#tastingmenu

[sortedsouls]

Say Cheese 🧀! #cheesecubes #cheeseplatter #tastingmenu #shotonsonyalpha #sortedsouls #foodphotographyprops (at Bangalore, India) https://www.instagram.com/p/CqH1TP5B8Lv/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[thehungrykat1]

Tatung’s Private Dining Presents New 10-Course Tasting Menu

With so many new restaurants and hotels now starting to reopen, it’s getting harder to find new dining experiences that offer something unique and memorable. It’s easy to dine at five-star hotel restaurants nowadays, especially since all of them are back to full operations, but there’s one activity that we seldom get to do, and that’s having a 10-course private dining experience prepared by one of the country’s top celebrity chefs right inside his own home! We had such an unforgettable experience last weekend when we dined at Tatung’s Private Dining in Antipolo, Rizal.

This is not just any residence because Tatung’s Private Dining is gorgeous! It has that beautiful resthouse and resort feel with its large garden and pool areas complimented with several dining spaces for big or small groups. For tonight, The Hungry Kat was invited with a few of our friends for a preview of the new tasting menu created by Chef Tatung where guests can go on a culinary adventure around the Philippines. It was truly a night to remember.

Chef Tatung’s Private Dining is open from Thursday to Sunday on a By-Reservation basis. Thursday and Friday reservations require a minimum of 6 persons while there is no minimum required on Saturday and Sunday. The residence is located along the rolling hills of Sierra Made and Antipolo, more specifically in Baras, Rizal. It is just less than an hour’s drive from Marcos Highway in Marikina, or just about an hour away from Pasig and C-5 in Quezon City. You can easily find it on Waze.

Chef Tatung opened his private hillside home in Rizal last May to welcome diners willing to venture off the beaten track for an exquisite dining experience. The well-manicured gardens and refreshing open areas are a breath of fresh air, especially now that the cities have become quite crowded once again. Chef Tatung used to host private dinners before in 2011 at his residence in Sikatuna Village, Quezon City, so he is quite experienced when it comes to these setups.

Chef Myke “Tatung” Sarthou is best known for his multimedia presence as an award-winning and best-selling author and the man behind Simpol, an online cooking show. In 2017, he earned the distinction of being the representative of the Philippines in Madrid Fusion, held in Madrid, Spain, where he also got to cook and showcase Philippine cuisine in Michelin-starred restaurants. His cooking is described as honest and straightforward, delicious with a touch of whimsy. The ambiance and service at his garden enclave heighten the whole destination dining experience.

There are several distinct areas around Tatung’s Private Dining, each with its own charm. Guests can first gather at the Outdoor Gazebo where welcome drinks will be served while waiting for other guests to arrive.

As the sun sets, the residence itself takes on a different romantic personality. Chef Tatung designed this place all by himself, without any formal architect or designers. His talent and craft is definitely not limited to the kitchen.

I was immediately met by the venue’s cute host, Choco Martin aka Guard Dog Dalisay. We had a short tour around the house, which is where Chef Tatung actually lives when he is not in Manila attending events and activities. His room is just upstairs with the rest of his family.

There’s a smaller private room here which can accommodate 6 to 8 persons. This room comes with several Chinese decors so it is called the Chinese Room.

On the other hand, the main dining hall is where most of the action happens. This can accommodate up to 20 persons and also comes with its own open kitchen where Chef Tatung and his crew will prepare your courses. There’s also a small al fresco area just outside the dining hall with a great view of the pool and gardens.

Chef Tatung has released a new 10-course menu called Nurturing Roots, which will be available starting August until October. The menu showcases little known ingredients, flavors and preparations from different parts of the country.

Complimentary bread baskets are served on the table to start our adventure around the archipelago. Theses are all freshly baked and still warm from the oven.

Our “Abre Gana” or starter in Cebuano comes with a trio of torched Kesong Puti using carabao mozzarella, Ensalada with Ampalaya Salad, and Crab Fat Butter.

The torched pork slice is a very savory component that balances the flavors of the salsa and the kesong puti. What I really loved was the crab fat aligue that I used to spread on the breads. It was a heavenly combination that left me wanting more, but this was just the first course so I had to be patient.

