Tikim52: Eat,Pray,Love at L'eau Vive (Otis, Manila)

L'eau Vive, a french word which means living water. Why living water? I guess it has something to do as Christ as the living water, who nourishes both the emotional and spiritual aspects of humanity. Not sure with the reason behind the name, I am sure the sisters/servers will gladly answer you if you ask them. With the concept of "living water" L'eau Vive is a restaurant with a difference. You say how? It's a non-profit restaurant that is run by nuns for the orphanage that they look after. When you eat at Leau Vive, you help the the orphanage and at the same time treat yourself to be open in trying out a new experience.

Starry night at L'eau Vive

The restaurant area of the orphanage

Garden view 

L'eau Vive serves French cuisine. Even the servers are foreign nuns that definitely know how to speak French. I say this is a good place for one to practice conversational French. The nuns are happy to converse with diners and you will feel their sincerity in getting to know you. So touching.

Me and Sister Martina :)

Service was a bit slow but that's okay because this is a different kind of restaurant. While our orders were being cooked; complimentary french baguettes were served. You can ask for another serving at no additional cost! Evan liked this because it reminded him of his business trips in France some years back.

Complimentary baguettes

Check out what I have ordered:

Soupe à l'oignin gratinèe P210

This simply means French onion soup with cheese. This tastes like my mom's home made French onion soup, so it's good!!!  Just wished there was more onion and cheese in the soup. I  also dipped my baguette in the soup to make the bread soggy! I just like my bread soaked in French onion soup! I'll worry about taking a mint later because of the onions! Haha

Canard à l'orange (pomme dauphine) P300

Up close, see the bread puffs!

Canard à l'orange (pomme dauphine) is duck meat with orange sauce and fried potato puffs. This plate is just a regular/medium sized; if you are sharing with someone, they have this in a larger size. This tastes like roasted pigeon of Chinese restaurants; the potato puffs are so cute!!! I somehow associate it with munchkins; dip it with the sauce please for that tangy sweet taste.

Gambas marinès au gingembre et à l'orange (Riz) P530

These are prawns marinated in ginger and fresh orange juice that is with rice. There are about 3 pieces of prawns; its a bit hard to cut with a knife not sure if it's just me or the knife. For the marinade, it again reminded me of Chinese cooking, maybe because of the ginger is often used in Chinese cuisine.  

Profiteroles au chocolat P220

French style whoopie pies!

For dessert, me and Evan ordered Profiteroles au chocolat, oven baked puffs pastry sandwiching vanilla ice-cream, and hot chocolate sauce on top. Sister Martina told me it was the best seller! First time to eat something like this, if you are a chocolate lover, you might like the chocolate sauce 'coz it is dark chocolate, it's not sweet!

Remember when you eat at L'eau Vive, it is not all about presentation, it is more about the dining experience. Although presentation helps in amping up the appetite, L'eau Vive's main purpose is helping raise funds for the orphanage; so eating French cuisine in an orphanage is an experience itself that makes the food great! Spread the word about L'eau Vive, the restaurant with a difference. 

Taste: N/A
Quality: N/A
Ambiance: N/A

For this special restaurant, giving a grade is not applicable. I want you to experience it without any influence on your thoughts :). Oh just to remind you, they are on a cash basis only.

L'eau Vive
Address: 1499 Paz M. Guanzon Ave (formerly Otis),
               Paco, Manila

Tikim5: Cheese anyone? L'entrecote, Fort

L'entrecote, such a fancy name for a good ol' French-Swiss cuisine. The word 'entrecote' is actually french in origin, which means a certain cut or portion of the anatomy of a beef, lamb or pork. Ribeye to be exact; if you wanna be anal about it. The restaurant is located in the area of Burgos Circle, which is filled with fancy restaurants and all. Initial glance at the restaurant from the outside gives a slight impression that this place is one of your typical French restaurant with a touch of Swiss in it. The establishment doesn't really dazzle you or anything but it's far from being one of those rip-off Euro-cuisines, and also it doesn't scream that it is an exquisite fine dining restaurant. However, be prepared to burn out some cash for some of their finer dishes. So on to the entre-cote..

 Fine dining at the L'entrecote

First part of the menu we ordered was a little special from the establishment, a little offer that is only available on Thursdays, good marketing idea from the owner on this one. There's a handful of food to choose from for the special Thursday treat. For us we picked the Swiss cheese raclette being the cheese lovers that we are. The other interesting tidbit in there was the swiss cheese fondue, but price was a bit too much for us, so maybe on our next visit then, mark it on a Thursday then. The cheese from the raclette was actually really delish, coupled with a few potatoes and some vegetables really a treat for all you cheese lovers. Serving size was a bit unsatisfactory though, but glad the taste did make up for it.

 Swiss cheese raclette: Bits of pieces

Second on the menu was the Pissaladiere Traditional, it's actually a pizza with anchovies black olives with smothered onion and garlic. These are some good pizza here, different from your typical fastfood type pizza. It was good food but nothing really special about this dish besides its fancy name.

 Pissaladiere Traditional: A different kind of pizza

Now for the main course, of course we had to have an entrecote, presenting you with Menu Entrecote, one of their signature dishes. US steak cooked medium rare (our choice ;-)) mixed with green salad toped with secret herb butter sauce with unlimited frites (aka fries). Yes you heard it right, unlimited fries for all you potato addicts out there. They serve all of their steak dishes with unlimited fries, another good gimik this restaurant has. The steak was actually something to look forward to, that special sauce they had was actually good and it was pleasant to see that the staff was kind enough to offer us some more additional sauce free of charge (we didn't knew then, wish we knew about it earlier) as we were dipping them fries in the sauce and eating them like hungry sharks.

 The main course with UNLIMITED FRIES! ^.^

 Steak is served and will be eaten hot!

Right after we finish the entre, we were so full that we didn't even ordered dessert anymore. Yes blame it on the fries and that special sauce, for a second there I'm starting to doubt if that gimik of unlimited fries was actually any good. But nonetheless the fries were something to look forward to in our next visit.

Overall, the food was nice, but it's not something that can make you jump out of your seat or something that can give you a tongue orgasm (for more subtle people). The concept is nothing new but I like the idea of having Swiss and French cuisine, but not a Fusion of the two. But in the end we have our stomach full and the owner was even kind enough to come out and greet us on our way out. 

Verdict: I give this a 3.5/5.

L’entrecote
Unit A Bellagio 2, Burgos Circle
Forbestown, Bonifacio Global City
Taguig, Metro Manila, Philippines
Tel. No.: (+632) 8564858(+632) 8564858

This article is written by Evan Yeung.