Let's Eat November Issue

Nov 2013

No. 6

Paradise Now Yurakuen’s blissful Japanese cuisine

Blockbuster Cafe

Feast your eyes on Xin Wang Hong Kong Cafe’s diverse menu

Frozen Delights

Discover why Swensen’s is America’s favorite ice cream parlor

The New Cool Beurre Blanc’s tribute to French classics

Let’s Eat Issue 6

WHAT'S INSIDE

p.6 Yurakuen

Nov 2013

On the cover: Nigiri Sushi Moriawase from Yurakuen Japanese Restaurant at Diamond Hotel Cover Photo by GABBY CANTERO

p.9 Beurre Blanc

FERNANDO MIGUEL BELMONTE Publisher DON JAUCIAN Managing Editor THYSZ ESTRADA Editorial Associate

p.11 Xin Wang Hong Kong Cafe p.15

Swensen’s

SPANKY HIZON ENRIQUEZ Contributing Writer GABBY CANTERO Contributing Photographer LUCIEN DY TIOCO Head of Sales & Marketing ALLAN PALOR Visualizer

p.13

Coupons

ANNALYN DELGADO Editorial Assistant

Golden Letter Publishing, 1497 E. Rodriguez Ave., Quezon City For inquiries, call 5277901 local 132 or email letseat062013@gmail.com

pa r a dise now

Yurakuen’s blissful Japanese cuisine

By SPANKY HIZON ENRIQUEZ Photos by GABBY CANTERO

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HEALTHY OPTIONS

Vegetable Lunch Set (potato jelly noodles, fried tofu, hot udon with vegetable tempura, stewed dish, and vegetable garlic fried rice) Seafood Hot Pot

TIPS 1. You can choose from three types of dipping sauces: Ponzu for seafood, miso for vegetables and garlicflavored Kikkoman for meat.

2. The Wagyu beef is served in a platter with a heated rock slab with cubes of Wagyu fat that you can continue grilling on it. The Wagyu fat will be cooked to a crisp and the oil trickles down to the beef cuts coating it with even more flavor.

T

he best date places? The most sensual cuisine? The most romantic restaurants?

For me, it’s always been Japanese.

I find French too formal and Italian too familiar. German, too heavy and too brassy.

Korean, too smoky and too spicy. But Japanese?

Something about the purity and simplicity of its most famous dishes—the unadorned sashimi, the delicately composed sushi—always provoke an exotic stirring of the senses. The traditions and ceremonies intrinsic to an authentic Japanese meal, reflective of centuries of refinement, quietly draw diners into a most private shared experience.

For a first date? Nothing beats the subtle sexiness of a fine Japanese dining establishment.

But over the years, as Japanese food has become more and more popular in the Philippines, the “zen-geist” has shifted, if you will, to the more commonplace and wallet-friendly buffet restaurants where the servers seem to delight in flustering guests and bludgeoning them into submission with their enthusiastic and rapid-fire shouts of “Irasshaimase!!” I do enjoy the food in

these raucous iterations of Japanese restaurants, but again, let me reiterate, that these aren’t exactly the best place for a romantic rendezvous. For that, my recommendation as the one best place is Yurakuen at the Diamond Hotel.

The restaurant, located at the side of the hotel facing Manila Bay, is one of the most striking in the city. It is accessed through a simple foyer that barely whispers a tease of the delights that await within: delightful glimpses of the sun dazzling on the bay on a clear day; a bright blue hue suffusing the sky above the restaurant’s glass walls. A long corridor with the enticing teppanyaki rooms, one after the other on the sunset side, and beyond, a small bridge of marble leads to the main dining hall that beckons with its soaring, sparkling cherry blossom tree, assembled from thousands of tiny panes of clear glass.

“Yurakuen” is the Japanese word for “Paradise”, and this restaurant certainly lives up to its lofty name. This five star outlet’s aesthetics are fantastic, its ambiance serene. And its food?

Seductive. So seductive that I’m often torn between my love for the fiery choreography of the chefs at the

3. Teppanyaki rice is prepared towards the end. You can request for the chef to cook the leftover wagyu or tenderloin fat with the fried rice for a savory boost. Keep your eyes peeled for a high-flying trick when the chef mixes the eggs in!

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PRICE RANGES

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Teppanyaki grills, or my love for the elegant dance of dishes underneath the crystal cherry blossoms in the dining hall. The choice is not difficult. I choose both.

Appetizers and cocktails in the restaurant’s larger main area, followed by the main courses cooked with precision in one of the smaller grill rooms.

Sublime platters of sushi and sashimi to start with; each bite, impossibly even better than the one that came before. Each piece, a true work of art, flavors fresh and colors bright. Ravishing red roe and golden sea urchin side by side with the creamiest, pinkest salmon and the purest, whitest scallops. Ice cold Kirin or chilled premium sake to quench one’s thirst—and to whet one’s appetite for the wagyu to come!

