The Unlawyer

Since it opened its doors to the public about a month ago, The Goose Station restaurant gained instant fame among Manila’s diners, I suppose mainly due to the celebrity status and culinary reputation of Rob Pengson and wife Sunshine Puey Pengson. Plus, their restaurant serves what is probably Manila’s only 8-course tasting menu or degustation. So Mrs. Unlawyer and I visited this restaurant recently to see what it was all about.

I didn’t find it very difficult to spot the location of this restaurant on the northern periphery of Fort Bonifacio. After walking up to the restaurant and taking our places by the open counter, Mrs. Unlawyer and I placed our orders: I chose its signature 8-courser while she opted for the express 5-course menu. With the amount of food that was about to come our way, we figured that we would spend at least three hours inside this establishment, if our previous experience at a degustation was any guide.

So, while we were waiting for the first course to arrive, in came slices of bread baked fresh from The Goose Station’s ovens. Mrs. Unlawyer and I shared a mound of butter between the two of us.

The first part of the first course, a foie cone, then arrived. I first thought that it was made out of an ice cream cone but I was mistaken. It was made out of filo pastry instead, with the resulting container filled with foie gras. I bit into it and tasted its buttery texture, then its unmistakably salty tang followed next, a flavor that lingered in my mouth for far too long [Now that I think about it, the contents of the foie cone seem to be similar to the foie gras terrine I was served later - Ed.].

The rest of the snacks comprising the first course arrived: potato and caramelized onion, peanut butter and jelly, and prosciutto and Brie.

The second course: roasted squash soup with corn, allspice froth, chorizo de bilbao, and hazelnuts. If the snacks were meant to prime your tongue for the meal to come, then the soup was meant to do the same for your stomach.

The third course, or what the restaurant calls a Beet Garden. Chef Rob said he and Sunshine wanted to create their own version of the garden salad they said is popular in many Philippine restaurants. The purplish “stick” you see in the center is actually a tube of beet jelly stuffed with goat’s cheese, and the other elements of this dish were assembled with Boursin, textures of orange, corn, corn sprouts, a “soil” made out of gingerbread and walnuts, pickled carrots, and so on.

The Beet Garden is easily the most exquisite dish on the menu – it looks like a vegetable garden and is probably the most visually appealing dish I’ve seen anywhere this year – and I strongly recommend that you take it.

The fourth course was also one of my favorites: The Goose Station’s version of Eggs Benedict. You might mistake it for a cocktail but no: at the bottom of the martini glass lies the usual poached egg, submerged in a tasty mixture of hollandaise foam, fleur de sel, and white truffle oil. To eat: pierce the poached egg with the bacon tuile, stir thoroughly, and drink.

Yes, drink.

I should have been served the unagi foie gras terrine for my fifth course but no, I was given a plate of seared foie gras instead. It was served with some squash, gingerbread, thyme, chestnuts, and a blueberry-tarragon jus.

I mentioned this mistake to Chef Sunshine, who rectified it, gave me the seared foie gras at no charge, and instructed her staff to serve me the unagi foie gras terrine. It took a while for me to figure out the best way to eat this dish, but after some trial and error I spread some terrine on the brioche, added a bit of apple tartare, and topped it off with a portion of unagi.

The sixth course consisted of a chicken roulade, in this case slices of chicken breast wrapped in a slice of bacon and filled with monggo beans and pistachio, and set on a sauce made up of roasted garlic foam and port jus.

Seventh course: lamb ribs, lying on a bed of horseradish whipped potatoes and a sauce of port jus, and garnished with pancetta and pine nuts. I was surprised that this serving was big, almost as large as an entree-sized portion ordered off an a la carte menu, so big that it didn’t comfortably fit the plate it was served on.

At any rate, the meat was very tender and ribs being what they are, at one point or another you will end up eating this dish with your fingers. I tried to finish the entire serving but I could not, as I was beginning to get full. Only 70 minutes had passed from the time I received my first course to this point.

This is what Mrs. Unlawyer had: a Black Angus rib fillet steak, served with truffle whipped potatoes, buure schublig, peas, and crisp onions. Like the lamb ribs, this was another generous portion. Between the lamb and the beef, however, I would recommend this dish if you happen to be taking the 8-course menu.

The eighth course: what the restaurant calls a Chocolate Candy Bar. Sweet. Sinful. Sensual.

What Mrs. Unlawyer had for dessert: a plate of bread pudding, but don’t let its nondescript label fool you. The Goose Station added a twist in their version of this dessert: bacon, or to be more precise, bits of bacon suspended in the dark chocolate sorbet that accompanied this dish. It added just a hint of salt to the pudding.

Rob and Sunshine are certainly fond of bacon given the number of times it makes its appearance here

Total elapsed time from the first course to the last: about 90 minutes or so.

If anything, there were two items I found fault with this restaurant, none of them having to do with the quality of its cuisine. First is the pacing of the dishes from the menu I ordered. Given the fairly generous quantities allocated per course, I wasn’t given enough time to digest my meal and prepare me for the next plate. Mrs. Unlawyer, however, said that the staff may have deliberately accelerated the pace so we would finish our respective courses more or less at the same time. She also said that I failed to add balance to my choices by not ordering the salmon tartare and the fish for my fifth and sixth courses respectively, and that my meat-heavy menu certainly contributed to my full state at the start of my seventh course.

Second is that the restaurant should really add a sorbet between the sixth and seventh courses in order to cleanse the diner’s palate.

The 8-course signature menu costs about PHP 2,500 while the 5-course express menu is worth PHP 1,800. Believe me when I say you will get value for your money for these meals. Mrs. Unlawyer and I intend to return to this restaurant and try its a la carte menu.

The address of The Goose Station is at the ground floor, W Tower, 39th Street, Fort Bonifacio, Taguig City. Reservations strongly recommended; call (02) 556-9068 or (0917) 854-6673. Major credit cards accepted.

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Here is the map to the W Tower and to The Goose Station:

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