Pinoy Chocophile: Swissness Chocolate Bar at Manila Peninsula

Last August 2, 2012, Thursday the ten-day festival of Swiss cuisine and fun at The Peninsula Manila commenced. Their lineup of activities include:

* Old Manila - Three-course menu, Degustation menu
* Escolta - Swiss Buffet, Schueblig Eating Contest (Aug.5)
* The Lobby - Chocolate Bar (Aug.2,3,4,9,10 & 11), 8pm
* Kitchen Party on August 9 at 6pm
* The Gallery - "Timeless: Swiss Landscapes"
* Lucky Draw for a Trip to Zurich onboard Swiss International Airlines, Victorinox Swiss Army watches and a knife, wines from Werdenberg International Corporation and Jewelry from Hans Brumann

For inquiries or reservations, please call 887 2888 or e-mail: diningpmn@peninsula.com.

Dubbed as Swissness, I went on the opening day to try their Chocolate Bar at The Lobby of the Hotel. Manila Peninsula invited Top Pastry Chef Anil Rohira to prepare Swiss Felchlin chocolate pastries and confectioneries. Award winning Chef Rohira is the current Export Corporate Pastry Chef of Felchlin. He travels around the world conducting chocolate pastry classes and tours chefs to their company's factory in Switzerland. The company is one of the leading Swiss chocolate makers that provides chocolate to hotels like the Manila Peninsula.

Felchlin adheres to this values:

Felchlin not only stands for a single product but for consistent thought and action with regard to quality, which permeates the entire company. The formulated and practised values are thereby our driving force from both within and without.

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This chocolate fountain is on one of the tables set-up for the buffet. I like its sweet, smooth and silky texture, a good dip for the strawberry and mallows. It would be nice if there were more varieties for the dips. The table also contain ice creams - truffle and rocky road with various toppings (I like the dark chocolate topping.)

Chocolate cakes and pastries

This is the other table set-up for the Chocolate Bar with Manila Peninsula's big nougat bar, their own toblerone bar - Penougat. This table contain most of the chocolate pastries.

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My starter plate: dipped mallow and strawberry and chocolate bread pudding. The texture of the bread pudding is a bit rough with bitter hint of the chocolate.

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Crispy mocha, the covering is crispy barquillos and it has a overpowering mocha taste, a bit sweet for me.

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Chocolate Cremeux and Chantilly is one of the best pastries that I liked best. The Chef introduced this lengthily to some of the hotel guests who was at the bar getting their fill of the chocolate desserts. There are 5 layers into it and a combination of different cocoas (white and dark coming from different origins Americas and Africa). I intentionally turned it to its side to see its bottom and lo, some mixed nuts underneath. The combination of the chocolate mixed well with its crumbly and crunchy nuts.

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Orange Chocolate Cream

(I also like the mix of sweet sour orange and creamy chocolate.)

Chocolate Intenso

Passion Milk Chocolate

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Sacher Torte this cake I enjoyed well compared to the Black Forest Gateau ( I found a little bit soggy, perhaps several days old from the shelf? The bread part is disorientingly coarse.) Anyway the torte was fantastic, the smell is fragrant cacao with bitter sweet taste. The chocolate lollipop is also good with those in shot glass mousse called Exotic Chocolate adventure, fruity cocoa moussed mixed with passion fruit and other fruit jelly.