Food and Leisure

East meets West buffet at the Heritage Hotel Manila

July 30, 2009 | 12:00am

MANILA, Philippines – Fan the insatiable appetite for life’s little gastronomic pleasures in the best eastern and western fare at the Riviera Café, Heritage Hotel. The “East Meets West” food promo buffet for lunch and dinner runs from Aug. 3 to 16.

Executive chef Alvin Ng, fresh from his three decades of culinary experience in various five-star luxury hotels in Singapore, Malaysia, Taipei, Sydney and Sri Lanka, redefines the food styles of two cultures in his versions of signature cuisines of the world.

The World In A Plate

Take a lip-smacking food trip beyond your wildest dreams in chef Alvin’s gastronomic carpet ride through diverse textures, scents and flavors. The buffet features continental cuisine like poached fish with white wine sauce, osso bucco gremolate, roast leg of lamb with mint jus and baked salmon fillet with spinach mousse in brorche. The Singaporean cuisine includes Hainanese chicken, Nonya rojak, nasi lemak, mee goreng and chili crab. Those who prefer Chinese cuisine can indulge in dimsum, bola-bola siopao, roast duck and suckling pig. The Malaysian cuisine offers asam pedas (fish), beef rendang, prawn sambal with tomato and pineapple. Dishes from Thailand are otak-otak (fish cakes), crabmeat and avocado with mustard mayonnaise, beef salad, pad prek king (stir-fried long beans and beef) and tom yam gari (sour and spicy chicken lemon soup). Have a taste of the Philippines with dishes such as lengua con celas and escabeche. Indonesian cuisine includes kalio ayam (chicken light curry), gado gado with peanut sauce, cilantro squid salad, and of course, Japanese cuisine like kani, fresh salmon and tuna sushi.

In the “Wraps-Around-The-World” buffet spread savor the Singaporean po piah, a soft, thin paper-like crepe filled with finely grated and steamed turnips, bean sprouts, lettuce leaves, grated carrots, minced meat, thinly sliced fried tofu, chopped peanuts or peanut powder, fried shallots, and shredded omelet; Indonesian murtabak, made by spinning pastry until very thin, like filo pastry, then shallow-frying it in a custom- made flattened heavy wok. Vietnamese spring rolls, juicy prawns, rice vermicelli, julienned carrots, bean sprouts, and Thai basil and mint wrapped in translucent rice papers and Malaysian roti paratha, a Southeast Asian interpretation of India’s paratha.

Chef Alvin will also prepare lots of noodle dishes like tomato and black olive flavor-infused and home-made Italian penne, fetuccini and spaghettini pasta and spinach ravioli with choice of pesto, bolognese, herbs and tomato sauce; his trademark rendition of the must-try Singaporean laksa, a concoction of noodles made from rice flour swathed in velvety gravy made from spices, herbs, dried shrimp, coconut milk, chili .