Guests have the option to get the 10-course tasting menu with wine pairing which comes with one glass of Cava, one glass of white wine and glass of red wine. These are great companions to each dish and makes the evening more memorable.

Our second course is Chef Tatung’s take on the tamales from Tacloban. The Tamalos is a Visayan Tamales topped with grilled corn salad. It’s quite a different presentation from the tamales that I usually see. It also comes with a dark barbecue-like sauce that gives it a savory taste.

Next is the Lumpiang Freska with its heart of palm and mixed seafood wrapped inside a squid ink crepe. This squid ink lumpia is definitely not your lola’s lumpia. It is served with a coconut sauce, garlic, and fish roe for a balance of sweet and salty flavors.

We also noticed that even though it is called a tasting menu, the portions of each course are quite big, unlike other tasting courses where you will still end up feeling hungry afterward. Chef Tatung makes sure that every guest will go home feeling content and fully satisfied.

The very pretty Duck Floss Warp is inspired by the Maranao pastil or patir which is a Filipino rice dish packed in wrapped in banana leaves. This wrap comes with airy duck floss, Maranao palapa, and betel nut leaf.

Simply crush down the duck floss to cover the betel nut leaf then wrap it like a lumpia. You can eat it by hand or just use your utensils to take a bite. The palapa is a popular dish from the Maranao people from Lanao del Sur and this is where Chef Tatung gets his inspiration for this dish.

Those were all just appetizers by the way. Now let’s go to our main courses. The Inasal at Saksak Sinagol is an adobo dish like no other. It comes with honey-glazed slow-roasted pork, mixed crop rice, and fried garlic. The Saksak Sinagol is a crop preparation from across the Visayas and Mindanao popular during times when rice is scarce. Chef Tatung adds his own touch to make these dishes truly special.

The red wine is really good to pair with the main courses, so I highly suggest to get the option with wine-pairing.

The next is a seafood course called the Ginataang Isda. This one comes with labahita, coconut sauce, and roasted squash. The tender fish is topped with a rich coconut sauce that adds a unique flavor profile to the dish.

Our seventh course is a colorful palate cleanser served on fancy dinnerware. The Sorbetes is a watermelon-calamansi sorbet that serves as a sweet and short break to prepare us for the final main course.

Here we have the Sarciado which in the Tagalog language means "cooked with a thick sauce". This powerful dish comes with beef shortribs ala mechada, adlai risotto, and grilled mushrooms. I’ve never had mechado that tasted this good before, and the beef shortribs were really very tender. I was already quite full by this time, but the Sarciado was too good not to finish.

For our desserts, we were offered two delightful and colorful dishes. The Panghimagas Primera was a cassava cake topped with yema and sprinkled with quezo de bola. The Panghimagas Segunda came with a Tablea de Cebu cake, cashew nuts, and mango bits. Both desserts served as great endings to our 10-course culinary adventure.

We would like to thank Chef Tatung for inviting us to his lovely home and personally preparing this preview of his new flavorful tasting menu around the Philippines. You can reserve your own Tatung’s Private Dining experience for P4,700++ per person, or P6,000++ with welcome drink and wine pairing. Seats are very limited so make sure to plan your weekends ahead and enjoy this very unique and memorable dinner.

Tatung's Private Dining

Reservations: [phone]

Facebook / Instagram: @tatungsprivatedining

[graceforty]

day two hundred and fifty two

[saltshakerconsulting]

Hear no evil, speak no evil, and you won’t be invited to cocktail parties.” ― Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde

[lansdellicious]

Experiencing Raymonds

Given the relatively small population of St. John’s and environs (just over a quarter million people, give or take), we have a lot of restaurants. What we don’t have in abundance is fine dining; in fact, Raymonds might be the only one in the province. Despite having eaten at a lot of restaurants over the last few years, we have avoided Raymonds for a few reasons: it’s far from cheap, the menu is not published in advance, and it can be hard to get a table there. I had precisely zero experience with a tasting menu before the night, and I was slightly concerned that multiple dishes would be something I didn’t like. As you may know if you’ve read any of my reviews here before, I have been trying to expand my tastes somewhat. A recent promotion at work gave us the excuse we needed to celebrate, so we bit the bullet and booked the table. We had no idea what was waiting for us.

