New World Hotel Makati’s Jasmine: An Invitation to Remember

 

When in Manila and wanting to taste the best Chinese dishes around, New World Makati’s Jasmine should be on your list.

A few days after my article for New World Makati’s Chandon Sunday Brunch went live, I received an email from Ms. Rivka Nagtalon, the Director of Communications an invitation for a private tasting at their Chinese restaurant Jasmine to try out their new live seafood offerings and their made-from-scratch dimsum.

After a few SMS from the beautiful editor, I got the go signal.

 

Two weeks after receiving the e-mail, I made it back to New World Hotel Makati and met our hosts Ms. Rivka Nagtalon and Ms. Myleen Roman, the outlet manager of Jasmine who gladly showed us the new menu. I assure you that it was too much to take! I’m a foodie and Chinese dishes are always on top of my list. So, just after seeing the live seafood menu and the yum cha menu, and was told that they flew in two Hong Kong-based chefs for Jasmine, it was only a matter of time before I excitedly asked, “When do we start?!??”

To start off, we were served their dim sum combination, which is usually served with tea as part of Yum cha. Here, however, we were offered sparkling wine or champagne to accompany the platter. It was an all-out assault off the bat. The shrimp cheese spring roll was surprisingly good, especially since there are no traditional Chinese dishes that incorporate cheese (as far as I know, anyway). The pork shoamai (siumai, shumai or siomai) was good. The wagyu beef and mango roll  just worked and quoting Ms. Rivka, “You can’t go wrong with beef and mangoes”,  and I agree with her.

Out of the five dim sum platters that we were served, the har gao and the xiaolongbao were particularly dear to me. The har gao (hakaw) is probably my favorite dim sum ever and this one is probably the best I ever had. The shrimp was springy and sweet – an excellent sign of freshness – and the outer shell was delicate with a bite that shows of the chef’s skills in making it. 

Then, the xiaolongbao. After watching Anthony Bourdain tasted the “perfect dumpling” in Shanghai, China and other celebrity chefs whether it was in China, Hong Kong or Taiwan I was intrigued and waited for the xiaolongbao to come to our shores. Since we have a strong Chinese population and we do have the oldest Chinatown in the world it came sooner than expected. My kid sister who visited the 1 Michelin Star rated Din Tai Fung restaurant in Taiwan and reporting back on how good it was, I just can’t wait to try it.

Now, it is all the rave back here in Manila and restaurants serving xiaolongbao immediately started popping up. So, I just had to try and I picked one of the very famous ones and I must say it is quite good. Months passed since I had that first xiaolongbao, I finally got to try Jasmine’s take on it. I must say that it is the best xiaolongbao I had here in Manila and I am not exaggerating. It had plenty of soup, but not too much; the right amount of pork; and the skin that is immaculately thin.  So, how would one describe the xiaolongbao? Dangerous, impossible and unspeakably delicious ~ Anthony Bourdain.

I can actually write this entire article dedicated to that mouthful of heaven.

After the dim sum assault, we were served the mixed seafood soup. I’m a soup guy and I love having good soup no matter what the weather is and this is one of the best I ever had. From what I can tell, a mix of scallops, sea cucumber, shrimp and fish maw was in the mix. It was so fresh, so light and delicate that it was easily my favorite dish of the day.

Have I told you that the Chef visited us after every course to ask what we thought of everything? Of course, every dish served was lovely and according to Chef Wong Kam On, who speaks some English and Tagalog, it brings him joy every time a guest commends and loves what he serves. He is definitely one of those hands-on Chefs.

Geoduck (pronounced as gooey duck), the first time I’ve heard of geoduck (not to be confused with a Pokemon) was watching Bizarre Foods with David Zimmern and thought, “It is one of the those things that I will never get to tastes and it looks darn good” and what a surprise when it was on the menu. I have no idea how it will taste like and the only way I can describe it has the taste of clam with the texture of squid, for short a seafood lover’s delight.

 X.O. sauce was also used for the dish. In Hong Kong cuisine, using X.O. sauce symbolizes quality and luxury as it is derived from extra old (hence X.O) cognac. Serving a dish with X.O sauce also welcomes wealth and prosperity.

Every course has a fish course and here we have a steamed grouper fish or Lapu-Lapu in soy sauce and from what I can tell also has a hint of X.O. sauce. 

It was a non-stop assault on our palates as we were served  braised seafood misua and braised abalone mushroom, egg beancurd with Chinese ham. The misua noodle is not the usual white misua noodle found in our dishes but has more of the look and the texture of thin pancit Lucban noodles and as usual, the seafood that was used was very fresh.

The egg beancurd looked just like any other tokwa dish but this one is in a league of it’s own since this was made by the Executive Chinese Chef Wong Kam On! The dish itself was a textural cornucopia due to the chewiness of the abalone mushroom, the soft and silky texture of beancurd and the surprising crunchy texture of the Chinese ham. 

Tea is always served during and after every meal at Chinese restaurants, and Jasmine offers excellent choices brewed near table side. We were served both the traditional tea and the lighter Chrysanthemum tea, which doesn’t just relax the body, but also aids in digestion.

Dessert is always a requirement for a full-course meal, too, and here, we were served a Chinese dessert with a French twist: a coconut taro gelée and wife cake made with wintermelon filling. 

And for the non-taro loving guests (you know who you are), coconut matao that has the consistency and taste of maja blanca and instead of corn, matao was used which is a close relative of the chickpea. Both desserts were light and delicate and to note that not too sweet.

Then it was food coma.

During the light talk after the meal, we were assured that the seafood was fresh and that the tank is inside the kitchen. They must’ve noticed me looking around the place. I do honestly think that the fish tank is left out of sight in such a classy place since no dinner would really want to see the kitchen help struggling to catch their meal, right? I was also handed the menu for the meal and found out that it costs PHP 1800.00 per head. At first, this might sound like a lot, but counting the quality of the ingredients and skill put behind each plate, I’d say that even if the price is steep, it is worth it.

Then Chef Wong Kam On stepped out again. And again, every dish was lovely. We had a chit-chat with the Chef and was told that he struggled at first serving his dishes because of the different nationalities of the guests that did not like what was served but found a way to balance each out so that everyone can enjoy it. I find it a pity that there are people who have a hard time enjoying and appreciating authentic Chinese/Hong Kong dishes but it was also good that he can still do so by request. In fact all Chinese wedding buffet and dishes are handled by him! The best thing was even though we ate a lot, we were full but with none of that heavy feeling since the Chef controlled the amount of oil for each dish and no MSG was used! You can enjoy every bite for as much your stomach can hold.

But the end of the day, we had to cut it short since I needed to drive the better half to her office and I was being slowly eaten by the light, but not before I increased a notch on my belt first. Can you imagine one guy eating the majority of what was served because the lovely ladies I were with could not take a bite anymore? I guess this is a form of sweet lovely torture.

So When in Manila, drop by Jasmine at New World Hotel Makati and experience something a cut above the rest.

 

 

Jasmine at New World Hotel Makati

 

Esperanza Street corner Makati Avenue, Ayala Center, Makati City 1228, Philippines

Telephone: +63 2 811 6888 extension 3338

https://www.manila.newworldhotels.com/

 

 

New World Hotel Makati’s Jasmine: An Invitation to Remember