In this day and age of $ 120-a-barrel oil, what’s the fuss over truffles? In a scene from No Reservation, Catherine Zeta-Jones as a chef in a Manhattan restaurant is buying truffles from her supplier, a creepy-looking character who begins to squirm and wishes he could vanish into thin air as soon as he notices a cop approaching. The inference is that the truffles he is offering for sale is contraband, stolen or smuggled goods.

At $ 10,000 a kilo, truffles should taste like gold — or black gold. Like oil, they come from under the ground, sniffed out by dogs trained for the job. Like mushrooms, they are fungi. Unlike mushrooms, they emit a strong garlicky scent. The best of them come from the Alba region in Piamonte (Piedmont), Italy, where the best of the best are the whitish variety known as tartufo bianca di Alba.

When the Sofitel’s executive chef, Christian Werdenberg, got his hands on some of the prized ingredient recently, he was beside himself and quickly convinced GM Bernd Schneider to declare a white Alba truffles festival! Which the GM hastily did -- followed by filling big glass jars with white rice grains (the type used to cook risotto) and placing a few pieces of truffles on top of the rice.

After designing the menu for lunch or dinner, it was time to declare, "Good while supply lasts" because no one in Manila knows when the next batch fit for gourmets may be expected.

At a preview last week, lifestyle writers tasted the truffles, shaved like snowflakes of cheese and sprinkled on carpaccio, cream soup, risotto, loin of venison and all the way to dessert (chocolate bruleé). What a way to eat before going back to work — with nothing less than an earthquake to make lunch memorable!