Quezon and its cuisine

When we think of Quezon province, their May 15 fiesta always comes to mind, with images of the colorful kiping decorating homes, especially in Lucban. We look forward to discovering what the Quezonians are cooking and eating at the Quezonaria Culinary Festival on March 16 at SM City Lucena. Their secret ingredient (apologies for revealing this) is coconut by-products and we predict very flavorful concoctions.    

While waiting for our friend Chit to come back from her usual trip to the coffee farms of Cavite, we walked into Le Bistro – now called Le Bistro Vert – at Fraser Place on Valero Street in Makati. We were welcomed by an unassuming gentleman, who we later found out is Sau del Rosario, a popular and innovative chef who has recently joined Le Bistro as head of its kitchen team. Chit and her brother Sonny and his daughter Rose, all foodies on a level of authority, joined us. We enjoyed Sau’s chocolate sans rival and calamansi pie, the former dripping with chocolate cream and heavy with cashew nuts (indulgence is actually allowed once in a while). Some new items on the menu are Sagada orange, carabao cheese and tomato starter; Le Bistro Vert salad of tinapa, salted egg and quezo de bola; Tagaytay farmed vegetable lasagna; tuyo fillet with chili pesto sauce; and grilled marinated vegetables sandwich.

They also offer a vegetarian bento with three sets to choose from – tom yang soup, watermelon herb salad, yellow curry with rice, and coffee with chocnut; green pea soup, smoked fish with green salad, beef stew with organic vegetables, and garlic-potato yema; or spiced pumpkin soup, Chilean seabass with nori, spring onions and shoyu sauce, tofu with steamed bokchoy, vegetable fried rice, and green tea lemon cookie.

You might also want to join their yoga sessions, conducted by Jeannie.

As mentioned in a previous column, cooking courses seem to be attracting a lot of young men and women. Cooking schools, ranging from the expensive, internationally affiliated degree institutions to comparatively small organizations and colleges, have emerged and are apparently doing well. A few years ago, De La Salle-College of St. Benilde started offering a culinary course leading to a BS-HRM degree. Judging from our recent visit to the school, the enrolment is sizeable. Our friend Ed, a hotel veteran, says the course has four tracks – Hospitality Management, Culinary Arts, Travel and Tourism, and International Hotel Management – a joint venture with Vatel Hotel School based in Paris. 

The College of Saint Benilde hotel, run like an international enterprise, is the ideal work place for hands-on training for students. A block away is the Solomon Guest House, called the ‘hatchery’ because here, the senior students render the prescribed 300 hours of work, experiencing the life of hospitality staff to prepare them for the serious business of hostelry. The house is named after La Salle brother and martyr Solomon Nicholas Leclerg. A former residence converted into a lodging place with a restaurant and kitchen on the ground floor, it is a busy hub. We were introduced to executive chef Vanna and operations manager Paul, both seniors and ready to graduate. Food cost is reasonable, with items ranging from P50 to P95. We had a Mid-Eastern meal of mulligatawny soup which was thick enough, mousakka for which we were given a choice, purely vegetarian or with pork. We chose the latter, perfectly cut but they used filo pastry in between the layers, perhaps to make it stable. It was authentic enough, but maybe more cream can be added. The chicken garam masala can be improved with a more intense flavor. But the tiramisu was the best of the day. 

When they graduate, students train in hotels in the country. Paul said students prefer to work at Sofitel, Shangri-la and Manila Peninsula. From there, they are off to jobs either in their training grounds, other hotels and restaurants, big liners or overseas postings. Who knows, one of them may end up in such a prestigious work place as the Filipina who rules over the White House kitchen.

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