Foremost chefs and good friends Margarita Fores and Hong Kong’s Vicky Cheng collaborate to produce a Hong Kong-meets-the Philippines dinner, as the two also help reassert the territory’s reputation as one of the world’s culinary capitals.
Text and photos by Alex Y. Vergara
The country’s very own Margarita “Gaita” Fores and Hong Kong-based Vicky Cheng, two of the region’s foremost chefs, joined forces recently to produce a “four hands dinner and culinary showcase” consisting of a six-course meal that celebrated the best of both destinations through such ingredients as Bulacan river prawns, mud crabs, coconut milk, palm hearts and jackfruit, among others, from the Philippines, and noodles, shrimp roe and aromatic spices like Tonkin jasmine and fragrant osmanthus flowers from Hong Kong.
Held at the Penthouse of the Grand Hyatt Manila and hosted by the Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB), the by invitation-only dinner was also the board’s way of reasserting Hong Kong’s reputation as one of the world’s culinary capitals, as the entire territory prepares itself to welcome tourists from the world over through such forthcoming events as the Hong Kong Wine and Dine Festival and Taste Around Town.
It also marked the third time that Gaita and Vicky (who happens to be a man, by the way) worked together. The two met in 2017 in Hong Kong where Vicky runs two restaurants, VEA and Wing. Over the years, the two giants in the Asian culinary scene have become good friends, and it showed as they each talked to guests about their respective contributions to the dinner.
“Working again this time has made our collaboration even better,” says Gaita, “because it has reinforced our relationships since we have been friends for seven years. It was easier also to put the dishes together.”
Although they had been communicating regularly in the runup to the event, it was only recently that they were able to finalize the menu. Everything quickly fell into place, as the two shopped together for the freshest ingredients from Farmer’s Market, one of Gaita’s favorite haunts, a day before the actual dinner.
“No, it’s not true that we were able to finalize the menu just yesterday,” Gaita clarifies. “We just added a few ingredients from what we saw in the market. But we did the menu two weeks ago. It was only yesterday when we did a few more things. Otherwise, we would not have survived.”
In the end, the two were able to produce a degustation-style menu consisting of such dishes as White Pepper Mud Crab Thick Soup, Bulacan River Prawn, Etag XO and Sea Cucumber Spring Roll, among others. While Vicky endeavored to include locally sourced ingredients in most of his dishes, Gaita drew a bit of inspiration from her family’s Negrense roots through such dishes as Malasugi Kinilaw, Ukoy and Pompret Fish Pares.
For his part, Vicky shares that he had never sampled as many Philippine mangoes in his life prior to this visit. In his desire to provide the best and sweetest mangoes for his mango Mochi, one of the evening’s featured desserts, he tried the mangoes himself.
“I must have sampled 80 mangoes in search of the best ones, not that I’m complaining,” says Vicky, who moved to Toronto with his family when he was 12. He started his culinary career there before moving to New York where he worked for three years. By 25, the chef was back to his native Hong Kong, one of the world’s culinary capitals. That was 14 years ago, and he stayed on ever since.
The two earlier offered guests the first of two desserts, the Snow Gum, Ube Gelato, which combined osmanthus flowers from China with ube-flavored gelato from the Philippines. Vicky also earlier used palm hearts, something that is not available in his Hong Kong kitchen, but which is abundant here in the country, to garnish his Sea Cucumber Spring Roll.
He also regaled guests with his decision to use “bakla” crabs as the not-so-secret ingredient to his White Pepper Virgin Mud Crab Thick Soup.
It’s a popular belief among Filipino cooks, from the most seasoned chef to the lowliest homemaker trying to put together a decent meal for her family, that these so-called “bakla” crabs, which they say have the characteristics of both male and female crabs, are the tastiest and juiciest type of crabs, thanks in part to the abundance of orangey fat usually found under their shells called aligue. Although she didn’t say it, it was Gaita, no doubt, who let Vicky in on the national secret.
“It’s been so much fun working with him,” says Gaita. “It wasn’t just about the cooking. It’s always nice to bond with Vicky. And it’s even better because his wife and his kids are here.”
For Vicky’s part, working with Gaita “was terrible,” he deadpans. “Of course, it was a wonderful experience. And she has a massive team helping us from the sourcing to the cooking.”
Seeing the two chefs laugh, crack jokes and relish the experience of working anew with each other made, at least, this diner forget the regional tensions brewing between the Philippines and China, which Hong Kong is now very much a part of, over the West Philippine Sea.
If only regional disagreements could be resolved through food diplomacy, this world would be a happier, fuller and less hungry place to live in.
