ILLUSTRIOUS COOK Jereme Leung, this week’s featured chef at China Blue’s Legendary Chefs Series

Jereme Leung is in town, but he won’t be here for long, only until July 23. While he’s here, you must try to book yourself a table at China Blue. He’s whipped up something special.

The chef is in Manila to take his turn at Conrad Manila’s “Legendary Chefs Series—Flavors of the Orient.” To every dish he has thought of for the series, in which Conrad Singapore Orchard’s Italian restaurant Basilico’s Italian chef Valerio Pierantenolli is right next (Aug. 7 to 15), Jereme has put it in everything he has mastered in the art and science of cooking, putting together tradition and innovation on the same plate. This is exactly why he has gained worldwide fame as the pioneer of modern Chinese cuisine.

Jereme is no less than a genius, having started his career in the kitchen as a prodigy. At such a young age of 13, what he would do in the kitchen was already considered a career. At the very least, it was at that age, while he was growing up in Hong Kong, that his culinary career began, when he started to master the four skills indispensable to Chinese cooking—dim sum making, siu mei making, wok cooking, and knife work.

But like all who become true masters of their craft, Jereme later cut his teeth in some of the most prestigious hotels in Southeast Asia, eventually becoming Chinese executive chef at the Mandarin Oriental Hotels in Indonesia, operating the kitchen from the pre-opening phase of the Hotel Excelsior in Hong Kong and the Mandarin Oriental in Kuala Lumpur, taking the task of Chinese executive chef at the Four Seasons in Singapore, and finally moving to China to establish his own restaurant concepts.

But right now, Jereme is in Manila and nothing matters more than the menu for lunch and dinner at China Blue under the Legendary Chefs Series, which runs only until next week with him as the featured chef. As he told us only a few hours after he arrived at the press preview organized last Tuesday, “The most important right now is you.” Which also means you, granting you can book a table at China Blue in the next few days.

“Master Chef Jereme Leung’s limited engagement at Conrad Manila brings a lot of excitement as he once again delights guests with his magical culinary touch on extraordinary dishes most fitting during this period of our Legendary Chefs Series,” says Conrad Manila general manager Fabio Berto. “We are certain that his exclusive new gastronomic repertoire will further heighten the culinary reputation of the already well-loved China Blue.”

If you do get a table, you have got something special going. Just mouthing the words off the menu is enough to make my mouth water, to think I’ve just had this for lunch, only a few hours before I hunkered down now to write it all down.

For starters, Jereme serves up a marinated lobster with coriander lime jelly and crispy bean curd sheet on a plate that looks like a work of art, and deep fried kataifi seafood with lemongrass and otak-otak, a Southeast Asian fish cake made of ground fish and spices and wrapped in leaf parcels, with lemongrass.
What follows is a soup, flavorful but clean-tasting, of double-boiled merry fruit peach gum, sea cucumber, black chicken dumpling, dry moon clam, and matsutake mushroom.

There are two mains: Steamed sea garoupa embellished with sun-dried ginger, red chili black bean paste, and superior chicken stock and slow-cooked, super fork-tender beef short rib with green pepper barbecue sauce.

Rice is served as the last course for reasons rice or noodles are served last in a typical Chinese meal, that is, so as “to fill the empty corners of your stomach,” to end the meal on high note, or in the case of wedding or birthday or milestone or holiday banquets, “to invoke longevity and the endurance that a long life requires.” But Jereme’s rice is nothing short of extraordinary. It’s black sesame rice with dried scallop, seafood, and spring onion egg white pearl.

But of course, there’s dessert. Hawthorn ice cream comes as a refreshing childhood memory, with Chinese sweet vinegar caramel and traditional onion pancake.

Indulge in Jereme Leung’s culinary masterpieces at Conrad Manila at ₱6,588 per person. To secure a seat, call +632 8833 9999 (landline), +63 917 650 3591 (mobile) or email [email protected]. Conradhotels.com