In the temples of Teppanyaki, dollops of butter are melted, then showered with a few drops of soy sauce; this becomes the sauté base for the vegetables, mushrooms, and seafood, cooked one after the other in an ever heightening succession of dramatic grill 08 LET’S EAT

top moves by the chefs, culminating in a towering inferno that sears in the flavors into the decadently marbled wagyu. This show never gets old. The classics never do.

The cooking process is breathtaking, and the end results take one’s breath away. Dining companions smile at each other in sheer awe, and they know, instinctively, that they have just shared an unforgettable culinary experience.

So is there any better way to begin a beautiful friendship, or a better place for a budding romance to blossom, than to experience Yurakuen together?

I think not.

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Assorted Teppanyaki platters Wagyu Beef Ishiyaki Salmon Teriyaki Cuttlefish

Teppanyaki Sets - P1970++ Lunch Sets - P750 (Curry set) - P1320 (Mix Seafood Set) Japanese Full Course - P1380 (Lady’s set and Gentleman’s Set) - P3200 (Sakura) Hot Pot Course - P2410 (Sukiyaki and Shabu-shabu US Beef) - P4,800 (Sukiyaki and Shabu-shabu Japanese Wagyu Beef) Naembono Hot Pot - P1650 (US Beef Shabu-shabu and US Beef Sukiyaki) P3710 (Japanese Premium Wagyu Beef Shabu-shabu and apanese Premium Wagyu Beef Sukiyaki) Wagyu Japanese Premium Beef - P2500 (Wagyu Steak 120g) - P8800 (Japanese Premium Wagyu Tenderloin Beef Set 150g) Appetizers - P200 (Boiled green soybeans, cuttlefish marinated in salt, Fried bean curd with tempura sauce, steamed spinach, grilled eggplant, cold bean curd, and cucumber and seaweed in vinegar) - P360 (Mackarel with raddish) Sashimi - P380 (Sea Urchin) - P1500 (Assorted special sashimi) Stewed Dish - P400 (Lapu-lapu aradaki) P970 (Lobster gusokuni) Charcoal Grilled Dish - P370 (Sake tereyaki and Saba shioyaki) - P710 (Unagi kabayaki) Pan Grilled Dish - P470 (Sauteed thin slice pork) - P1490 (Stone scorch prime US beef) Tempura - P500 (Prawn tempura and Beef tempura) - P610 (Assorted tempura) Fried Dishes - P350 (Fried chicken) - P600 (Japanese sirloin pork cutlet and Japanese pork fish cutlet) Sushi - P400 (Inari sushi) - P1250 (Tokuju chirashi sushi) Temaki Sushi and Hosomaki Sushi - P240 (Ebi tempura maki) - P350 (Koebi tempura maki) Diamond Hotel, Roxas Blvd. cor Dr. J. Quintos St., Malate, Manila Call 528-3000 loc. 1127

Diamond Hotel Philippines

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O The New Cool Beurre Blanc’s tribute to French classics

By SPANKY HIZON ENRIQUEZ Photos by GABBY CANTERO

ne of the most legendary restaurants in Philippine culinary history is the late great Nora Daza’s “Au Bon Vivant”, the very first French restaurant in Manila, which opened its doors in 1965. It was all white tablecloths, fine china, silver utensils, crystal goblets, and excellent, authentic French cuisine. Though it was way before my time, I’ve seen the vintage photos, and I imagine that Beurre Blanc, a French Mediterranean restaurant in the Newport Mall of Resorts World, is paying tribute to its esteemed predecessor through its obvious dedication to the Mad Men-era style of fine dining.

There’s no attempt to attract the hipsters in Beurre Blanc, and that’s a good thing. “Hipsters”, as their name implies, flit from one trend to the next—here today, gone tomorrow—in search of the next hip thing. Classic French is a perennial; in any major city in the world, a French establishment, be it a restaurant or a brasserie, is inevitably considered by discriminating diners as one of that city’s best. Beurre Blanc is one such example—unabashedly Gallic

in its interiors— walls of brown brick, bottles of wine stored in stone alcoves, flickering lamps on the walls, and even a sensuous white marble sculpture of a vestal virgin carrying a crop of fresh fruits and produce over her lovely head. It’s all very Les Miserables.

French Cuisine has withstood the test of time; and its formal, exacting techniques form the foundation of culinary education worldwide. The preparation of beurre blanc is one of its primary lessons: a light herbed sauce (it translates to “white butter”) prepared from a reduction of white wine, shallots, and melted butter. It sounds simple enough, but it’s a delicate composition that can easily separate if not prepared properly. The sauce is sublime on the restaurant’s signature special, roasted Chilean sea bass, with a light linguine marinara and fresh green asparagus spears served on the side. The Beurre Blanc may also be ordered as a pasta sauce, on a bed of angel hair, and topped with slivers of foie gras. Naturellement!

