That’s very possible that sandy did the marketing and was the one supervising the restaurant. It still doesn’t make sense though. If you are making money why would you close your business down? I will ask him about it if I bump into him at some point. It’s possible that the restaurant got very good reviews from the food critics but still did not get enough regulars to sustain the business. As i said, the French are traditionalists by nature and Filipino food would be quite a stretch for them.

Johnny i understand what you’re saying, most people like to eat what they grew up with, but when most of us travel, we try the cuisine of the country we are visiting, like when we visit Japan, Italy, Spain, Singapore, Vietnam, the USA, do we look for adobo? hindi naman di ba? we like to try their cooking too.

The Italians are far less gastronomically adventurous than the average world traveller. This is my point. And they can get arrogant about it. Da best daw sila e. Of course there are open minded italians too, but listen to the average italian conversation about food when they are amongst themselves and they think noone is listening..

Like MM, I had previously written to them (maybe twice), offering to host/guide/initiate any food writer they may want to send to the Philippines. I have such faith in Filipino cuisine! And of course, just like MM, i recieved no response. SO, when i saw that adobo article months later, i thought, hey, maybe things are changing! It was written by a lady named Amy Besa. Alas, it has taken over a year for another pinoy dish to make it to the pages of Saveur… :( I guess we should be happy, but really, i wish there was a real way we could introduce Pinoy food on a more global scale.

Btw, i totally agree with Tulip about tweaking and presentation… Ive done it many times, and gotten rave results from non-pinoy foodies. The first thing anyone can do to make our food more globally acceptable is to not overcook our veggies! Nothing turns people off more than gray, mushy overdone gulay :( Plus, it’s healthier too.

It was an attempt at stylised pinoy cuisine. i liked it but i think Europeans looked at it more as a novelty restaurant, i.e. good to try once to show one’s culinary adventurousness but not to use as a regular haunt as the food was too ‘exotic’.

I still remember the comment a French girl (typical Parisian type) at our table said when she tried the ube ice cream: “doesn’t taste how it looks.” then made a face. That’s when i thought– uh oh, this restaurant might be in for a bit of trouble. But Tulip, you say they were doing well? They wouldn’t have closed it if they were. i know Jay really wanted to make a go of living abroad. Have not been in touch with the Dazas unfortunately (i think sandy is in vancouver or something) but it would be interesting to hear about their experiences, trials and tribulations operating a Philippine restaurant in one of the major food cities of the world.

Sayang, really.

French gastronomy i think is all about tradition (they have one of the oldest established cuisines and are rightly proud of it), so it really would be hard to break in a new cuisine even in a big city like Paris, as opposed to, say, London, where after years of poor restaurant choices, there has been an explosion in the food scene over the last ten or so years, to the point where they are now open to virtually any new foods.

(btw, i think the Italians are even worse; they’re so into their own cuisine that even when they travel to other countries they tend to eschew the local restaurants and look for italian-owned places because, “we have the best cooking in the world, why try other cuisines?” Narrow-minded and mayabang, i know, but i’ve heard many italians express this sentiment.)

But i agree with the tweaking idea. We just have to find the right amount and style of tweak. I’m itching to give it a go, frankly.