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| How about a hug, Chef? #closekami |
Alain Ducasse finally made it to Manila (his second time) for the charity dinner for the benefit of Tuloy Foundation.
Entitled Youth with a Future, the project of the Ducasse Institute for which funds are being raised will support students of Tuloy Foundation enrolled in their own culinary certificate program. To enhance the career opportunities of the students, Ducasse Institute Philippines will review the current curriculum of Tuloy Foundation to emulate the existing programs that are offered at the Enderun campus.
We wrote about this last year, when Ducasse was originally supposed to come. But due to Yolanda, considering the devastation, the organizers decided to postpone the five digit dinner.
Tonight the dinner finally pushed through - and the Enderun tent was packed! Congratulations to my friend Beng Villanueva, contracted by Enderun to set up the place. She put on display at the back the items that were auctioned off tonight.
These included a mortar and pestle from the personal collection of Alain Ducasse. This sold for P44,000. Dinner at Beige in Tokyo was sold to Chef J Gamboa for P35,000 (if I remember correctly). Dinner at Louis XV in Monaco sold for P140,000. But the best bidding war was for the 10 pax dinner to be prepared by Chef Jerome Lacressonniere, who prepared the dinner tonight. Someone raised the bid to P200,000. To push it higher, Lacressonniere went against the rules and offered two dinners for the person who would bid beyond P200K. Another table hit P205K. But this changed the auctioned item so in the spirit of charity, two winners were announced at P200K each. The auction raised over P700,000 for the Tuloy sa Don Bosco Foundation. As per Enderun VP Tricia Tensuan, they raised total of over P1.6 Million for Tuloy from the dinner. How's that for generosity?
What did we eat? Oh, the usual - foie gras, lobster, steak, chocolate LOL. Prepared "the Ducasse way". It was traditional, it was French, it was lovely.
What's the Ducasse way? Foie gras this big.
"Forget the mango chutney, I just want the foie gras," Nina Daza Puyat and CJ Juntereal said separately. And halfway through the foie, we were all looking for more bread.
Foie gras de canard confit. Amen.
Next was spiny lobster. The langouste court-bouillonnee aka the soup/sauce was so good after the lobster was gone I wiped it all off with bread.
This is Kitayama Wagyu tenderloin. Sooooo tender and proudly local.
But the vegetable gratin that accompanied it made its own statement.
Last but not least, chocolate.
This was by Chef Franck Geuffroy and it was fabulous. I am still loyal to Louis XV but this was heavenly as well.
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| The French Connection. Left: Chef Jerome Lacressonniere. Right: Pastry chef Franck Geuffroy. |
Yesterday at the food forum also at the Alain Ducasse Institute at Enderun, a food writer asked, Why French?
Mr. Ducasse replied, " French cuisine is about techniques, rules ... like how to season, etc. There's a whole set of rules that has to be learned but this is an essential ground (foundation). Then you keep repeating these techniques. It's about rigor and discipline until you no longer have to follow the rules but they follow you."
Congratulations to Tricia Tensuan, Bel Castro, Chef See and Team Enderun on this super successful event! It was worth the wait :)