A caveat: Raymonds is not for everyone. While the staff are incredibly accommodating and patient in explaining the menu options and ingredients, the choices are relatively set. There’s a five- and seven-course tasting menu, and a three-course menu that is somewhat à la carte. If one of the courses is something you just can’t eat they will try to make a substitution, but ultimately it’s down to the chef. The price is also high: the five-course menu is $125 per person, with an additional $80 if you go with the wine pairings (selected by the in-house sommelier and manager Jeremy Bonia). Not an everyday outing, that’s for sure. 

We went for the five-course option, which actually ended up being more like eight courses by the time all the extras were provided. As adventurous as I wanted to get, I couldn’t stretch to trying scallops so we were able to substitute them for a beef option (more on that soon). We opted against the wine pairings this time, though I think when we go back we’ll take that plunge too. 

You can tell a meal is going to be something special when the bread and butter they bring you to open the palate is better than most appetizers you’ve had, ever. House-made sourdough would have been great on its own, but it was served with whipped house-made smoked butter. I had never before had smoked butter, and now I am ruined forever. All future butter will either be smoked or inferior. I could have eaten it with a spoon.

This was somehow the beet dish, a beet and apple salad with ricotta, toasted red fife, and a topping of both beet and apple “glass” and some sort of hardened foam that melted in your mouth. I really don’t know how to describe this, except for “total tongue assault”. The combination of flavours and textures made every part of the palate sing. The apples were tart and crisp, the beets had their characteristic sweetness but were also pickled, the ricotta was exceedingly light and creamy, and the red fife gave a nutty undertone. The “glass” on the top was made from the juices of the apples and beets used in the dish, somehow turned solid and wafer-thin. If you can picture the thin film of ice that forms on puddles just as the temperature drops below freezing, that’s the texture. The flavour was intense with a subtle smoky, almost ashy taste that worked so well with everything else. The bread-looking stuff on the top was the foam that served almost as a tuile, and added a really light and airy crisp. When the waiter explained the dish as if he himself had conceived of it, I knew this was going to be unlike any meal I had ever had. 

On to the pasta course, a moose ragout on orrechiette with more ricotta and finely-diced carrot, topped with a toasted breadcrumb. In the 20 years I have lived in Newfoundland, I have had so many people tell me that I would love moose. So I dutifully try it and dislike it, until the next person tells me that nobody else knows how to cook it and I should try it the way they cook it. Lather, rinse, repeat. 

Now I can legitimately say that nobody else knows how to cook moose. This was tender almost to melting point, with a hint of the earthiness that had been overpowering and off-putting to me before. The ricotta here was of a different texture and flavour than in the previous dish, and it gave an excellent additional dimension to the dish. The pasta was pleasantly al dente, and the whole dish felt like a warm hug from the inside. High-end comfort food if you will. Although I did really enjoy this, I didn’t get the intensity of flavour from the ragout that I expected. It needed a bit more punch and depth I think. Sarah loved it more than me, but I still really enjoyed it. 

Left to my own devices I would not normally order ribeye this rare. It was served in a veal and chanterelle jus (not the last time we will see chanterelles tonight) with a parsnip puree and charred broccoli and leeks. I just...I have no words. If you watch any cooking shows you have heard the term caramelization, but I never really fathomed how important it was until I ate this. No fancy seasonings, no special sauces, just a depth of beefy salty flavour that seemed so wonderfully natural. The jus added even more depth to the meat, and almost seemed to bridge the gap between the beef and the vegetables. The parsnip puree was perfectly smooth and slightly sweet, and the charred leeks in particular were beautifully done. “Meat and two veg” might be a British cliché for Sunday dinner, but this was that old chestnut rehashed and mastered. 

