cocktails followed after as we all had fun drinking select wines from Bodegas Hidalgo.  Other sponsors for the event were Marques de Griñon and Classic Fine Foods.

(Vask is on the 5th floor of Clipp Center, 11th Avenue corner 39th Street, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig. For inquiries or reservations, call 0917- 8065292, 519-3428 or e-mail ask@vaskmanila.com.) Certain photos by Pepper Teehankee