Chateau 1771, with Love

For the first time in twenty five years, Chateau 1771's executive chef, Vicky Rose Pacheco, introduces her top picks for lunch and dinner set menus for Valentine's Day: "a feast of light, fresh and festive for lunch while dinner features the rare French classics."

For lunch, worth the highlight is the watercress soup with lavash bread and its relieving, sophisticated texture. A natural super food, it’s heartwarming and oozing with revitalizing nutrients. While the main course, it will give you two options, but since grilling steak is a serious business at Chateau 1771, the seared U.S. beef tenderloin with blue cheese stuffing (P1, 300+) is a hefty reward for any meat lover. Made visually appetizing with grilled eggplant, zucchini, broccoli drizzled with roasted potatoes and fragrant roasted potatoes in olive oil, rosemary, and thyme, the 200 grams of pan seared beef laced with roasted garlic bacon sauce is brimming with juices and stuffing in every slice. If a version of this kind of flavor is what you’re rooting for but shying away from meat, go for the baked fish of the day (P1, 100+)—grilled and made tender with lemon, capers, thyme, and almonds. Judging from the risotto’s heavily-packed add-ons such as squid, shrimps made tasty in chicken and fish stock then topped with butter and parmigiano reggiano as a tasty finish, the risotto is the only fitting pair for a delicately cooked main course.

Dessert is as special as it features the melon’s juicy sweetness. Called the white cloud melon sabayon, it’s a refreshing dessert, lightly sweetened with poached meringue on whisked custard with melon and amaretto.

If planning for a romantic date, fork it out with a hot French dinner affair. Inventive and made from the freshest raw ingredients, Chateau 1771’s French-themed dinner focuses on the tasty yet uncomplicated classic dishes that are hard to find. For the soup, give the Swiss brown mushroom vol-au-vent with greens, edible flowers and pomegranate dressing a try. Delicately baked and in-house made, the French puff pastry round shell is filled with a creamy mixture smacked with garlic and thyme then deglazed with wine. With Swiss browns or the baby Portobello as the star in this soup, it results to an intriguing and heartwarming full-bodied taste.

Using a prime steak cut, the U.S. Angus bone-in rib steak with café de Paris butter (P2,600+), Duchess potatoes, and grilled ratatouille is every inch an irresistible meat from its cut to flavor. A ¾ inch thick slab of meat with the bone-in, it’s meant to be smothered with café de Paris butter spiced up with tarragon, rosemary, basil, and thyme with a spike of cognac.

If in the mood to try something exotic but not exactly like it, go for the French countryside comfort--the Rougie duck leg confit (P2, 400+). Another rare find, the duck meat is cured with salt, cooked in a special Dutch oven with the most-prized duck fat giving the flavor more depth and producing a velvety piece of meat. The result? A super tender meat that almost falls off the bones!

Good meal deserves a happy ending, so try the chocolate valrhona ganache tart with gorgonzola crème brulee on the side. Marrying the slightly salty flavor of Italian blue cheese and exuberant characteristics of chocolate valrhona plus the creamy and rich crème brulee, this dessert promises a palate-tickling cross between salty-sweet.

Chateau 1771 – Greenbelt 5 is open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. every Sunday to Thursday and 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 m.n. for Friday to Saturday. For reservations, banquets and catering services, please call 729-9760 to 61 or (0917) 8626467. Chateau 1771 is a member of the Chateau 1771 Group of Restaurants that include Sentro 1771 in Greenbelt 3, Sentro 1771 in Serendra, Bonifacio Global City and Café 1771 in El Pueblo Real de Manila, ADB Avenue cor. Julia Vargas Avenue, Ortigas Center, Pasig City.