Pardon me, but I really didn’t know anything about Chef Bruce before this private dinner we had with my friends at his place.  Little did we know that he is a chef celebrity both in the local and international scene.  I have an excuse for not knowing him!  We don’t watch tv anymore so I’m not familiar with his tv shows like Tablescape and Chef’s Table.  Read more of Chef Bruce and his Chef’s Table Private Dining at

Chef’s Table by Chef Bruce Lim

Chefs Salad
Mixed greens tossed in a roasted shallot vinegrette and topped with sun dried cranberries, toasted almonds and ricotta cheese.

Your usual salad with a different fruit topping ~ sun dried cranberries.

Roasted Tomato Halaan Cream Soup
Classic clam and ginger soup spiced with roasted tomatoes and enriched with cream.

Definitely for me!!!  I love it everytime I get a dose of halaan soup!  Breastmilk is good for baby!  From my experience, this kind of soup increases my milk supply so I asked another serving of it.  Yummy!  I noticed that the meat of the shell was plump which surprised me because I thought it was another kind of shell we were eating (reminded me the time when we ate at a friend’s house in Davao and they served halaan soup too!).  It turned out that Chef Bruce did something for the meat not to look like malnourished one.  Great job!  Made it easier to eat it.  The green oily thing on the right photo is pesto oil.  Love it!

 Shrimp Ceviche
Fresh prawns mixed with lemon juice and sake tossed with mangoes and
apples for a crunch.

I didn’t particularly like this shrimp ceviche simply because it was with cilantro.  Never really liked the taste.  Too bad, we had leftovers of this but no  shrimps was seen anymore because of me!

Tartar Duo
Fresh Salmon and Tuna mixed with aromatics and topped with crispy kamote chips.

Again, I loved this!  Upon seeing this, I remembered the appetizer I had in Korean restaurants…cold raw beef with raw egg and sesame seeds. Such a treat!

And so, we digged in!  As I tasted it, it was like being transported in my post pregnancy days!  You want know why?  The sashimi tasted so much of sesame oil which was one of the vital ingredients in my post pregnancy food for one month.  Yikes!  But definitely, this shouldn’t be missed in your set menu.  We loved it fresh!

Steamed Fish
Lapu lapu fillets steamed to perfection sat on a bed of ube mash.

Ube?   Did you say ube?  I was excited to taste it and was happy that Chef Bruce didn’t disappoint me!  Ube mash was mixed with potato.  It was great!  The vegetable on the side was inspired from a Korean dish.  This was also a bestseller among our friends…our friend, Lui who does not eat vegetable, ate this one and loved it.  They kept on coming back for more…and more….

I was glad to have brought some ube mash at home.  AD is not fond of mashed potato so me and HB only shared it.

Potato Crusted Salmon
Fresh salmon layered with potatoes and pan seared to medium rare.  Sat on a bed of wilted kang kong.

I liked how Chef Bruce didn’t overcooked the salmon to add softness into it and avoid having it so dry that you’ll be turned off and might not want to finish it off.

We liked the lapu lapu better but this was not bad either.

Fresh Fruit Salad
Seasonal fresh fruit topped with a lemon honey yogurt sauce.

Feeling healthy once again because of the fresh fruit inclusion in the salad.  I was surprised that both the kids were not happy with the yoghurt.  I think they love the commercialized yoghurt better.  We, adults liked it.

Cream Brule
Decedent cream custard crusted with sugar topping.

WINNER!  It may be the usual dessertrestaurants have but we still loved this.  Creamy and creamy all over.  Can’t stop ourselves from having a spoon after spoon, wishing that this can be upgraded into a bigger serving! hahaha

Another interesting food trip we had…Chef Bruce, together with his wife, Michelle were very patient with us especially when we keep on asking questions about the food, its ingredients, how and why he cooked it the way he does.  We were sorry to leave shortly because of the itneresting stories Chef Bruce shared and we do hope we can again, have dinner prepared by him.

Chefs Table Private Dining

Michelle Lim/ Chef Bruce Lim

+63918.8871277

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 10th, 2009 at 6:09 pm and is filed under Outing, Food Trips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.