In suburbs where many Filipinos reside, authentic Filipino carinderia-type eateries still abound, but that's all about the Filipino food scene which for so many years had been expected to bloom or generate interest. Yet, that expectation has yet to bear fruit.
Luckily, five star hotels have in recent memories been pushing for Filipino food in an elegant nearly fine-dining buffet presentation.
Until last year, Grace Hotel in Sydney had for more than ten years organised an annual two-week food festival. Shangri-la Hotel's ten-day Filipino food festival is edibly becoming part of its food calendar
"Every year, we organise several food festivals with cuisines from around the southeast Asian countries, but the Philippines is the most popular, " says Madeleine Coe, Communications Executive of Shangri-la Sydney.
Coe, who is familiar with fine dining market in CBD, has noticed that there is no restaurant in the CBD the offers authentic Filipino food in a formal dining setting. (She is quite right. La Mesa in Haymarket which is the Filipino food restaurant with close to a fine-dining setting closed down early this year.)
Unfortunately, five-star hotels can not offer permanent country-theme restaurants. "A food festival is the one closest to it," admits Coe.
Now on its sixth edition, the Filipino Food Festival which runs usually between September and October offers authentic Pinoy cuisine, including desserts. When it debuted in 2012, it was privileged to have no less than the Philippine head of state as one of its customers -- President Noynoy Aquino.
Usually, a team of three from Shangri-la Makati comes here to oversee the preparation and cooking.
But this year, it's different. Executive Sous Chef of Shangri-la Makati, Anthon Galo, who usually assigns chefs from Manila to lead this popular festival has flew in himself to oversee this spring edition. He brought along two of his more experienced staff -- chef de partie Zharin Salac and Manny Boy Alday.
"We are offering nine main dishes and more than ten desserts, aside from the salads" explains Galo. "We try to offer a dish from every region in the Philippines"
Lechon de leche from Cebu, bagnet binagoongang from the Ilocos region, bistek na Isda from the Tagalog region, and chicken Inasal from the Visayas are some of the mouth-watering results.
Galo knows that modern Filipino food fusion is gaining popularity across the globe, and for this year, he wants Filipino Australians to have authentic Filipino food, and so authentic that even in their leche flan, "We use condensed milk rather than milk and sugar, which is very common in western cooking of creme-based deserts."
"And this differentiates our leche flan from the others,' he proudly says.
(The ten-day Filipino Food festival at Cafe Mix, Shangri-La Hotel in Sydney ends on 30 September)
Source: SBS
Source: SBS
