The art of degustation at The Goose Station
You will probably get lost, like I did, trying to find your way to The Goose Station, a four-month-old restaurant on the less-traveled side of The Fort. There are few landmarks to guide you, apart from Manila Water (go past that) and the white W Tower that’s home to the restaurant itself. (No, this W is not destined to become part of that terminally hip chain of hotels; it’s a residential building owned by a family whose last name starts with “W.”)
If you are lost, though, try your best to find your way, because The Goose Station is one of the best fine-dining restaurants in Metro Manila today.
For me, arguably, it is the best. Or at the very least, it is the most promising newcomer. Owned, operated and conceived by local cuisine’s golden couple, chefs Roberto Pengson and Sunshine Puey Pengson, The Goose Station is built around the concept of the degustation, or tasting, menu.
You won’t get dizzy ordering from a menu that offers a hundred dishes. Nor will you be intimidated by haute cuisine with fancy French terms to trip you up or snooty waiters to make you feel unworthy. No, the only choice you have to make is between the Signature Menu, a nine-course meal that could take you two to three hours to enjoy, depending on how busy the restaurant is; and the Express Menu, a five-courser that takes half the time, but is sort of like the trailer before the main feature — you’re only getting half the picture.
“We get really excited if people order the Signature because it’s not only per dish, it’s also what’s the next dish, and the next, so there’s a buildup,” says Pengson, who trained at California Culinary Academy and used to host the culinary show Chef to Go on QTV. “The Goose Station is about our degustation-style dinners mainly, which is like a Chinese lauriat with Japanese kaiseki portions, but the name is also a play on words,” he says. “We wanted to do something that chefs have been doing around the world to great success and more importantly, great fulfillment, because if you’re a chef, you want to cook your food.”
The first time I went to Goose Station was for a late dinner, so I chose the Express Menu. Then I was so bowled over by the food I had to bring my husband to try it; we went for lunch so he ordered the Signature, while I had to go with the Express again to taste the other half of the menu. (Customers also have the option of ordering à la carte.)
Both menus start with a quartet of “snacks,” my favorite of which is the foie cone, a whipped foie gras mousse in a filo-pastry cone topped with a dollop of fruit jam and macadamia nut — two bites of heaven. The other three are equally brilliant, though: a pane of potato “glass” (yes, you can almost see through it) cunningly served in a decorative clip, which qualifies as the most refined potato chip I’ve ever eaten; a truffle puff redolent with the earthy flavor of black truffles; and a sweet-salty macaroon filled with prosciutto ham and guava jam.
Pengson plans to change 75 percent of the menu soon to lighter, more summery fare, but I hope he keeps his unagi-and-foie-gras terrine, which sounds like bizarre fusion but is actually a killer combination of Japanese eel and more goose liver. This richness piled upon richness goes startlingly well together — cut by an apple tartare for acid and gingerbread “soil” for crunch — and it’s an exquisite mating of east and west.
Goose Station’s most popular dish, however, is the eggs benedict, a breakfast classic deconstructed into a martini glass. You’re supposed to break the poached egg at the bottom and spoon it up along with the Hollandaise foam it’s nestled in, and a bit of the crispy bacon tuile sticking out of the lemon-yellow froth like a glorified umbrella. Seasoned with fleur de sel and white truffle oil, The Goose Station’s eggs benedict has such clear yet comforting flavors that I’ll never be able to dine on this brunch staple the same way again. I’ll always wish the Hollandaise was lighter, the bacon crispier, and the treatment more modern, if not downright molecular.
“The eggs benedict and Hollandaise foam was Sunshine’s idea, but my execution came out really well,” Pengson says with a laugh.
He prefers the term “modern cuisine” to “molecular gastronomy” but whatever you choose to call it, for all its rustic ambience there’s a definite molecular vibe going on at The Goose Station. In the refreshing beet garden salad — TGS’s replacement for the traditional sorbet as a palate-cleansing intermezzo — beet jelly and orange powder are two of the 19 ingredients beautifully laid out on a flowerbed-like plate. In one corner of the kitchen there’s a sous-vide water bath where prime short ribs languor for a full day before transforming into fork-tender 24-hour steak. Pengson also shows me a smoker he just bought in our short tour of the petite kitchen.
“Now we have a smoker I want to do a dish that’s covered in smoke when you open it,” he says with the excitement of a boy showing off a new toy. “Hopefully it works.”
Both Rob and his wife enjoy modern cuisine — Heston Blumenthal of The Fat Duck is an influence, as is Thomas Keller of The French Laundry — both of whom Pengson has met.
“Our first brush with this kind of food was in Singapore, at a place called Aurum. Some dishes were weird, but others really had us after a bite, like wow, how in the world do they do these things?”
To find out, Rob and Sunshine trained in Japan at Tapas Molecular Bar at the Mandarin Oriental Tokyo.
“It was only a week but they taught us a lot,” he says. “The thing about molecular is that a lot of people do it, but it’s not always good, so for us here I didn’t want to be too out there. Because the risk of being molecular is you don’t feel like you had a meal.”
There’s not much risk of that at The Goose Station, where the tasting portions are so generous you could mistake them for full-size servings. By the time I arrived at the duck-confit entrée of my Express Menu, I was so full I had to have most of it wrapped to take home.
Prices for the Express Menu (P1,700 for five courses, VAT included) and Signature Menu (P2,500 for nine courses, VAT inclusive) are not cheap, but consider this: my professional foodie friends who’ve eaten at Grant Achatz’s Alinea and French Laundry, where tasting menus normally go for US$140 to $240, have nothing but good things to say about The Goose Station. Since you get a world-class meal at TGS for a mere $50, comparatively speaking, you’re getting great value for money.
Pengson, who splits his time between The Goose Station and Global Academy, his culinary and hospitality school (TGS staff is comprised of his top students), is currently devising a summer menu that will showcase seafood and seasonal produce like tomatoes and melons.
“Every artist needs to have his gallery or workshop, and this is it for us,” he says about The Goose Station.
Personally I can’t wait to taste what magical new dishes will come out of that tiny kitchen.
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The Goose Station is located on the ground level of the W Tower, 1117 39th Street, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City, Metro Manila. For reservations, call 556-9068, mobile (0917) 854-6673, e-mail eat@thegoosestation.com or visit www.thegoosestation.ph.
