A 10-course dinner and truffles from the metro’s newest chefs

Have you heard of the saying "Iba na ang malapit sa kusina"? I don’t know if this expression is exclusively Filipino, but I’ve never heard an equivalent of it in English. I recall hearing it for the first time when a rich family was squabbling over their inheritance. The youngest daughter, who lived with their ailing mother till the day she died, was believed to have inherited more cash and jewelry than her siblings. "Iba na ang malapit sa kusina," the family lawyer declared.

I live literally near my mother’s kitchen, since my house is just right across hers. And unlike my many brothers and sisters who live far away, I eat almost every day in her house. I do not hope to inherit more than they, but I do enjoy delicious meals and that’s good enough for me. And that’s enough reason for my siblings to drool in envy as I am "malapit sa kusina."

Last Friday night, The Peninsula Manila invited some food writers to meet Tobias Gensheimer, the new chef of Old Manila, its fine dining outlet. A big round table for 12 was beautifully set near the kitchen, so near, in fact, we could hear the pots and pans clacking and smell the mixture of different aromas wafting into the hallway. What special privileges did we get, you may wonder? We had the executive chef, the PR director, and the F&B manager dining with us, while chef Tobias was nearby, busy preparing the 10 dishes we were about to sample. There were at least six waiters standing by at our beck and call. So, we had the big hotshot guys, the wait staff, the main bar right behind us, all the right ingredients for a wonderful degustation dinner.

The first course was lemon-marinated barramundi slices with artichokes and a dollop of caviar, which was perfectly paired with a smooth 2000 Pouilly Fuissé. Then came Mary Ann’s all-time favorite, the terrine of foie gras with a Gewurztraminer jelly, tempered down with apple-celery salad and walnut brioche. This time, we had a very sweet Torres Moscatel Oro Fort Wine with it. Next came the sautéed round of lobster on a bed of spinach sesame, swimming in carrot ginger sauce, which was excellent, and one that Mary Ann highly recommends. Since I am allergic to lobster, I was served the same dish but with a fillet of lapu-lapu substituting for the lobster.

Then came my favorite, the foie gras, just pan-seared and served with snails and peas. By now, my palate was exhausted and another rich dish was the last thing I wanted, plus, of course, the wine was already getting to me.

And so, what a nice welcome it was to see a light pan-seared salmon with a crispy fried skin and saffron risotto to relax my taste buds, with a 2003 Leasingham Bin & Reisling. I highly recommend this salmon because it’s really very fresh, both in taste and bite.

Then, we had a cauliflower soup served in demitasse cups, with slivers of truffles floating on the frothy cream topping. Roasted loin of lamb with braised onions in red wine followed, paired with a nice color Lindemans Limestones Ridge shiraz cabernet. For the cheese course, we had a baked phyllo-wrapped blue cheese with grapes. If you love blue cheese, I recommend this highly, but I know most Filipinos find blue cheese too strong for their taste, since we are more used to American cheddar.

And to cool our now very jaded taste buds, the waiters gave us cold strawberry champagne with white chocolate ice cream. This one, we all agreed, was marvelous, especially with the accompanying Brut Imperial rosé. And just to be sure that we won’t be eating breakfast and lunch the next day, we were served, last but not the least, nougat soufflé with rhubarb. The sweet Trockenbeerenauslese, made from almost rotten berries, was very, very nice.

I was getting dizzy with all the food and wine. I whispered to Mary Ann to carry me on our way out if ever my face fell flat on my plate. Of course, we capped dinner with The Peninsula’s signature chocolate truffles, and the caffeine sort of perked me up.

So, should you be very envious that we had dinner in the kitchen? Yes and no. Yes, because we had everything within our reach. No, because the air-conditioning in the kitchen was overpowered by the heat from the ovens and stoves. And though we were in the kitchen, we could not unbutton or take off our shirts, raise our legs and eat with our hands as our help do. We were still "fine eating" as befits the fine dining etiquette at Old Manila. Even the Peninsula guys, who I fondly call men in black, sans the dark shades, kept their suits and ties.

The gay and light conversation with fellow foodies helped, and, of course, the dishes were indeed specially good. How good? The three ladies in the group finished all the 10 courses and wines served. Need I say more?

Chef Tobias, a German who worked in Bangkok for two years before coming Manila, is the youngest foreign chef I have ever met at 25 years old. And he is still single. Yet all the dishes he prepared that night came from the hands of a well-seasoned chef. The seafood dishes were firm and juicy. The lamb was rosy pink, oozing with its own juice, and very tender. Apparently, he also makes and serves lobster ice cream, which the ladies commended highly, but unfortunately I could not try.

Earlier in the day, we met Frenchman Richard Andrieux, the new executive chef of the InterCon’s Prince Albert Rotisserie. My friend chef Cyrille Soenen, whom I had the privilege of working with four years ago, has moved to the Crown Plaza, also of the InterCon chain, at the Ortigas Center. Ongoing until March 12 is a truffle promotion, where chef Andrieux cooks many dishes with this edible black diamond of the world. Truffles have been given this epithet because they are black and are quite expensive at $1,000 a kilo. Thus, it is used sparingly to add flavor or infuse its woodsy aroma to a dish. So, the next time you see slivers or cubes of black in your soup or dish, don’t discard it thinking it’s just burnt onion. It might be a truffle.

Mary Ann and I shared a creamy soup of sea urchin and smoked scallops, and two appetizers. The first was a pan-seared goose liver, and the other, pan-fried scallops, both stuffed with thin slices of truffles in them.

We originally intended to have a light lunch only, but the sight of a large slab of US prime rib on the carving trolley was simply irresistible, albeit we were only having a ladies’ portion. And I have said this before and will say it again, the best prime rib in this part of the world is still at the InterCon’s Prince Albert. Of course, it comes with a price, too, as all good things do.

For dessert, we had crepe caramel. In my childhood days, we boiled canned condensed milk in water for four hours until it was nice and brown. That’s how it tasted. Yummy!

The following day, back at home, with our tummies bulging and our heads still reeling from all that food and wine, Mary Ann and I only had salabat (ginger tea) and Ormoc pineapple (the sweetest in the land) the whole day. Paying it backwards, I call it.