Weekend Forever: That French Restaurant in El Nido

That French restaurant in El Nido is called La Salangane. Salangane is pronounced as sa-lang-gan.

This restaurant does not try hard to be a French restaurant. It just is. There is an authenticity to everything, from the menu, the decor, the staff and the food. The one page menu is French on one side and English and Chinese on the other. Soon, I realize that French is the primary language in this place.

Flavored rums sold by shots or by the bottle

When we arrived, the house is full. We ordered drinks and appetizers, while waiting for a table and deciding what to have for dinner. Looking around, the map hanging on the wall is in French. I browsed at the books and magazines and they're also in French.

After a few minutes, our drinks and appetizers started arriving. We ordered the Squid "Ibildun" Style, which the waiter describes as squid in a spicy sauce. It's spicy alright. We almost finished our drinks because of it.

Another appetizer we ordered is called the Tres Marias. It's three kinds of dips with strips of wheat bread. The dips are guacamole, Aubergine Cavier and Mackarel paste. I loved all three of them with the warm bread.

Somewhere between the bites of squid and bread, we ordered our main courses. The menu is simple, but that doesn't mean it wasn't hard to pick. Seafood consists of the fresh catch of the day, grilled, with your choice of sauce or no sauce. The meats are mostly beef, with one or two pork and chicken options. The waiter was really helpful and knowledgeable of each dish.

Before we finish our appetizers, a table opens. My mom ordered a salad, which turns out to be huge. The salad has fresh vegetables and lightly dressed, just the way I like it. The cheese sprinkled in it is delicious. It's very creamy and not too salty. So it's true, the French know good cheese.

For our main dish, we ordered two kinds of fish - barracuda and snapper. We ordered the barracuda out of curiosity. Read about our almost encounter with it earlier that day in Cathedral Cave on my previous post here. The texture is interesting. It's not as tender as most fish. At least we can say we've tried a barracuda. The snapper is tender and flaky and just perfectly cooked.

Grilled Barracuda with Butter Sauce

Since we're in a French restaurant, we ordered the two kinds of French sauce for the fish dishes. The butter is the usual butter sauce with a touch of lemon. The Armoricaine French Seafood Sauce is made from crab and wine. It's taste is strong, which I thought overpowered the delicateness of the snapper. It goes better with the barracuda. If you don't want anything overpowering your fish, the seafood sauce is probably not for you.

Grilled Snapper with Armoricaine French Seafood Sauce

We had a little difficulty choosing the meats. We wanted to try the steaks but since we like our beef cooked medium well, this restricted our choices. According to our waiter, the French would only cook some cuts to rare because they will get tough. So we ordered the Strips of Tender Beef in Black Pepper Sauce and Patty of Chef's Morsels of Beef.

Strips of Tender Beef in Black Pepper Sauce

Our craving for steak was satisfied with the Tender Beef dish. The creamy pepper sauce goes well with the meat, which is another thing the French are known for - cream sauces. The Morsel of Beef, on the other hand, is something I've never tried before. There's a complicated cooking process to the beef the waiter mentioned, but I already forgot all the details. The patty resembles a burger but unlike burgers, the morsels are not as compact and you can really taste the beef. The onion marmalade is sweet and is a good contrast to the creamy pepper sauce.

Patty of Chef's Morsels of Beef with Onion Marmalade

Almost everyone in the restaurant is ordering dessert and since we're sitting near the kitchen, we can see all the food coming out from it. The desserts look very tempting and we're on vacation, so we ordered the Chocolate Mouse and Creme Caramel to share. The Chocolate Mouse is not too sweet and you can taste a little bitterness from the chocolate, while the Creme Caramel is light, creamy and just the right sweetness. We ended up eating the Creme Caramel with a little bit of the Chocolate Mouse. They're good together, they should make another dessert that's a combination of the two.