Good life, good food at The Podium

At The Podium, SM’s upscale mix of restaurants, cool and hip outlets and upmarket shops, life’s a buffet. But not the kind of buffet where you say “no” to seconds; rather, it’s the kind of place where you can pick and choose your pleasures. Here, a strategic mixture of restos and eateries draws clientele looking for a bit of “the good life.”

How good? Over the course of several days, we sampled all of the upscale restaurants at The Podium.Lucky for us we have healthy appetites.

The Podium, located at the heart of dynamic Ortigas Center, has redefined shopping standards with its contemporary, worldly ambience. A joint project between the SM Group of the Philippines and Keppel Group of Singapore, the six-level upscale mall offers state-of-the-art dining, shopping and entertainment options, as well as being a venue for cultural and collaborative events that showcase international exchanges.

The Podium is located at 18 ADB Avenue, Mandaluyong City.  — SG

FLORABEL: Gourmet food with a healthy twist

When you enter Florabel you get the unmistakable impression that a woman runs the place. Perhaps it’s the floral wall paintings or the attention to detail (real tablecloths, gleaming silver, spotless china). You can tell most of all by how at ease you feel, as if you’d been ushered into the private dining room of a very talented lady chef.

The lady in question is Florabel Co, who worked at Le Soufflé’s Top of the Citi restaurant for almost 10 years. Under the tutelage of Jessie Sincioco, she rose to executive chef before striking out on her own. “I have a very good relationship with my ex-boss,” Co muses, “but I try to be different.”

Florabel is indeed different. The restaurant interiors are plush and relaxing: “I told my architect Rolly Mercado to make the place homey, and like my name, ‘beautiful flower,’” she says.

The food is to-die-for — gourmet with a healthy twist. “When Florabel opened a lot of people thought this was a South Beach restaurant, so they’re surprised that I serve foie gras! Now my menu is only 30-percent South Beach.”

With good reason, Florabel’s most famous dish is the foie gras Angus burger with truffles. But Florabel has whipped up new creations like green tea risotto; basil-scented sea bass; portobello mushroom, foie gras and prawn salad with aged balsamic dressing; and, of course, dessert. A Toblerone chocolate mousse has tart cranberry and crunchy nuts for contrast, while the low-fat ricotta cheesecake sweetened with Splenda is light and not overpowering.

“When you’re on a diet people think you’re deprived of all the good stuff, but I try to make it a point that they enjoy the food.”

We do, Florabel, we do.

Florabel is located on the upper ground floor, tel. 638-7527 or 667-3220.        —TJG

Terry Selection: State-of-the-art Spanish specialties

We find Terry Selection director Juan Carlos de Terry seated outside his restaurant with his father-in-law, Luis Garcia, enjoying a risotto (and a few other goodies). Terry loves Old World Spanish cuisine, and the setting of this large, 480-square-meter grocery and resto is wonderfully gourmet. Shelves are lined with imported ingredients — caviar, spices, jamon serrano, fine wines, all from regulated areas of Spain — and it’s no secret that the Ayala, Ortigas and Aboitiz families shop here for the finest ingredients.

Opened just last September, Terry Selection expands on Terry’s Pasong Tamo branch, offering the good life, and luxury food, to Ortigas Center. “Every item here is chosen by me,”  says Terry. “I am the one to issue a passport, I know the philosophy, the taste.”

The Terry name has been known in Spain since 1755. Theirs is a legacy of food and cooking, with recipes handed down over generations. Terry learned much from his mother, a famous cook. “In Spain, cooking is not an art, like in French cuisine,” he notes. “The art comes in the ingredients.”  Restaurant bestsellers include the Chorizo Piggyback served in a ceramic pig , a sublime Shrimp Risotto (marinated in cognac) and Blue Heaven, a tenderloin sandwich with Gorgonzola on French bread that lives up to its billing. The good life never seemed so close to home.

Terry Selection is located on the Lower Ground Floor, tel. nos. 636-3513 or 638-5725 —SG

LASA! MANILA: World-class Filipino flavors

Got a foreigner or balikbayan on your hands hungry for Filipino food? Go posthaste to Lasa, where you can enjoy all-time favorites like boneless crispy pata, kare-kare, pritong tawilis, nilasing na hipon, and inihaw na tuna belly. These Pinoy specialties are not only soul-satisfyingly delicious, they’re also presented appetizingly — yet unpretentiously — on beautiful stoneware (Lanelle Abueva), and you’ll enjoy them in comfortable, civilized surroundings (Modern Filipino, not Seedy Beer Garden).

“I tried to look for traditional ways of doing things,” says part owner and chef, Alan Mathay. “I don’t use pressure cookers or extenders. I use what’s originally used, and if I have to cook it for six or 12 hours, I do that.”

Mathay is part of the group that owns Cena and Masas, and made them homegrown hits in Makati. For Lasa, Mathay perfected the taste of traditional family recipes. He learned how to cook from his Batangueña mother, and honed his skills at Le Cordon Bleu in London.

What sets Lasa apart from the sea of Filipino restaurants is the world-class presentation of the food. “We try to make Filipino food look as if it’s European food, how it’s plated,” Mathay says.

Lasa offers an express merienda buffet from 2:30 to 6 p.m. For P90, eat as much pancit luglog, pancit canton, arroz caldo, guinataang bilu-bilo and halo-halo as you want.

“We wanted a place where you can bring your family, balikbayans and foreigners that’s really Filipino, from the culture to the concept.”

Lasa! Manila is located on the upper ground floor, tel. 636-6872 to 75. —TJG

Pagliacci: Enter real Italian territory

Chef Maurizio Gibillini, owner of Pagliacci, knows how to fly his national colors. “When you enter Pagliacci,” he tells us, “you enter Italian territory.” That means you won’t find any “Filipinized” spaghetti sauce recipes. What you will find at Pagliacci is authentic Mediterranean food, with fine imported Italian ingredients.

Chef Gibillini arrived in the Philippines 15 years ago, opened his first gelato outlet in Boracay, met his Filipina wife, Rita, on a flight from Italy nine years ago, and has been busy with the runaway success of his Gelato outlets in Metro Manila and fine-dining restaurants ever since. The gelato is a secret recipe of this Milan-born import: “It’s from a special recipe from friends back in Italy.” He added his own adjustments and improvements.

Pagliacci is “more casual, more trattoria, more family ambience” than his Makati restaurant, called Maurizio. Venezian clown masks decorate the walls (pagliacci means clown), while large blowups of Venice and Rome adorn the dining area.

Chef Gibillini serves some favorites, like the Pasticcio di Melanzane (eggplant, tomato, mozzarella and basilico baked in an oven). It’s authentic, fresh, rich and creamy. Then we try the Pizza Proscuito with Arugula, which is authentically thin-crust, covered with fresh ingredients. The Penne De Vesuvio resembles a volcano, topped with sundried tomatoes, garlic, shrimp and chili. We top it off with a classic Carpaccio A La Cipriani, the beef mingling perfectly with the Parmesan cheese, olive oil and arugula.

Though proudly Milanese, chef Gibillini has no native dishes on his menu. “I love the pasta dishes from the south, and I consider pasta the real expression of the Mediterranean.”

And dining at Pagliacci, we couldn’t agree more.    

Pagliacci is located on the Fifth Level, tel. 687-1514. —SG