LET’S EAT 09

HEALTHY OPTIONS Roasted Chilean Seabass Mesclun Salad Marinated Salmon Cerviche Beauarre Blanc Salad

TIP If you’re in the mood for fine dining visit Beaurre Blanc from Mon-Wed but if you want a bang for your buck while visiting Resorts World or playing at the casino, Beaurre Blanc has buffets from Thu-Sun

PRICE RANGES 03

02 A proper French restaurant must have onion soup on its menu. That’s practically mandatory.

Beurre Blanc’s version has a topping of melted gruyère cloaking the rich caramelized onion goodness in the bowl, the soup made even more hearty with the addition of croutons made from baguettes, but of course. Another old school dish?

Rack of lamb, encrusted with a jus of Herbes de Provence, garlic, and thyme. It’s a generous serving; a hefty, heavy dish, more than enough for two, perfect as a main course, and best paired with a Mouton Cadet Rouge Bordeaux from Beurre Blanc’s comprehensive collection of fine wines.

For dessert? Another French classic: an airy soufflé fragrant with the citrusy orange perfume of Grand Marnier cognac. Truly a divine way to complete an authentic French repast.

I have to mention that the service in Beurre Blanc is akin to that in a five star hotel; the staff is very polite, knowledgeable about the menu, unobtrusive, and in a welcome departure from the 10 LET’S EAT

snooty reputation of Parisian waiters; not a single one in this restaurant is a snob with his nose up in the air.

In large part, that’s due to the impeccable culinary pedigree of the restaurant’s owners, Larry Cortez and Mau Arjona, two hard working gentlemen who rose through the ranks to become the most valued members of Billy King’s iconic Le Soufflé restaurant: Larry was its Front of House Manager and Mau, its Executive Chef.

With their passion for perfection and unwavering commitment to classic cooking, it won’t be long before their very own Beurre Blanc joins the ranks of the country’s unforgettable French restaurants.

01 Creme brulee 02 Roasted Chilean Seabass 03 Baked Rack of Lamb

Appetizers and Salad – P150 (Fresh local oysters) to P950 (Pan fried goose liver salad) Soups – P150 (Tomato and prawns bisque, minestrone, essence of mushroom, and soup of the day) to P195 (French onion) Steak selection – P395 (Angus Clod Tender) to P1,200 (U.S. Tenderloin Premium) Special Creation – P295 (Poached tiger jumbo prawns) to P1,150 (Roasted Chilean Seabass) Desserts – P120 (Creme brulee, Strawberry with Pistachio, and Huiled D’ Olive and Pumpkin) to P195 (Tiramisu) Fresh Juices/Shakes – P65 (Calamansi) to P165 (Orange) Chilled Juices – P60 (Orange and Lemon) to P120 (Cranberry) Wine List – P1,300 (South African Red Wine – Two Oceans Shiraz) to P12,000 (Grand Cru Classe Red Wine – Chateau d’Armailhac Baronne Philippine de Rothschild 2004) Beaurre Blanc 2/F Newport Mall, Resorts World Manila Call 836-4342

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Blockbuster Cafe Feast your eyes on Xin Wang Hong Kong Cafe’s diverse menu

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By SPANKY HIZON ENRIQUEZ Photos by GABBY CANTERO

or a couple of years now, I’ve had this routine whenever a Hollywood blockbuster is about to open in the Philippines: rush to the Mall of Asia to buy tickets for the best seats in the IMAX theater, and then have a meal at the Xin Wang Hong Kong Cafe right next door. And the odd thing is, Xin Wang’s menu, a cavalcade of over two hundred dishes, more often than not, is much more entertaining and absolutely more satisfying than many of the formulaic films that I watch on the country’s largest movie screen.

The Xin Wang chain of restaurants actually originated in Singapore, where it has twenty branches, and not in Hong Kong. That would explain the diversity of its offerings, which include anything and everything from Mongkok-style congee to Hong Kongstyle spaghetti; from Macau cheese baked rice to Shanghai chicken chop fragrant rice.

The classics from Singapore, Kaya toast sets and malted chocolate dinosaur drinks, are available as well.

Xin Wang probably has the longest list of items in any restaurant in Metro Manila, and it’s definitely my favorite menu to browse through; so much so that I often end up overordering, because just when I thought I’d settled on a selection, a new item catches my eye, and I’m compelled to order it too. So

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HEALTHY OPTIONS The Xin Wang Vegetables Menu

TIPS 1. Xin Wang is great for group lunches/dinner because it has a diverse menu and good portioning.

