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Thursday, September 07, 2006
Magsaysay: A clean sweep
By Jo Magsaysay
Whatever
Maribago Bluewater Beach Resort must have done something good…so good it was incredibly great! It ran away with 20 awards from the HRRAC Cebu Goes Culinary competition help a couple of months back.
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A clean sweep: 4 gold medals with distinction, 9 gold medals, 4 silver and 3 bronze. Mind-boggling. Although I missed the event, I saw some slides and photos and agreed with the decision of the judges. Surely nine distinguished personalities, each one a reputable authority in his own field of expertise cannot go wrong. Jill Sandique blue ribbon pastry chef; Jay Gamboa awarded best chef in the country of great chefs of Asia; Benjie Reyes sculptor and furniture designer; Jessie Sincioco of Le Souffle; Norbert Gandler totaling 26 years of culinary experience throughout Europe and Asia; Buddy Trinidad patissier extradordinaire; Penk Cheng of Pastry Bin famed for customizing cakes; Myrna Segismundo of the ABS-CB dining lounge; Raki Urbina of the Culinary Institute of America in Greystone, Napa Valley and Cebu’s own Lemongrass, awarded Maribago Blue Water the Gold with Distinction for the pralines, for the 3-tier wedding cake, for the butter carving a magnificent sculpture of a twin-spired cathedral and for the chocolate showpiece, a masterpiece of chocolate people in chocolate-stripe bikinis gamboling on white sugar sands. If the chocolate medallions, engraved with the Maribago logo of leaping dolphins that had been sent out as invitations are any sample of the chef’s artistry , it was already a class of its very own.
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Cause for celebration…surely an exuberant victory party making, ‘Whoopee!
We won! We won!’ was actually a modest and humble ‘thank you for making us proud." Cocktails and dinner at Allegro, the main dining pavilion, spacious and breezy with a high-vaulted ceiling of bamboo rafters canopied with native fabric. Hors d’oeuvres, pardon my French but I feel a bit of frou frou is in order for the fancy canapés that the guests milling around, sipping champagne, were nibbling oysters and prawns, salmon and foie gras, figs stuffed with blue cheese, the cocktail ultimate. Waiters, neat and cool in summery prints, served dinner of crab fitters on watermelon and cherry tomato salad; espresso of woodland mushrooms topped with coriander foam, kaffir lime sherbet, pigeon comfit and steamed seabass with foie gras and for dessert, mascarpone cheese brulee, honey-almond crunch and tomato ice cream! Did you ever? Superlative. To a resounding applause, the chefs took a bow, the husband-and-wife team pf Ariel and Mia (Ayuyao) Manuel of the celebrated Lolo Dad’s in Manila.
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Introductions all around. Besides the ubiquitous media, there was Camille Ocampo, a delightful young woman in training and management who "does everything." Juliet Amazona, sweet and soft-spoken and quite savvy about who’s who and what’s what as guest services officer, whose initiative and resourcefulness could double for press relations officer…over there, demure and sedate, June Alegrado attending to her special guests: Bob and Tamsin Booth, Grace Colmenares, Iris Arcenas, Alice Woolbright, Charlie and PIlar Streegan, Greg and Agnes Huetell. The inseparables Marissa Fernan and Elvira Luym, exchanging pleasantries with the press, excited over the prospect of being in Canada, to be awed by autumn leaves turning red and gold. Kindred spirits Raul and Marita Arambulo swapping tall tales and merry laughter with Victor and Julie (Alegrado) Vergara.
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No introduction needed of Julie, my favorite shaker and mover. What Maribago Bluewater Beach Resort is today is Julie’s own doing. When Dad, Dodong Alegrado, wasn’t looking, Julie turned around and with a little shaking here, a bit of moving over there, converted what was for the past 16 years a small island paradise, a mecca for world-weary tourists, into a wondrous heaven on earth where the blue waters of the calmly rolling sea are bluer, the fine powder-white sand stretching along the beachfront is ever so much whiter, where the resort guest luxuriates in idyllic seclusion, where a smiling staff unobtrusively, efficiently attends to his every need where the steel blue logo of cavorting dolphins suggest that this is truly a friendly, carefree and happy place. The dynamic duo of Julie and her Vic, so very supportive…plan and envision more cottages sprawling along the stretch of paradisical beauty, a picturesque bridge over a lagoon into Amuma, a Visayan word for pamper, the projected spa, to indulge in sybaritic pleasures. Occupancy at the beach resort is a remarkable one hundred percent, a waiting list of tourists from all over the world is so gratifying it is unbelievable. The last time Daddy Dodong looked his Maribago Bluewater Beach Resort looked so good he smiled his approval and took off with his beloved Marle for a long vacation abroad.
Maribago Bluewater is not just a culinary champion it is now becoming a front-runner with global distinction in the field of island resorts.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (September 7, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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