Some Things Never Last: La Regalade Food Fest

Have you ever missed a film festival or a local run of your favorite play or didn't buy that specially-colored Balenciaga bag in Greenbelt 5 because you decided to wait it out? Many times we put off doing things, saying that, "I'll do it next week" or "I can't get a group together."

For those of you who got to partake of La Regalade's French Moroccan food festival that ended last month, consider yourselves very lucky.

LU's Luis de Terry guest cheffed for this special food festival and added his usual flair to freshen up the La Regalade menu for the months of December and January. All the dishes were brimming with flavors both subtle and strong.

Shrimp and squid rghayef

 Though the name is a mouthful, this rghayef was an interesting play of cumin, coriander and paprika combined with crispy filo pastry. Lots and lots of coriander were sprinkled on the dishes, a little too much for my liking, even though I do love it so.

escargot a'la harissa

 For me, this escargot trumps the escargot currently on LR's regular menu, as I do not enjoy it with tomato sauce very much. These hot buttery morsels get an added zing with the Moroccan spices, and I could eat a zillion of these little suckers (literally, haha).

 pumpkin soup with fennel seeds

This soup was interesting, a little bit on the sweet side, but what I didn't enjoy was the rice found in the middle of it, which thickened the already thick consistency. The the final dish of the evening, which takes hours and hours to cook, is the lamb mechoul. Here it is in its whole form:

 Then here it is in its serveable form:

Love love love the cous cous that came with it, so flavorful and delicately cooked. The lamb was, as predicted, tender and succulent, falling off the bone. Had I not been so full of the other apps that came before it, I would've had a bit more. This lamb is good for 6, so it's best eaten with fun company.

The night we ate here it was an unpredictably torrential rainy night. Some of us almost didn't make it, but did. Other who planned to come had to turn back because of the awful traffic. Hopefully LR will continue to do more food festivals as to bring new blood to the restaurant, and hopefully add some dishes to its usual roster so we can enjoy these seasonal dishes all year round.

La Regalade
820 Arnaiz Avenue, Makati City
+632.750.2104

Foie Gras Carpaccio and More

On our last night in Paris before leaving for Avignon, where the wedding was to be held, Malu Gamboa suggested a restaurant to eat at, a place we had seemed to have passed several times, Comptoir de la Gastronomie on the Right Bank. We ordered several dishes to share.

Escargot with handles for everyone

To check this off my list, I ordered the cassoulet, which was a rich, hearty dish perfect for a cold, blustery evening, such as this night we ate out

my cassoulet

Kat's delicious ravioli with truffle oil

Kat seemed to eat more of my dish and I seemed to eat more of her dish. Don't you love sharing food and stories together over a good meal? I was supposedly supposed to split this with Bea, but she was dying with delight over it. And the winner of the evening was....

the foie gras carpaccio!

Pretty flower girls testing my 80s music skillz

We were so full and nicely tipsy over the yummy wine that we decided to walk back to Hotel Therese and promptly got lost! It's a good thing we had our gloves and scarves and other items of that nature, as it was pretty windy that night. I worked off all the foie gras and cassoulet by dancing the night away at Bus Palladium with a former collague, Ria de Borja, who is now based in Paris. 

Au revoir to one of my favorite cities in the world....

Comptoir de la Gastronomie 

34 Rue Montmartre

75001 Paris, France
01 42 33 31 32

Eating and Shopping on Rue Saint Honore

Day 3 saw us moving over to the Right Bank, in a cute boutique hotel called Hotel Therese. It is here where Manda met up with her family and the advanced party for the wedding met up for shopping and more eating.

After settling into our room we ventured round the corner to Saint Honore for lunch and the after-lunch window shopping that is usually complementary to such meals laden with butter, truffle oil, or foie.

When I go to France I usually have a checklist of food that I must eat, and this was it:
Escargot; duck; lamb or rabbit; seasonal foods such as mushrooms, white asparagus or truffle; foie gras; artisanal cheeses; souffle; eclairs; macarons; crepes.

