By Chef Dino Datu & Magnolia Silvestre
STEAKHOUSES can sometimes feel like a waste of time and money, especially if you can cook. Most places serve sides and other items in the menu, like salad and seafood options, just because they have to, and it shows.
I’ve had lovely steaks that were ruined because of whatever else they served. The sauces, the appetizers, the soups, everything else seemed and tasted like an afterthought. New World Manila Bay’s The Fireplace aims to differentiate itself by not only serving the best steaks, they want to serve the best, period. From their impressive copper, brass and stone interiors (it felt like I was in a luxury ski lodge in Aspen or Chamonix), the Fireplace exudes luxury without being too formal. I’d call the ambience conducive to fine dining, not fine tasting. Some places feel like you’re at a museum or an art gallery, a place where huge appetites and big servings seem out of place. At The Fireplace, you come to eat in style and comfort, and eat a lot we did.
Again, steaks are mainly dependent on the quality of the beef and, as long as you season, cook and rest it properly, it is pretty foolproof. But to have a fine meal, it shouldn’t stop at the beef and the sauce, there has to be courses that build up to and compliment your steak. This is where Chef James Williams comes in. Aside from the fine assortment of steaks, Williams also serves the best local ingredients he can find and transforms them to modern masterpieces that taste familiar, only better.
Prior to the meal, we were served a refreshing and delicious cocktail of Calamancello, a slush and calamansi version of the traditional limoncello. There is often a tendency to make calamansi liqueurs quite sweet to over correct the sourness, I appreciate that they didn’t do that here. Theirs was a balanced and sophisticated concoction. The citrus note is also the perfect balance to the bacon candle fat dip, (yes, bacon candle fat) accompaniment to the breadsticks.
This was quite the calm before the storm of dishes to come that our party of six could barely keep up. The burrata and heirloom tomato salad came with a balsamic vinegar granita instead of the usual dressing, which really perked the freshness of the produce. The wonderfully tender crispy pork are dotted like mini islands interspersed with scallops, but like the giant top of the food chain we are, popped all those yummy islands in our mouths.
The delicate salmon was accompanied with a squid ink sauce, a theme that carried to the delectable and scrumptious Ifugao rice, cooked risotto style. The Ifugao rice, with its unique texture and flavors is our favorite nonsteak dish. It’s infinitely more layered and complex, with a wonderful chew than your average risotto. Make sure to order it when it’s available because it is an heirloom product that isn’t always readily on hand. The lobster is often the most luxurious dish on the table, and even it had to share the spotlight with brash hunks of meat, it offered a delicate tasty counterpoint.
As good as everything else was, the main point of our visit to The Fireplace was the steaks. We were served steaks from the opposite ends of their menu (price wise). First presented was the hanger steak, a cut not often served at steakhouses. The hanger steak is a cut from the belly part of the cow. Considering the area it comes from, it is quite lean, almost as lean as a tenderloin and just as tender. What is special about the hanger is its beefy flavor, much like the flank and skirt steaks, which come from the same general area of the animal. Cooked properly like what we had, it’s as good as any cut, if not better.
The star of the evening however, and rightly so, was the Tomahawk Steak. Weighing in at about 1.5 kilograms, the bone-in rib eye is presented with its long (about 2 feet) bone frenched, similar to a lamb chop, only much larger. Cooked to a perfect medium, our Tomahawk steak had the perfect char outside, while being tender, juicy and fatty inside. The ribeye enjoys the distinction of having the most intramuscular fat of all the part of the cow, meaning it will be the juiciest and most decadent part.
How can we not mention the scrumptious desserts? They were impressive on the eyes, especially the half a lemon on the squeezer, which turned out to be a Limoncello sorbet kept cold on an ice sculpture that’s merely shaped like a lemon press. This was adapted from the menu of Chef Dani Garcia, the New World Manila Bay’s Guest chef at the Madrid Fusión event held in May. The piquant flavors of the rhubarb cobbler provided a welcome contrast to the richness of the dishes.
The cozy and warm elegance of The Fireplace amid excellent food and libation, and more important, the company of friends, is like sitting in front of the hearth, feet warming by the fire with a hot cuppa, or in this case, a cold calamancello. We can’t recommend it enough.