Croissant Lady, Sharwin Tee team up for 5-course pop-up

MANILA -- When Donatella Chua turned her Croissant Lady home business into a full-blown café, she had the vision of turning the space into a setting where chefs can play. This recent pop-up with chef Sharwin Tee showed that Chua is turning her vision into reality.

For three evenings, she hosted and cooked with Tee as the latest installment of his Little Grace Pop-ups. Tee has been doing pop-ups for the past six years for different causes. In the past, it was to build libraries for indigent countries. This time collaborating with the Jesse Robredo Foundation, the proceeds will be used to buy school supplies and seeds for the Rizal, Dinagat students and farmers.

Chua, Tee, together with sous chef Raffy Romero and assisted by Det Macaspac, presented a five-course dinner that was a mix of traditional, quirky and sometimes, experimental touches Tee is known for.

Tee and Chua came up with what they called a five-course “thought experiment” to answer the question – “Will croissants and Chinese food mix?”

Here are their answers to that question:

The first dish was steamed lapu-lapu with hair vegetable. This was surprising as I’ve only tasted hair moss braised used in soups but this one nicely added an umami note to the steamed fish.

Tee made soup with the lapu-lapu from the previous course citing his grandma doing a similar dish in the past. This was a nice simple dish accented by the chewy udon noodles, the torched oyster mushroom on top, and the slight gingery finish of the milky broth.

It may look like a croissant sticking its tongue out. But if there was a dish that deserved a chef’s kiss, this XOXO Ox Tongue was it. Tee said he would normally serve this as bao with mantou buns but for this dish, Chua’s parmesan garlic croissant sandwiched this together and partnered very well with Tee’s homemade XO sauce which should really be bottled and sold one day. Tee snuck in more crunch with some ampalaya slices that he swore would convert diners to ampalaya by taming the vegetable’s notoriously bitter notes.

In a Chinese lauriat, the course before dessert is usually rice. Tee cleverly mixes in a main and rice in his in-demand kiam peng sticky rice dish with braised pork, slight notes of cilantro topped with shaved salted egg.

Jasmine tea was served in these koi tea cups right after the main course.

The Mango Sago a la Croissant Lady dessert was a mango lover’s dream. It nicely packaged all that mango goodness in cold, chewy, creamy, buttery, and even crunchy bites.

Tee and Chua were clearly having a blast with this collaboration, even joking that they would continue these Chinese croissants sometime in the future.

As a matter of fact, they are doing another collaboration but this time with Discovery Primea's executive chef Luis Chikiamco and liquido maestro Kalel Demetrio in Gen Tsi, a Tsinoy Heritage dinner that is one of the highlights of this year's Manila Food and Wine Festival.

Tee will be continuing the Little Grace Pop-ups for different causes as he has been doing for the past seven years. Please follow @littlegracepopups for announcements on pop-up menus, dates, and venues.

As for Chua, there are already several curated dinners lined up. Interested parties can follow @croissantladyph for guest chefs and schedules.

The eight-hands Elements of Flavor at Flame: Gen Tsi dinner will be held on July 20 at Flame in Discovery Primea and is priced at P4,000++ per person.