Celebrity master chef Jereme Leung

After two long years, celebrity master chef Jereme Leung returned to the Philippines and led the launch of "Majestic Harvest" at Conrad Manila's award-winning China Blue.

With the help of Conrad Manila's resident Executive Chinese Chef Eng Yew Khor, a regal curation of modern Chinese cuisine was delicately presented to its patrons in an exclusive six-course set menu.

‘Majestic Harvest’ highlighted a regal curation of modern Chinese cuisine delicately presented in an exclusive six-course set menu.

The heart-warming selection of indulgent flavors include a combination platter of marinated king oyster mushroom with Chinese garlic vinegar sauce, deep-fried egg white pillow spring roll with sea urchin black garlic and Pan-friend Shao Hsing yellow wine chicken pancake with black caviar.

For the soup, they served baked coconut superior soup stock with pork and shrimp dumpling, dry scallop with pastry puff. The main course include wok-fried lobster with Mongolian creamy pepper sauce and rice pop, pan-fried beef tenderloin with crispy preserved radish, and braised white misua, sea clam onion ginger sauce with shrimp roe.

Pan-fried beef tenderloin with crispy preserved radish

A dessert which is a Pan-fried mango coconut matcha pancake pairing with peanut satay ice cream capped of the set.

The "Majestic Harvest" is inspired by the many wondrous local and East Asian ingredients that are well-curated by Leung to provide diners with an innovative and exciting culinary adventure.

"This season, we actually created a very interesting set menu of six-course. This is something different, modern and presented differently," Leung told The Manila Times.

Pan-fried mango coconut matcha pancake pairing with peanut satay ice cream

"China Blue has established itself as one of the premium and very successful Chinese restaurants in Manila. Every time we pride ourself of creating modern Chinese cuisine that is unique and regarded as one of the best in this city. We will continue to do that and wanted to offer something different to our guest every season. The success of this restaurant I think is a testament that China Blue offers what our local palate loves," he added.

"Majestic Harvest" was initially available daily for lunch and dinner from September 24 to 29 with set menu prices starting at P6,988 nett per person. But due to insistent public demand, it is extended for the whole month of October. Individual dishes can still be ordered by diners, while some of these new dishes will become part of the regular a la carte menu of China Blue.

Meanwhile, The Manila Times and other members of the media were able to get a chance to join Leung in a master class where the renowned chef taught how to make a creative shrimp dumpling where anyone can recreate at home.

Leung started making a minced shrimp paste from scratch by drying the fresh shrimp first with a paper towel, devein and crushing the shrimp. Once finished, it is seasoned with salt, potato starch, sugar, chicken powder, pepper and sesame oil. After mixing, the shrimp paste was shaped in various forms by hand and then coated with different types of elements such as rice crispies, almond flakes, spring rolls skin and bread crumbs before deep frying it in a wok.

"Shrimp and oil are the most important ingredient. With dim sum, it's important that we use fresh, quality of shrimps. It's important that we don't use too much flour in the dumplings because once it has too much starch, it loses the texture, it's not as fresh, it doesn't taste as sweet. And it also has something to do with how you shape the dumplings, the different texture and how you cook," Leung explained.

"We deliberately created coating with different texture – from crispy rice, bread, to almond flakes. All these things are actually different texture that would create different colors of the end product. We wanted people to have fun and to actually explain that cooking is not complicated. Cooking is something that you can do at home, do it with kids and let everybody have fun," he added.

The creative dim sum will be included in the menu of China Blue soon.

China Blue by Jereme Leung is open daily from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. for lunch and 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. for dinner.