Prime Roast Beef au jus with Yorkshire Pudding,
Baked Potato, Creamed Spinach, and Creamed Corn
— à la Gulliver's Tavern

I came home happily stuffed from lunch only
to learn that we had a family dinner tonight!
At Gulliver's Tavern on Makati Avenue. Oh dear.
I couldn't decide whether to groan or to cheer!

One cannot think well, love well, sleep well,
if one has not dined well. — Virginia Woolf

Melanie — la patissière par excellence — created this
masterful flourless fudgy chocolate cake which she
paired with a scoop of vanilla ice cream sprinkled with
cinnamon! Sinful!!! Even I could not say "non, merçi!"

As her coming-home "pasalubong" for family and friends,
Chef Loy treated us to a re-creation of their magnificent
dinner at the famous La Coupole Brasserie in Paris. Here
she is hard at work at the stove while Timmy plays the
maitre-d' delivering the filled plates to assigned eaters.
We had a choice of rib-eye steak, lamb chops — with
Béarnaise Sauce that Melanie whipped up perfectly from
scratch using fresh ingredients — and fish (lapulapu, I think)
with lemon and capers. Washed down with the finest wines,
of course! And fortissimo Vietnamese coffee afterwards.

Cream soup of fresh wild mushrooms with crunchy
croutons on which are spread hard-to-find but divine
white truffles! Loy used soy milk instead to satisfy
even the most lactose-intolerant! Heavenly!!!

Melanie brilliantly put together this toe-curlingly delicious
Tarte au Chevres et Courgettes — using delicate puff
pastry and fromage au chevre (special marinated white goat
cheese that costs heaven and earth in Manila) that Loy brought
back from France. Perfectly partnered with watercress salad
topped with shavings of Parmigiano cheese.

Kitchen Divas — Chef Loy and sous-chef Yaya Berns —
personifying the saying A good cook is like a sorceress
who dispenses happiness. by Elsa Schiapirelli
(not to be confused with designer Elsa Schaparelli)

Kicking off with appetizers of brie and fresh cantaloupes
and honeydew melons to munch on while viewing the
slide show of Loy&Bonbon's European holiday and waiting
for gluttony time to begin... :-)