Chef Kibum Park. (Contributed)
Azure Beach Club is known for its modern Asian cuisine with very notable Japanese, Balinese and Indian influences in its menu. For April, Crimson Resort & Spa Mactan’s Executive Sous Chef, Kibum Park takes the kitchen spotlight as he creates a special Korean set dinner for Seoulful Cuisine, as part of the beach club’s three-day food promotion.
Discover a gourmet Korean five-course dinner perfected by Kibum’s heritage and the cooking technique he mastered with his culinary practice in his nine years of experience as a chef.
Hailing from Dongducheun City, South Korea, Kibum went to Australia where he studied English. Down Under, he learned not only the language he came to study but discovered his passion for food and cooking.
He met two chefs who became his friends and mentor and from then on started his career in the industry. Kibum arrived in the Philippines in 2013 to continue his stint in the hotel restaurant which started in 2011 with Intercontinental Singapore. Apart from these two countries he’s also had the opportunity to work in Abu Dhabi, his home country Korea, New York and Australia.
For three consecutive nights, guests at Azure Beach Club will be treated to Kibum’s cooking. His 5-course menu is comprised of Bue seus salad a savory mix of four different mushrooms, shiitake, buttom, enoki and mastutake grilled and mixed with blanched asparagus, tomato, pickled cabbage and Parmesan cheese, then seasoned with soy base sauce, for appetizer.
For second course there is Saeng seun Jjim or the steamed Lapu-Lapu fish with beurre blanc on a delicious mix of soybean paste and mustard honey. This light and refreshing dish is a perfect palate pleaser.
The main course is the Sogogi Gu-e, the third course of the five-dish dinner by Chef Kibum Park. It’s grilled beef tenderloin with potato-truffle, pumpkin-nut puree. On the side as garnish are pickled cucumber and radish.
This is followed by Sang cahrim, in traditional Korean serving comprised different dishes of fish bone soup, kangkong, gosari, bean sprout and black rice. Rice is served before dessert especially in multiple meal courses so that guests are able to enjoy different dishes and don’t get full easily. For dessert Chef Edgar Daclan, the Executive Pastry Chef of the resort created strawberry bingsu. A perfect summer cooler and sweet ending to a special Korean dinner. This is Korea’s version of halo-halo, only it has fewer ingredients than the local version. It’s made with strawberry ice with marmalade, fresh strawberries, strawberry ice cream, and clotted cream with crispy jujube.