Lamb three ways was up next: loin on the left, tenderloin on the right and lamb belly underneath. The loin was a touch disappointing and lacking in flavour, although the tenderloin made up for it. Both cuts were greatly enhanced by (yet-again) perfect caramelization. Sarah loves lamb and enjoyed hers much more, but her loin looked less fatty than mine so that may have been the difference. 

I had not even heard of lamb belly before (as a meal, obviously I know lambs had bellies...), and it was an interesting offering. Definitely less fatty than the more common pork belly, but with a flavour that was actually pronounced. It was glazed with a black apple glaze and garnished with unripe blackcurrants, but the flavour on the glaze was either too subtle for me or just didn’t come through. I don’t remember what the jus was but it was delicious. On the side we had more parsnip puree and sliced celeriac. I’ve seen celeriac in supermarkets before and it did not look appealing, but the flavour was like parsnip with a hint of celery. Probably because it is related to them both. 

Next up we had a “pre-dessert” as our waiter Julian called it - blueberries poached in brown butter with a chanterelle and blueberry pound cake, chanterelle meringue (!!) and chanterelle ice cream (!!!). Again, something I would never in a million years ordered on its own. Who’d even think of chanterelle ice cream? That said, this was a surprisingly good a refreshing amuse-bouche before the dessert. I am not normally a fan of blueberries, but they were good here with the brown butter. Pound cake is almost always delightful, and the addition of chanterelles almost seemed to lighten the usually dense cake. The real treats though were the meringue and ice cream. Sarah isn’t a big meringue fan but even she really enjoyed the lightness of it, and the ice cream had such a clean and subtle flavour that I finally understand the term “palette cleanser.” A bonus course, you say? Don’t mind if I do!

It’s not often I have to google an ingredient, but I had never heard of sea buckthorn before. One of the things mentioned in the description was that its flavour is enhance by something called maltolactic fermentation. Lactic, as in milk? Well that’s helpful. It was served as a curd, topped with a streusel and milk sorbet. The flavour is very hard to quantify: it reminded me of passion fruit, sour orange, mango and bakeapple all at the same time. The milk sorbet did wonders to mellow the tartness of the berries, which Sarah found stronger than I did. Definitely a unique flavour, but one I really want to work into a cheesecake somehow. To cap the meal off (in addition to our coffees), a lemon verbeena salted caramel was served, A delightful little treat to send us home.

Aside from how much I enjoyed everything, I think the biggest surprise to me was that despite the small serving sizes I was pleasantly full at the end of the meal. The service was impeccably friendly and helpful, not at all snobby as once could be forgiven for thinking. The decor really is reminiscent of every high-end restaurant you’ve seen on TV, complete with waiters with one arm in the small of their back. If you have an occasion to celebrate and/or the income to manage it, you owe it to yourself to visit Raymonds, It is not a meal you eat so much as it is a food experience, and I am a more rounded person for having done so.

Now to plan the return trip...

[rogeliochef]

Achiote pork loin @bearflowerfarm ,purple yam, yuzu aioli, mustard gastric. #tastingmenu @alloydining #chefsplateform #armyofchefs #yyceats #yycrestaurants #instagood #instafood #cheflife #pla #tastingmenu @alloydining #instafood #yycrestaurants #chefsplatform #armyofchefs #cheflife #chefslife🔪 #chefstalk #chefsoninstagram #chefstable #chefstime #yyceatscalgary #yyc #yycfood #pork (at Alloy) https://www.instagram.com/p/BtFYLeBBIzC/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1qyk5f7wq3se1

[parisfind]

#dessert at #Arpége #tastingmenu #Paris #alainpassard #Parismaville #Parisjetaime #Pariscity iloveParis #villedeParis #parisfind (at Restaurant Arpège)

[bambolinanyc]

About last night... celebrating 11 years with @215funk at @eatblanca - beautiful food experience and amazing wine flights. Strange to sit down and have no idea what you'll be eating, but the very best way to try new things (Gigi had beer and scallops and sea urchin and fermented blueberry!) Trying not to overshare with all 20 small plates, swipe for the highlights #anniversarydinner #tastingmenu #brooklyn #foodporn #foodie #wineflight #rosé #smallplate #chefstable #openkitchen #dinnertoremember (at Blanca)