Food Tasting # 16: Richgold Weddings

Richgold is our chosen caterer for our wedding, and since I wasn’t able to attend their last grand food tasting, I scheduled a private food tasting with them so that we could choose our initial menu (and do some mini detailing as well). My AE also suggested that we have another food tasting with them next year, since they will be adding new dishes to their menu.

When we arrived at their office in Quezon City last Saturday, we saw a mock setup of a winter-themed VIP table and guest table for one of their overseas client. The client requested for pink twigs so the tables were more colorful than Richgold’s usual winter-themed setups. Wow, I like! The pink twigs were definitely a nice touch to the setup. Hmmm… Magaya nga siya. Haha!

VIP table

 

Guest table

 

Prior to the food tasting, my AE asked me to choose our menu for the day. However, only the main entrees, pasta and veggies were served during the food tasting because their kitchen is too small to handle the appetizers, soups and desserts. I guess we really should attend their grand food tastings to taste everything on their menu. Well, I’m not complaining. Libreng pagkain rin yun eh.

Our package includes a pasta bar, which consists of two kinds of noodles and two kinds of sauce, so I chose Fettuccine with Pomodoro Sauce and Penne with Carbonara Sauce. I actually liked the pomodoro better than the carbonara because the former was sweet and a bit salty, kind of like a more sosyal version of Jollibee’s spaghetti. The sauce was also very thick and rich, a perfect partner to the fettuccine pasta.

Meanwhile, the carbonara was not as creamy as I liked it to be. I think it has something to do with the penne noodles because I usually find pastas with string-like noodles such as fettuccine more flavorful than those with penne noodles. Maybe the fettuccine holds sauces better than penne, I don’t know. If ever I’d choose the carbonara sauce, I’d probably partner it with a different kind of noodle.

Fettuccine with Pomodoro Sauce

Penne with Carbonara Sauce

We were only supposed to taste two pastas, but the chef surprised us with another pasta dish, Fettuccine with White Mushroom Sauce. I remember they served this during the mini food tasting, but I found it too bland back then. It was paired with the penne noodles though, so maybe that was the reason why it was not that appetizing. But now, wow! The sauce was so creamy, and the garlic bits on top of the pasta added more flavor to the dish. This was actually a better choice for our white sauce pasta than the carbonara.

Fettuccine with White Mushroom Sauce

For our fish entree, we had the Grilled Cream Dory with Mango Salsa. Mox was an instant fan of this dish because it was the healthiest option in our menu. Sorry naman, health conscious ang mapapangasawa ko eh. Haha.The cream dory was so soft and tender that it practically melted in my mouth at the first bite. The mango salsa and tomato bits complemented the dish by adding a hint of sourness to the fish. Delicious!

Grilled Cream Dory with Mango Salsa

Then  we had our veggie dish and pork entree. I chose Eggplant Parmigiana for our veggie dish because I knew that this entree would have some sort of sauce to mask the eggplant's taste. Sure enough, the eggplant was smothered with tomato sauce sprinkled with Parmesan cheese.The sauce was piping hot and delicous. In fact, the whole thing tasted just like spaghetti; you'd never guess that what we were eating was eggplant. However, this dish may be too redundant especially if you would also offer pasta with red sauce.

For our pork dish, we had the Pork Scallopine with Aioli Sauce and Fresh Lemon. I had to Google this to see how a pork scallopine would look like, only to find out that it was simply breaded pork. Haha. But still, I thought Richgold's pork scallopine was very tasty. Unlike others who would use loads of breading to make the pork strips look real thick, Richgold's version was the real thing. They use little breading and yet the pork strips are bursting with meat. Nakakabusog ito promise! I only ate two strips and yet I already felt full.

The lemon and the Aioli sauce, which was a spicier version of the tartar sauce, added new flavors to the dish. Chef Bryan said that some people would first squeeze lemon juice over the pork strip then dip it into the Aioli sauce for the perfect balance of sourness, spicyness and saltiness.

(B) Eggplant Parmigiana and (T) Pork Scallopine with Aioli Sauce and Fresh Lemon

Our last two meals were the chicken and beef entrees. For our beef dish, I chose the Roasted Beef with Barbecue Sauce. Their presentation on this was so cute! Instead of cutting them into slices and drizzling them with barbecue sauce, they used wooden skewers for the roasted beef and even garnished them with a vegetable that is either a green pepper or a tomato slice.

The roasted beef was delicious, although the meat was a bit tough to chew. Plus, the barbecue sauce was also a bit spicy, but my AE said that we could eliminate the spicyness of the sauce to make it sweeter. I don't know if I'll totally remove the spicyness of the roast beef. Maybe I'll just ask the chef to tone it down a  bit, especially since I already have one spicy dish in my menu.

Lastly, I chose the Chicken with Creamy Pesto Sauce for my chicken entree. While the dish tasted fine,  we might also not include this in our menu because the creaminess of the sauce tasted similarly to Carbonara, except it has pesto in it. Baka maumay na mga bisita namin nun. Our AE suggested that we'd try the Roasted Chicken and Au Jus Sauce since it is one of their bestsellers. Okay, I'll take note of that for the next food tasting.

(L) Chicken with Creamy Pesto Sauce and (R) Roasted Beef with Barbecue Sauce

VERDICT: We definitely made some progress with this initial food tasting because we were able to narrow down our choices of food for each entree. We also discussed some details for our wedding, such as inclusions of our package, the color of linens to be used and the overall reception theme. We were actually able to choose our theme, and even the couple's backdrop, but you just have to wait until our wedding to find out what they are. Hehe.