Good old times and the finest of steaks

It was a way to rekindle old friendships, but it was also an excellent excuse to have a good chunk of fine aged steak, delectably cooked to perfection.

Several years back, when the Middle East was not yet the hotbed that it is now, airline companies flying that route scrambled to market the Middle East as an exotic destination, a dream holiday on board luxurious brand-new airplanes that had state-of-the-art entertainment systems (that was before other airlines followed suit and took to having personal video screens on each seat), and virtual “nannies” on board that could actually trust to take charge of your toddlers even when you were not on the plane. They also had chefs on board that could accommodate requests for food other than those in the menu. That was how competitive they were in trying to capture the holiday market for the Middle East.

My friend, Bobby Hukom was then District Sales Manager of Gulf Air and that was how I got to meet Bobby professionally. Typical of Bobby, he took marketing and promotions a step further than the usual junket trips for travel agents. The Middle East was a fairly new destination for family holidays, and he wanted to highlight its role in religious tours and pilgrimages, so he wanted print and television to be able to document these. That’s how I got to meet the guy.

Bobby commissioned STV, Sunshine Television to produce travel documentaries that not only promoted his airline but their various destinations, both exotic and popular, as well and those trips were indeed priceless. Not everyone gets to set foot in Petra, a breathtaking, awesome piece of a hill in Jordan where foot paths were carved out of steep rose-colored cliffs, like the sand beneath our feet. If you’ve seen the Indiana Jones series that starred Harrison Ford, one of them was shot in Petra. We rode up the mountain atop those magnificent Arabian stallions, walked through coral-colored palaces, and rode back down to the city on donkeys, our feet dragging sand underneath because the altitude atop those stallions were a bit too much on top of everything else. We discovered first -hand the Bedouin lifestyle, romanticized in many novels, ate in the tents, and rode the smelly camels.

Back then, we were able to cross over to Israel from Jordan on land lugging our big cameras and lights, something no longer feasible now I suppose due to overly-tight security concerns, and were able to compare the scowling 6-ft tall female guards at the borders, indeed beautiful but fierce, with the amiable, friendly tourist guides from Jordan. But history has its price, and we walked the cobble-stoned winding roads full of neat, quaint shops, picked unripe olives at the Garden of Gethsemane and visited the humble site of the Last Supper; we traced the surprisingly short Way of the Cross (Via Crucis), drove thru the sleepy town of Bethlehem, feasted on baskets of St. Peter’s Fish (actually, this is our tilapia!) at the Sea of Galilee, dipped into the high-salinity Dead Sea, savored the Mediterranean cuisine of Bahrain and sampled its cosmopolitan lifestyle, paid our respects at the venerated tomb of Our Lord, visited the humble house of the Blessed Virgin. We wined and dined and were feted well beyond our expectation. Many thanks, Bobby.

Now Bobby Hukom is the Country Manager of Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates with its hub in Abu Dhabi, a fairly new presence in the country but with a veteran on the beat. Etihad began operations in 2003, and in 2010 has carried more than seven million passengers. I invited Bobby and his group of young airline junior executives to Mamou Restaurant at the Serendra and we talked about old times, but he was more excited to talk about the present. He told us that Etihad Airways now has special airfares from Manila to the United Arab Emirates and Europe to mark its new double daily services, fourteen flights per week starting Nov. 1 between the Philippines and Abu Dhabi, one of the legs of the World Formula One Series. He excitedly informed us that this new sked provides for improved connectivity to the popular European business and leisure destinations of Athens, Brussels, Dublin, Dusseldorf, Geneva, Frankfurt, Istanbul, London, Manchester, Milan, Munich and Paris.

For our group of five, we had four orders of the Angus Rib Eye, a good 400 grams each, so the steaks were hefty enough, and one Salmon Steak which was also excellent and juicy, not dry and overcooked. As always, the steak did not disappoint, medium rare as requested, almost crusty on the outside but pink inside, the juices running out as the meat was sliced. These steaks I guess are pre-marinated, unlike others that rely on the basic goodness of the meat, but the flavors were unmistakable. Even the oil that comes with your steak order was full of flavor, but I was a bit overwhelmed by the volume of it. Over-all, it was still tops, and it came with organic red rice that was sautéed in the oil the steak was cooked in! How’s that for flavor?

In between chunks of the rib eye, Bobby shared that Etihad has a fleet of 63 Airbus and Boeing airplanes and because more passengers can now afford the great value airfares and appreciate the seamless connections to Europe aboard their luxurious appointed aircrafts, business for this airline is only getting better and better. So they now have on order some 100 new aircrafts which includes 10 Airbus A380s which, in case you did not know, is ONLY the world’s largest passenger aircraft. Whew! Business must indeed be getting better for Etihad Airways. By the way, Etihad was voted Airline of the Year consecutively in recent years, no small feat for a newbie.

Bobby is now into a healthier lifestyle, in the gym regularly to keep fit and has shed a lot of unwanted pounds. His Italian suits now hang better on him, unimpeded by the bulge that used to be there. But, “once a lover of good food, always one”. Like me, he savored the good steaks that Mamou prepared for our group, and I certainly look forward to more lunches with Bobby.

Mabuhay!!! Be proud to be a Filipino.

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