From chef/restaurateur Florabel Co comes this fervent wish for Christmas: peace on earth and good food to all men! And to make everyone’s Christmas even merrier, her two restaurants — Felix at Greenbelt 5, Makati City (across the Greenbelt Chapel) and Florabel at the Podium, Ortigas — are letting the house’s best wines flow and the good times roll during Happy Hour from 4 to 7 p.m., Monday to Friday.
Florabel shares the good tidings, “For the Happy Hour, guests get a 50-percent discount for every bottle of the featured wine. Which means that a bottle of wine selling for P950 is now a measly P475. It’s a very good deal, which we started offering a month ago. The Happy Hour is a regular feature and we hope to attract executives and those who get out of work at 4 p.m. and want to relax or unwind after a grueling day before battling traffic on the way home.”
The booze, er, the best is yet to come. When you order a glass of wine for only P275+, you get a free appetizer of your choice. The choices are: raclette, fresh oysters, fresh tuna, fresh salmon, Jamon Serrano. Truly, the best things in life are free!
A saucerful of the most prized cheese raclette is not-at-all-pricey at P185+. We can’t think of a cheesier way to say “Cheese!” As in many a French-speaking home in the Swiss Alps where the raclette tradition orginated, at Felix, your raclette is served hot and fresh off the raclette maker/grill. Like the lowly farmer who was delighted to discover this cheese melting on a hot rock on a camping trip, our eyes sparkle at the sight of raclette flowing in all its pungent goodness. Our raclette is then plated and served on our table. Posthaste, we scrape it off our plates and savor it with boiled baby potatoes, small gherkins (pickled cucumber), and small onions. Ahhh!!! It’s comfort food to warm the heart and the belly. Best of all, you don’t have to go to Switzerland or France to have this most coveted stuff.
“I once bought a raclette maker on a trip abroad,” Florabel relates. “I never fail to buy a cooking equipment when I travel. I have my own raclette maker at home.”
The fresh oysters come in three fat, succulent pieces that regularly cost only P150+, quite a steal for oyster lovers who will shell out any amount to have their sweet, seawater-fresh oysters. Oh, yeah!
For a hearty dose of omega-3, choose the fresh salmon or the fresh tuna (both regularly priced at P150+). Or you can treat yourself to something meaty, like the Jamon Serrano (dry-cured gourmet Spanish ham). Or there’s Parma ham from Italy, the land of ham and cheese, at P160+.
There’s a good wine to go with your choice of appetizer. There are white wines from Italy and Chile, red wines from Italy, Chile, and Spain, and sparkling wines from Italy and Australia.
“For our Flights of Wine promo, you can sample any three of the featured wines for only P350+,” says Florabel. “And you also get a 20-percent discount on all other drinks.”
As if that wasn’t enough, Florabel is thinking of extending the Happy Hour. “From there, tuluy-tuloy na to dinner,” she says with a hearty laugh.
Florabel wasn’t born with a silver spoon in her mouth — a ladle in her hand is more like it. She was born with a passion for cooking. She grew up amid the aroma of good food cooking in the kitchen at home. Soon, she was doing her own little experiments in the kitchen.
“I remember the first dish I cooked — rather, baked — it was a yema-filled chocolate cake when I was in second year high school,” she recalls with a twinkle in her eyes.
Today, Florabel serves her time-cherished yummy yema cake at Florabel at the Podium.
Success is certainly sweet for Florabel who says she didn’t take up any culinary course and learned everything through tons of hard work. Toiling long and hard in the hot kitchen has paid off for Florabel who now has several food outlets to her name: Florabel Podium; Felix; Commons bar and resto in Salcedo Village; Floring’s Barbecue in SM Taytay, Landmark TriNoma, Petron and Caltex gas stations on South Expressway. She reveals, “Next month, I’m opening Crisostomo, a Filipino restaurant named after my husband. Felix was named after my father.”
She adds, “The idea behind Felix is that here, you can hang out with family and friends. Here, you can celebrate special occasions, have a meeting, or simply relax and have a good lunch or dinner.”
Felix can seat 85 inside, amid cozy interiors by Miguel Pastor. Outside, where you can enjoy your Happy Hour, the seats are good for 50 to 60 persons.
In this season of binging, Florabel shares more delicious tidings: “We offer a take-out menu for Christmas (order at least two days before; all orders are for pick-up at Florabel Podium). We also deliver. We do catering, too.”
Among Florabel’s take-out best-sellers are the pastas good for 10 to 12 persons: Pasta Ala Ben (Italian sausage sauteed in roasted garlic and tomato concasse, P2,100); Pasta Ala Chris (sauteed mushroom in truffle cream sauce topped with Parma ham slices, P2,300); Pasta Ala Cindy (prawns and chorizo in olive oil, P2,300); Pasta Ala Perry (sauteed sardines and sun-dried tomato in olive oil, P1,900); Pasta Ala Bel (prawns with sea urchin and chives in creamy sauce, P2,300); Pasta Ala Ton (sausage, salami, frankfurters, mushroom in basil pesto, P2,000); Pasta Ala Regina (Tokyo fillet with lemon zest, topped with fresh mozzarella cheese, P2,000); Pasta Ala Jay (artichokes, feta cheese, bell pepper, anchovy, and sun-dried tomato, P1,900); Pasta Ala Judy (chicken fillet in tarragon cream sauce, P2,000); Pasta Ala Fran (seafood and roasted fennel in homemade tomato sauce, P2,200).
Because everyone is bound to be home for Christmas and food is the centerpiece of every celebration, Florabel has whipped up a lot of holiday food-to-go. Her specials include roast turkey with stuffing good for 15 to 20 persons (choose from all meat and sausage or apple walnut and sage stuffing) and served with cranberry sauce, giblet gravy, mashed potato, and cream corn, P6,200; roast US Angus rib-eye with mushroom gravy, served with twice baked potato with truffle sauce, grilled vegetables, P2,700 per kg.; roast garlic rosemary chicken in olive oil with potatoes (minimum order of 2 kg.), P895; all-lean meat pork bbq, P40 per stick; chicken satay with peanut sauce (12 sticks), P275; beef satay with peanut sauce (12 sticks), P275; salt-crusted Norwegian salmon with wasabi mayonnaise with aioli, good for 20 to 25 persons, P5,000.
To sweeten up your Christmas, get one (or two or three or more) of Florabel’s sinful cakes. Yes, like the yema-filled chocolate cake, P1,220; baked cheesecake with choice of topping (strawberry, blueberry, cherry), P1,220; chocolate truffle cake with coffee cream, P1,220; mango cream torte, P1,220; Chocolate Decadence with Chantilly Cream, P1,220; frozen brazo de mercedes, P1,300; Crepe Samurai Rectangular Pan, P1,200. Of course, for those on a diet, Florabel has her low-fat ricotta cheesecake with muesli crust at P1,550. And for a guilt-free indulgence, there’s Florabel’s Sugar-Free Chocolate Decadence, P1,400.
To one and all, Felix Navidad!
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Felix is located at Level 1, Greenbelt 5, Ayala Avenue, Makati City with telephone numbers 729-9062 and 496-0725. It is open Sunday to Thursday, 11 a.m. to 12 midnight; Friday to Saturday, 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. Florabel Podium is open from 11 a.m. to 12 midnight with telephone numbers 667-3220 and 638-7527.