We stopped in a bistro along the way, Le Castiglione. You can always tell if its good if there are a lot of people eating there.

Surveying their menu, I was attracted to the ceps in a dish- so I had to order it.

 excited to shop!

 Bea, Kat, me and Manda

poached eggs with ceps in a truffle cream sauce

Kat's special catch of the day

So, macaron: check. scargot: check. duck: check. Seasonal food: cep!
Now onto window shopping at Chanel, Hermes, Longchamp...etc etc etc.

Ooh la la Regalade!

There's something special going down at the French bistro La Regalade, and thank God I was there to witness it. Michelin starred chef Alain Raye is back in town fresh from Vancouver and will cook for you at the resto's first food festival up until April 18, 2010 since its opening in 2008.

He literally arrived at 5 in the morning of the first day of the festival, April 6, to oversee the ongoings in his restaurant. He had undergone surgery from a bypass the year before and had seemed a mellower version of himself. 

We had started with some wine at the bar. Since I started reading The Billionaire's Vinegar by Benjamin Wallace, wine has become somewhat of an obsession with me. I had some white and then some red, and we were served some very nice pate on toasted French baguette. When we finally sat down to dinner at about 8 PM, we were shown the food festival menu, a plethora of choices that made it difficult for any discerning diner.

For the soup and salad menu, there was a nice gazpacho, perfect for summer; a cod soup with chorizo; crab remoulade and the crab bisque with pistachios which was winking at me from the menu. There was something about the tuna carpaccio with fresh goat cheese that needed my attention. I ordered it and was it a winning combination.

When it arrived I almost forgot it was tuna. I thought it was well marbled beef, a nice surprise for those who want to eat sort of light (for a starter). I absolutely loved the red onion and the fresh goat cheese.

 This was the bisque. It was heaven in a bowl, super delish! There are times when I would truly rather have two appetizers than a starter and a main, which is what part-owner Perfecto "Bubot" Quicho did. But in true journalistic fashion, I had to have a little of everything.

There were hot starters such as parmesan cheese tart with tomatoes, steak tartare, fried prawns with fresh thyme and escargot en crouton. I got the escargot though it was the steak tartare that garnered the most stories and attention at the table, that raw, wascally wabbit (I have to admit I've never tried it).


So the stories went that the persons who loved steak tartare the most in the country were President and Mrs Marcos. They had Hyatt cater a party for them at Malacanang and the hotel had forgotten to bring with them the revered dish. Upon discovering their ghastly mistake, they told security who had a car rush rush rush back to the hotel to get the dish for the President and First Lady.

As much as I love escargot, my favorite remains the classic style of cooking it, which is to say in lots of herbs and butter where I can dip my crusty bread in.

The mains were easier to choose from as I was craving grilled lamb chops (still thinking of Jack's ribs, yummmm) but on the menu was braised lamb chops. Either way, they ran out of this specialty so I opted for the beef cheeks (on the menu it is veal cheeks, but this too, was out of stock. damn those carnivores! Let them eat tuna!).

It was in a delightful sauce and served with the signature Regalade potatoes au gratin, creamy, cheesy, "last meal before the electric chair, they're so good" potatoes. A conversation ensued on how some Regalade regulars end up ordering the delicious boeuf bourguignon for take out just so they could eat it with rice, Pinoy style. Yeah, I could see that.

By now I was royally stuffed and forgot to take a picture of the chocolate tart I had for dessert. I could have had the tart tatin or the creme brulee but truth be told, I just couldn't fit anything in there anymore.

Going back to La Regalade was a fantastic dining experience and I will be going back there again real soon, maybe for other items on the festival menu or for the Steak Frites and perhaps for the elusive apple tart tatin. If you want to eat Chef Alain's food, go there for dinner and enjoy a long leisurely experience ala the Slow Food Movement.

La Regalade Manila
825 Arnaiz Avenue, (formerly Pasay Road) Makati City. 
Tel +632.750.2104/05
Website: www.laregalademanila.com