It’s our 5th year anniversary and I’ve taken the liberty of booking us a special restaurant for our celebratory night.

I’ve heard many good reviews about Helm and decided to make a booking via http://www.ticket2me.net, the only way you can make a booking at the restaurant.

Price was Php 4,500 per person.

Helm changes their menu every 4-5 months and this was our set for the evening.

Tonight’s Theme: Nursery Rhymes and Fairy Tales (March to July 2019)

First up were the snacks:

Snack # 1: Crab fat placed on paper thin wrap with shaved aged cheese on top

The combo is special: Crab fat is light but perfectly balanced with the aged cheese.

Snack # 2: Smoked salmon tarte with cream cheese and dill on top of some kind of pancake

Tastes like pancake with cream cheese on it. I can make this at home.

Snack # 3: Broth of Manila clams with cilantro and pandan oil

Heavy clam taste with a surprisingly strong spicy kick. I want more!

Dish 1: 3 Magic Beans from Jack and Jill

Goats cheese beans with arugula emulsion and black rice

The three beans are made up of goat cheese.

It’s a bit tangy. The black part is olive topping and it’s a good match to the different flavors of goat cheese. The black rice bits offer texture.

Dish 2: Grilled water eel with squid tapioca with texture from popcorn, chips and chicharon

The eel is warm, and doesn’t mix as well with the crunch. Husband thought it was fish.

Ingenious but a miss.

Dish 3: Here we go around the mulberry bush

Mulberry dish cooked in nitrogen with herbs and wild flowers

Very sour tasting salad, like vinegar but lots of texture. It works.

It’s good in small quantities though as it’s extremely sour.

It’s pretty cool that they change the cutlery often so it’s fresh. The chefs are all good looking, happy and polite.

Dish 4: Humpty Dumpty

Yolk puree with sticky pork, spring onions and shrimp salt, mixed together

This was everyone’s favorite. Everyone wanted more!!!

The sticky pork held together with the solid yolk puree underneath the egg custard. Lovely dish!

Dish 5: Bread

Freshly baked from their oven and whipped butter.

A bit madaya because bread will fill you up. Can’t deny that it’s delicious and signalled that the main dishes were to come next.

Dish 6: 5 Little Ducks

This ingenious dish is duck done five ways. Here’s the young chefs preparing the dish.

These was how they explained it. The five ways duck was prepared were as follows: 1) Roast duck that’s a bit tough, 2) Rolled cured duck that was delicious, 3) Duck skin on top of puree, 4) Confit duck leg and 5) Duck sauce sourced from the remaining duck.

Savory dish. Interesting concept. I liked it.

Dish 7: Baa Baa Black Sheep

Lamb with sweet potato dumplings with pig trotter emulsion

Lamb was soft. The sweet potato was chewy and a bit tasteless. The taste due to the sauce was a bit dark.

Honestly, I would have preferred having a different type of lamb dish.

The taste was too similar to the duck’s, and the flavors were too strong for my taste. The lamb was good but maybe change the sauce.

Dish 8: Old Macdonald had a Farm

As you’ve probably guessed, the next was a beef dish. Specifically, braised beef cheeks with puffy rice and five sauces.

Okay, this was super good. The beef cheeks were so tender and the different sauces gave us an explosion of taste.

Dessert time!!!

After the savory dishes, Helm served three different types of dessert.

Dessert 1: Blueberry Sorbet with Green Tea Jelly

The sorbet tastes as expected. The jelly was surprisingly tasteless and firm.

Dessert 2: Nuts and almond ice cream with pistachio mousse

The covering was special and delicious. The insides tastes as good as it looks. It wasn’t as cold as I expected ice cream to be.

Dessert 3: Oatmeal puree turned into porridge and served with granola, pumpkin seeds, brown butter cream and green tea shorts

My favorite dessert out of the three. It was super sweet but perfectly complemented the single origin Sagada coffee that they served.

Petit Fours: Meringue with passionfruit puree and some chocolates. I didn’t eat the candy anymore as I was too full.

It was our anniversary and the lovely team served us this cake which tasted like soft flourless brownie pie.

Overall, it was a satisfying meal that’s worth the price if you’re celebrating something special. The team is nice and efficient, and the drinks came at a wide price range.

To make reservations:

helm. 
G/F Arya plaza 
McKinly parkway 
BGC 
+639062341900
helm@bistro.com.ph

Disclaimer: Sincerest apologies to the Helm team if I didn’t capture the exact ingredients of each dish as accurately. They were talking a bit fast so I tried to list down as much as I could understand.