When you're traveling by air, your mind often, if not all the time, focuses on the destination: What time you're going to land, whether you're going to welcome colder or hotter weather when you reach the airport, and that hopefully, everything goes according to your itinerary.
It's rarely really about the experience of being inside the aircraft, unless you're aerophobic, of course. But Philippine Airlines' new 10-course menu, made in collaboration with Chef Tina Legarda of Parañaque institution Bamba Bistro, will make you look forward to experiencing a degustation that can only be consumed when you're hundreds——thousands of feet up in the air.
Philippine Airlines' 10-course menu is exclusively available for business class passengers flying to and from North America via Philippine Airlines. So if you have a relative coming home to the Philippines for the holidays, or you're the one flying to Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Honolulu, Vancouver, or Toronto to spend time with the family in a different timezone, you shouldn't miss out on this opportunity as it's only available until the end of the year.
Philippine Airlines' 10-course menu in collaboration with Chef Tina Legarda of Bamba Bistro
Everything included in the 10-course menu is great, from the appetizers to the dessert. But if we were to play favorites, the Kalabasa Soup, Crab Mie Goreng, and Nasi Ng Bayan, all with Southeast Asian influences, are the dishes worth every spoonful.
Kalabasa Soup
If you're a fan of squash soup, you'll instantly notice the differences in how it looks in comparison to the bowls of kalabasa soup you've had before:
- 1 There's a slight zing to this creamy soup which comes from the lemon gremolata, a green sauce made of parsley, lemon zest, and garlic.
- 2 There's also an unexpected texture from the crushed candied pili nuts topping.
While there's no harm in tasting all three components separately——we actually do recommend it for the sake of appreciating the flavors——the squash, gremolata, and nuts are best when incorporated with one another in spoonfuls.
Crab Mie Goreng
The Crab Mie Goreng is another outstanding dish from PAL's 10-course menu. The sweet-savory-umami noodles are topped with a blob of creamed crab for an extra bomb of umami, but just the perfect amount that it's not overwhelming and overpowering the noodles. It's garnished with green onions and is served with egg rolls on the side.
If you love the carbs-on-carbs life, you'll definitely want to pair these flavorful noodles with steamed white rice. But since the Crab Mie Goreng is served with other dishes, you might want to hold off on it so there's room for more.
Nasi Ng Bayan
Because you'll definitely want to have room for PAL's Nasi Ng Bayan. This dish uses a special boneless chicken covered in BBQ-Coffee and Anato sauce, served with coconut rice, plus peanut paste and pineapple scallion salsa on the side.
Be prepared to be blown away (not literally off the plane) with how juicy the chicken is, how flavorful the sauce coating the chicken is, and how the salsa just ties all the flavors together.
Other Dishes To Try
The other starters included in the 10-course menu are the Breakfast Burrito, The Filly and Marias Toast: one side of the baguette has duck adobo, scallion cream, and caramelized lychee, while the other has spicy longganisa, guava jam, arugula, salted egg cream, and shallots; and the refreshingly sweet Luzviminda Salad which uses red onions, ricotta, lychee vinaigrette, and romaine lettuce.
For the heftier meals, there's the Pan-Seared Snappers which notably use fresh seafood; Boeuf Short Ribs that uses fork-tender short ribs cooked in a dijon demi-glace cream, button mushrooms, steamed asparagus, and served with risoni aglio olio; the Gyu-silog which has beef yakiniku in sesame butter, egg roll, and fried rice; and the Milk Fish Inasal that's served with banana fried rice, salted egg, and atsara.
The only dessert included in the Philippine Airlines x Bamba Bistro's 10-course menu is the Banana Budino Trifle, which might as well be called "banana cake on steroids." This dessert, much like the well-loved banoffee pie, has the same flavors and textures but leveled up. It has banana cake, natillas, caramelized bananas, chocolate ganache, whipped cream, and walnuts.
If you're not flying to or from North America via Philippine Airlines this month, join us in crossing our fingers that Bamba Bistro eventually adds these selections to their menu——or that Philippine Airlines offers it in their lounge in Ninoy Aquino International Airport.
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