A birthday celebration at Gustavian

[email protected] Once upon a time, a long time ago, there lived a King in Sweden called Gustav lll (1771 to 1792). He was also called an "enlightened despot". He began civil, domestic and land reforms, established academies of literature, science and art and began construction of theatres and opera houses. For all these cultural performances, his rule is known as the Gustavian, or Swedish, Enlightenment.

He was also an advocate constitutional change and indeed rewrote the constitution that gave him more powers. That act made historians call this period the Gustavian Absolutism. And all my faithful followers of this food columnist knows, all these history lessons make me hungry!

Fast forward to present times, Swedish Chef Robert F. Lilja selected Gustavian as the name of a new restaurant to be a representation of European culinary opulence. It is located at the Paseo Saturnino (road leading to Maria Luisa estate, phone 3447653), the fastest growing food centre in Cebu City for fine dining.

Some months back, I had the opportunity to taste some of Chef Robert's creations in a dinner buffet set to the style of the Viking era, a tradition shared by Scandinavia (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden). The Vikings then ate fish (salmon, herring), oysters, mussels, crustaceans, mutton, chicken, geese, cheese, berries, wild duck and whale.

And Chef Robert cooked everything the Vikings consumed, all in one grand evening of Scandinavian delights, except the whale (a bit difficult to catch!)

Your favorite food columnist has pleasurable memories of the entrées called the Autumn Seafood Symphony. I ate it all: Fanny Bay oysters, gravlax, smoked kipper pate, marinated south island mussels, prawn cocktail and toasted bread with Havarti cheese.

My personal physician approves such seafood diet; however, cholesterol delights like the sausages and hams were merely inches away that part of my medical regimen now includes daily doses of marine lipid concentrates. Occupational hazards that have to be endured!

More work, this time with the birthday celebration of Volvo magnate, Franklyn Ong. I had the most difficult task of menu selection for the dinner guests, simple folks like Congressman Raul del Mar, Cebu City Mayor Tommy Osmeña and General Silverio Alarcio.

I could have selected Wallenberg meatballs or surprise the guest with surstromming (sour Baltic herring). But the latter dish needs a Viking's stomach and so I decided on simple dishes, nothing really too complicated.

For salad, we had Gustavian House greens with smoked salmon, crispy capers and creamy mustard dressing. I selected a hearty soup-Cream of spinach soup-since we had very limited dishes for this celebration.

For main entrée, I had a choice of two dishes, a fish and meat; the only problem was that my physician recommends fish (Dover sole with lemon butter emulsion, orange segments and toasted almonds) and I always want steak (New Zealand Strip Loin roasted to perfection with Chateau potato, haricot beans and Marsala sauce).

See how difficult life can be when food choices have to be made? King Solomon's decision could have been half a fish and half a steak. However, these are modern times and I am guided by such choices in the movie "Contact"-why choose one when you can have both? I decided on both dishes! As simple dinners for simple folks have to come to an end, Chef Roberts personally selected the Grand Dessert, an assortment of the best sweets the Gustavian Country Farmers Delicatessen can offer. When shopping for the best in European breads and when it is nine p.m. at the Gustavian, the best discounts that a Cebuano would like to hear-fifty percent discounts are offered!