2. Start on the dimsum then the main dishes if you feel overwhelmed by the numerous dishes on the menu.

PRICE RANGES (Selected)

take your time and read through the menu. You’ll probably have a very difficult time making up your mind.

I wouldn’t advise dining at Xin Wang by your lonesome; you’ll surely enjoy what you’ll order, but you’ll surely regret that you couldn’t order more.

Bring a friend, or better yet, a whole bunch of friends, or your whole family. They’ll thank you and love you for it. The food is very good, and the prices?

Very easy on the pocket. I love this restaurant dearly, and if I were asked how best to describe it, I’d say that Xin Wang is a younger, hipper, and yes, cheaper version of Lugang Cafe.

The interiors, like the restaurant’s vast menu, are reflective of this vibe as well: very cheery, very bright, very colorful, very playful—with stylized images of Hong Kong’s double decker buses and MTR trains painted as a mural on Xin Wang’s walls. Apparently, this ambiance strikes a chord with families too; during weekends, the restaurant’s often filled to capacity with mall-addicted parents and their kids. No big surprise there, as the restaurant offers something for everyone. When Solaire was about to open, many of the Singaporean casino trainors made a beeline for Xin Wang daily, and ordered their favorites—often without even consulting the menu.

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Speaking of which, it was love at first sight, and then, at first bite for me, when I first came across this: “Cheese baked rice with black pepper beef”. Whoa. That’s like three of my favorite food groups—dairy, carbs, and protein—in one glorious plate. That would be my default dish of choice, but as I said, I can’t order just one of Xin Wang’s unique specialties. The Prawn Paste Chicken alone is enough reason to make the drive to Pasay. Tender boneless chicken marinated for three hours in a creamy prawn paste, then battered and fried until crisp. It’s like an oriental version of Buffalo Wings!

As if their savory specials aren’t crowd pleasing enough, Xin Wang also has the best “taho” in all of Mall of Asia, bar none. Fresh batches are made from scratch, twice a day, from soybean curds. Served with syrup and “sago” on the side, it’s a return to innocence. Expect happy childhood flashbacks!

Hong Kong may soon be a bit more difficult place to visit, but I don’t really mind. I go there primarily for the food, but with Xin Wang around, most of my cravings have already been satisfied.

And no visa required.

01 “Yau Ma Tei” Special Sauce Chicken Rice 02 Hong Kong Steamed Chinese Sausage ‘N’ Mushroom Bamboo Rice 03 Xin Wang Signature Stir-Fried Noodles

Tim Sum P100 (Siew Mai 4pcs, Steamed spare ribs with black bean, Deep-fried mango ‘N’ prawn roll, Pan-fried raddish cake, Steamed BBQ pork bun, and deep-fried spring roll) — P120 (Crystal Har Gao 4pcs) Yau Ma Tei Chicken Rice P225 (YMT Special Sauce Chicken Rice) — P235 (Lemon Chicken Rice and Soya Sauce Chicken Rice) Hong Kong Style Spaghetti P185 (Fish Fillet Spaghetti) — P250 (Black Pepper Chicken Chop Spaghetti) Hong Kong Style Western P210 (Chicken Chop ‘N’ French Fries and Black Pepper Chicken Chop ‘N’ French Fries) — P265 (XW Special Sauce Ribeye Steak ‘N’ French Fries) Macau Cheese Baked Rice P205 (Cheese Baked Rice with Mushrooms) — P245 (Cheese Baked Rice with Black Pepper Beef, and CBR Chicken Chop) Hong Kong Noodles P195 (Shrimp Dumpling Soup Noodles) — P245 (Prawn Egg Hor Fun) Bamboo Rice P175 (HK Steamed Spare Robs ‘N’ Salted Fish Bamboo Rice) — P175 (HK Steamed Diced Chicken ‘N’ Salted Fish Bamboo Rice) Hong Kong Style Ramen P135 (Luncheon Meat ‘N’ Egg Dry Ramen) — P265 (Xin Wang Curry Ramen) G/F, North Wing, SM Mall of Asia (next to IMAX Theater), 1300 Pasay City, Philippines Call 8227518

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XinWangHKCafePH

LET’S EAT SWEETS

Frozen Delights

By SPANKY HIZON ENRIQUEZ Photo by GABBY CANTERO

A

merica’s favorite Ice Cream Parlor first opened at the corner of Union and Hyde in San Francsico way back in 1948. At present, Earle Swensen’s first store still exists, along with hundreds all over the United States and across the world. The Philippine branches in the Mall of Asia and Eastwood are beloved by thousands of Pinoys who’ve left their hearts in San Francisco. And why not? Swensen’s old fashioned sundaes, parfaits, and scoops—24 imported flavors in all, including Blueberry Cobbler and Rum Raisin—are as cool and comforting as the fog that embraces the city by the bay.

LET’S EAT 15