Enderun College

Turning a hobby into a profession is a big step few are daring, committed and serious enough to take. So I salute those in the culinary industry who have taken the effort to turn their talent into a title and shoot from something just sexy to something downright serious.

When I was in college, cooking was not something that could be considered a profession. If you took a course in Home Economics, you would be viewed, especially for girls, as "merely housewife material." It was looked down on. Or if your course was Hotel and Restaurant Management, it was a notch above Home Ec but still nothing compared to Management Engineering or Business or Marketing Management.

Today, thank God, the culinary industry has gained the respect it deserves. Thanks in part to celebrity chefs, who have introduced the glamor factor in being a "chef" while emphasizing the hard labor that accompanies the title; and thanks in part to globalization, that has allowed us to travel and see how seriously chefs in more developed countries treat their craft.

In the 90s, culinary courses became the in thing. Heny Sison, Gene Gonzalez, Reggie Aspiras are some of the names that come top of mind.

Today, someone has upped the ante. Enderun College is a specialty college that is devoted specifically to hotel and restaurant management, which, btw, they call HOSPITALITY MANAGEMENT now. And the ace up its sleeve is that offers not just a certificate but a diploma in the degree Hospitality Management. They teach regular college courses - philosophy, history, algebra - but these are angled to serve the end goal which is to mold the students to become the restaurateurs/ chefs/ hotel managers that they want to become. So history's got trivia that would include - I don't know - what kind of apple Eve fed Adam or something. They also have really cool courses like Wine Appreciation and Bartending. Which makes it totally legit to go drink with your professors - of course that's not the point.

The point is that the effort has been made to hone the culinary talents of the new generation and push them toward the right direction in the best possible way, using the best tools and more important in this profession, the best ingredients.

Let me illustrate. One of the classes the kids have is Restaurant 101. Two hours in the morning of theory then it's off to the kitchen to apply what they've learned by serving real paying customers for lunch. So Restaurant 101 is not just a course but a real restaurant. The kids get to experience what it's like to be in the real world and hopefully all disillusions of a chef being a sexy job are thrown out the window and they realize that there is in fact work work work!

So I ate at Restaurant 101 to check out what they had to offer. I was very impressed by the quality of the food, the quality of the service and the general vibe of the place. Nothing beats eagerness, I guess, and I must commend the professors for pushing this eagerness toward the direction of excellence.

I started my meal with soup, the Tomato Espresso, whose texture was excellent. This was followed by a curious appetizer with "Buffalo Mozzarella" which turned out to simply be Kesong Puti. My mom, who was with me, cracked up at the way they worded it. But hey, that's the creativity of the youth! We had fish, chicken and ribs for our main course (we eat a lot, yah) and the champ turned out to be the ribs, as recommended by our very young waiter. It was very soft you would mistake it for chicken. Most impressive though was the chocolate cake, which was much better than the chocolate cakes in some of the better restaurants in Manila. And those are supposedly by professionals. Over here it's "just" students.

Restaurant 101, unfortunately, is not open to the public. They are on a "members only" policy so their clients are executives of the neighboring Asian Development Bank, building workers/residents, and of course the parents of the students. (I just got lucky because I work for PDI.)

Next year, Enderun plans to open a HUUUUGE campus at the Fort. It will be THE biggest Hospitality Management school in the WORLD. www.enderun.com.ph Plus they have a tie up with THE Les Roches School of Hospitality Management so the kids will have, aside from additional bragging rights, kick butt Swiss training. Hold it down feel the noise!

(Photo from Enderun.)