White House Chef Cris Comerford has brunch at Purple Yam

White House Exec Chef Cris Comerford (center) and WH Pastry Chef Bill Yosses (foreground) with Chef Romy

It was a leisurely Saturday brunch at Purple Yam and we were enjoying a visit with Clarissa delos Reyes and Steve Payne.  Clarissa had just come back from Bohol, Philippines where she worked as second camera for John Sayles’s latest movie, Amigo, a fictionalized moment of the Philippine American War.

Then Romy excitedly told me that Chef Cris from the White House had just come in.  What a treat and a great surprise.  It was even a bigger thrill to find out that she and WH Pastry Chef Bill Yosses had just decided to take the train from DC to NYC and go to Brooklyn to have brunch at Purple Yam.  Bill had been several times to Cendrillon with his partner, Charlie (seated on the far right) even before he took over the pastry dept at the WH.

So after posting on FB (and a whole slew of people excitedly commenting and clicking Like on the post) some people were curious as to what they ordered. Well, they ordered just like everybody else: ukoy (fritters), chicken adobo with bagoong fried rice (coincidentally that was the combo that NYT food critic Sam Sifton had recommended), pancit luglug, and Romy gave them a taste of Chef Perry Mamaril’s Ilocano-style dry dinuguan which we serve during our Lutong Bahay (home cooking) lunch from Wed – Fri, 11 am – 3 pm.  For dessert, they ordered buko pie and champorrado and Romy gave them a taste of more homemade ice creams: avocado, banana rum and mango.

Chef Cris looks like she is unaccustomed to her newfound celebrity (avoiding the hysteria wherever she went when she visited the Philippines recently).  You can tell she would rather be in the kitchen whipping up great food and sometimes giving special treats to Bo, the Obama family dog.  She proudly told me that her little 11-year-old just recently asked for milk fish (bangus) and so she had to hunt down a bangus in the DC area for her.

Then it was getting late and they said that they had to catch a train at Penn Station to get back to DC.  Her parting words to me were:  “It makes me so proud to walk into a restaurant like this.”   Well, thank you Chef Cris, but we were busting with pride that we have a Pinay as Executive Chef of the White House!