Lunch with Chuck Hughes

Being married to a chef has its up and downs — well, mostly ups.

On the downside, I never used to enjoy food until I met my future husband and started to gain weight.

On the upside, there’s always good food in the house.

Being married to a chef also means we watch the Asian Food Channel (AFC) a lot. That’s why I accepted an invitation to have lunch with Chuck Hughes, star of Chuck’s Day Off on AFC.

The venue was the Rankine Room of Heat, Edsa Shangri-La Hotel’s busy buffet restaurant.

But that Monday, I had never seen Heat so filled to the rafters, with young cooking fans having lunch and waiting to catch a glimpse of the Canadian chef.

Inside the function room, a select group of media was treated to a cooking demo where chef Hughes used seafood flown in from Canada.

The tall chef wore a black AFC apron tied over a black shirt, shorts and sneakers and immediately spoke nonstop about his love for the Philippines, the people and the food.

Chuck Hughes is the youngest Canadian chef to win the popular show, Iron Chef America.

So passionate is he about food, that his favorites are tattooed on his arms in the form of bacon, lobster, arugula leaves and even lemon meringue pie.

After graduating from Institut de tourisme et d’hôtellerie du Québec in Canada, he worked in some of Montreal’s most popular restaurants before opening his first restaurant, Garde Manger, with his two best friends.

Located in Old Montreal, the den-like restaurant is where he puts his magical spin on comfort food, and serves decadent meals along with his favorite rock soundtracks.

The 35-year-old chef said he never dreamed of becoming a TV star until he received offers two to three years after opening Garde Manger.

In August 2011, he opened his second eatery, Le Bremner, also in Montreal.

In the function room, he demonstrated three dishes: salt-cured cod and roasted garlic spread crouton; pan-grilled rock perch fillet with green gazpacho; and jerk Dungeness crab with chili and chives.

These were put aside in the demo area, while the chef sat down with us for quick lunch.

Luckily the entire buffet spread prepared by Heat chefs consisted of seafood, which is in sync with my Lenten sacrifice.

In between bites, chef Hughes talked about his trip to the dampa near Manila Bay, where he sampled fresh seafood cooked by locals, enjoyed with halo-halo and green mango with bagoong.

He liked talangka so much, he’s thinking of making it his next tattoo.

Chuck spoke excitedly about a Filipino episode he recently taped where he cooks adobo pork shank and pineapple coconut pie for a Filipino father and son.

Having achieved a lot at the age of 35, Chuck expressed a desire to have kids — but it’s hard right now with two successful restaurants, a TV show and traveling all over the world.

Cooking it up at Heat, assisted by chef Trixie Hafalla of the Edsa Shangri-La

From Manila he flew to Singapore and Hong Kong to continue his tour, followed by Cannes where he will promote his TV show.

“I’m lucky to have a girlfriend who understands,” says Chuck of Sabrina, whom he gets to see maybe six days in a month whenever he’s in Canada. Chuck speaks of her fondly and describes her as a very good cook.

After a quick lunch, Chuck was whisked away to his fans in Heat (no pun intended) who were waiting for photo ops. He gladly posed for pictures, stopping only briefly for a bathroom break.

Down-to-earth is what really comes to mind when one meets Chuck Hughes in person. He is exactly what you see on the show, the chef who loves to cook for friends and family on his day off and invites the fish supplier to sit down and try what he can really do a fish.

While Chuck chatted with other writers in the room, I kept an eye on the Dungeness crab he had cooked earlier and wondered what would become of it. I gathered enough guts to ask Lesley Tan, director of communications at Edsa Shangri-La Manila, if I could take home the crab for dinner.

You can imagine my excitement when she said yes.

That night I sat down for dinner with my husband and kids who luckily are not into crabs — I had it all to myself and can tell you this much: I was in heaven. Chuck Hughes is a wonderful cook. I can’t tell you how much I loved my dinner and it is the best takeaway ever.

Eating Filipino food at the dampa. What he liked the most were talangka.