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Admittedly, the restaurant’s name, Purple Feet, is cause for
pause, but for a restaurant that’s an extension of Wine Depot, it
makes sense. The wine making process of old included the
time-honored tradition of stomping the grapes, thus the name Purple
Feet.
The restaurant is decidedly unfussy in its
ambiance: wine crates, wooden tables and chairs. Wine choices are
listed on pillars, and as can be expected from a restaurant that
claims its “wine list is our wine shop,” wine is a huge aspect
of the dishes served here.
Chef-owner Marco Legasto invites diners to let
their culinary imaginations fly. The menu is written out on a big
blackboard for all to see, what he calls “raw materials” that
the chefs can work their magic on: prime cuts of beef, pork,
poultry, rabbit, ostrich, and seafood. The menu abounds in big
pleasures supported by a constellation of flavors. Choose a protein
and then tell the chef your preferred preparation and flavor. Thus,
Chef Marco and his crew place a unique challenge on their guests:
choose your food and tell us how to cook it. They call it
“freestyle cooking.”
The saving grace—the prize, if you will—for
being made to “choose your own meal adventure” at Purple Feet is
the masterful handling of the ingredients. Every bite sparkles,
every flavor flows seamlessly into the next one. Today, the braised
rabbit remains beguiling fare, its tender meat bathed in a sauce
heavy on red wine with murmurs of the Mediterranean—olives,
rosemary, garlic, and the purest olive oil. On another day, my
dining companion and I have our own personal epiphanies with our
respective dishes—him with his chicken not-spicy-please! curry,
and I with an outstanding pork tenderloin. Bathed in uni butter and
truffle oil, it moves me to silence.
Desserts are a simpler, more straightforward
matter. Go for the bread pudding—it’s so good that all spoons
zero in on it. The panna cotta is a darling little thing with a
beautiful mango flower atop its soft, velvet body. Another time, the
baked cheesecake is like a study in the architecture of flavor. Four
cheeses—cream cheese, Gouda, Havarti, and aged cheddar—mix and
meld.
When at Purple Feet, I highly suggest talking
directly to a chef. He can (obviously) give more enlightened,
exciting food choices. And that’s what Purple Feet is all
about—a way of eating that is intelligent and inspired, dishes
that are true to their flavors with original and unexpected
seasonings that evoke intense, immense emotions cooked by chefs that
are inspired and willful.
Purple Feet is inside Wine Depot, 217 Nicanor
Garcia St. (formerly Reposo Street), Bel-Air, Makati City, open from
Monday to Saturday, 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m.
For details, call 8973220 or 897-8167.
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Lori Baltazar can be reached via her website
www.dessertcomesfirst.com or through her e-mail, lori_baltazar@yahoo.com.
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