Esta parece ser a resposta à minha pergunta:
<?php
$result = $db->command(
array(
'text' => 'bar', //this is the name of the collection where we are searching
'search' => 'hotel', //the string to search
'limit' => 5, //the number of results, by default is 1000
'project' => Array( //the fields to retrieve from db
'title' => 1
)
)
);
http://www.php.net/manual/en/mongodb .command.php#111891