Happy birthday...Nov 30

I'd like to give a birthday shout out to my very very good friend in Cebu, Ms May Baruc Dy Guani!





Today happens to be the birthday as well of my cousin, Calvin Ting and my friends, Mark Yuching and Chester Feliciano.

Happy Bonifacio Day!

Coriander

Coriander (coriandrum sativum) according to Wikipedia "in food preparation may refer solely to these seeds (as a spice), rather than to the plant itself. The seeds have a lemony citrus flavour when crushed, due to terpenes linalooland pinene. It is described as warm, nutty, spicy, and orange-flavored."

Coriander is also the name of a Singaporean Indian restaurant in Cebu located at Crossroad Arcade. According to the waiter, the owner of the restaurant has been residing in Cebu for seven years now and the restaurant used to be located at the house of the owner. Up until the owner decided to open a proper restaurant at Crossroad this year.

Food items in the menu are mostly spicy. So if you're not particularly fond of spicy food, I suggest dining somewhere else.

For starters we had Veggie Samosa. A puffy pastry stuffed with spicy potatoes and other spices.

We also had Naan bread with curry dip. It somehow reminded me of pita bread. Naan is a very popular type of bread from India and the curry sauce goes perfectly well with the bread.

We also had this potato dish mixed with some spices which tasted really good although I forgot what it was called exactly.

One of the two non spicy food in the menu is the Hainanese Chicken dish which came with a bowl of soup. Since I was raring for Indian food, this was the only dish that I did not try (aside from the Fish Tandoori which is solely for the reason that i don't eat fish!).

Above are two tandoori dishes, Chicken and Fish tandoori to be exact.

Saffron Rice to balance off the spicy dishes that we were partaking of. According to the waiter, a kilo of this type of rice costs Php 300 or US$ 7 per kilo (pricey indeed if you consider that you can buy a low quality rice for Php 20 or US$ 0.45 per kilo)

I love Indian food primarily because of all the spices that they use. So I thoroughly enjoyed my dinner at Coriander plus the fact that i was with excellent company.

The Coriander
Unit M-13 Crossroads
Banilad, Cebu City
Tel: (+ 63 32) 511-1675

Sunburst Chicken

One of the things I try not to miss eating at whenever I am in Cebu is a restaurant called Sunburst. I specifically go there for their Chicken Skin. I am health conscious with the stuff I eat (no fats, no high cholesterol, etc) but I always make an exception to Sunburst's chicken wings. Besides, I only get to eat it at least four times a year and you only live once!

Last decided, I decided to meet up with a friend and have a late lunch at Sunburst at SM Cebu. While waiting for him, I ordered a plate of Chicken Skin (small although I could easily have devoured the regular as well). My friend was 15 minutes late and by the time he had arrived, the chicken skin dish was all but gone!

Not to worry, I was planning on ordering a Double Ribkeel plate. So when my friend arrived, we looked over the menu and proceeded to order.

So we did a bit of catching up and talked about various stuff. Eventually his order of a Double Thigh arrived and I encouraged him to eat ahead as I've already had chicken skin earlier. To while away the time, I decided to fix me the signature sauce of Sunburst which goes perfectly well with their chicken.

Its a combination of ketchup, worcestershire sauce and hot sauce.

My friend was halfway through his chicken when I decided to follow up my order. I initially asked a waitress to follow up my order but unfortunately, she never came back to my table. The second waitress I followed up with was the one who took my order. She hurriedly went to the kitchen only to come back to tell me some bad news. I never ordered for my chicken! I almost fell off my chair and of course, i started to get upset. I reminded her that I was the first one to order ahead of my friend. She was apologizing and such but I told her to call the Manager. She said the manager was not around. So I told her to call the most senior person in the restaurant who happened to be the Supervisor. I explained to her once again why I was upset and her first suggestion was to rush my order. I said I already lost my appetite and my friend was about to be finished eating his food. Plus I was worried they would do something to my chicken in retaliation for complaining. To add insult to the injury, she wanted to comp the food. I said I do not complain just to get complimentary food as I can very well afford to pay for it. In the end, all she could offer were apologies which I didn't even feel was sincere. Lesson learned: never eat at Sunburst SM Cebu! hehe thank goodness they have several branches in Cebu.

I ♥ CEBU

I just came back yesterday from a 3-day vacation in Cebu and I must say I really love that City. As someone said...If Manila is my city, then Cebu is my home! I was there to attend my very good friend, May Baruc Guani-Dy's 30th birthday party at the Penthouse and we did party and dance (at least they did) until 3 am! which is one thing I hardly do or enjoy in Manila. I was also there to meet up with my Japanese and Korean friends (who are actually better Filipinos than me in a lot of ways). Just between you and me, I wouldn't mind moving back to Cebu if the right opportunity came...

Bought this personalized shirt from Islands Souvenir shop in SM Cebu for Php 499.75 or US$ 12. 100% cotton so its either for our tropical climate (or so the SA told me)

G Hotel Manila

G Hotel is first class boutique hotel under the management of the Waterfront Hotels and Casinos group. The hotel has 50 rooms and suites furnished with a minimalistic touch.


The black and white lobby as viewed from the Front Desk area. On the right side is the Business Center.


The Front Desk


The black and white theme spills over to the only dining outlet in the hotel, Cafe Noir which serves buffet breakfast. The rest of the day is catered for ala carte meals.


Hallway of the hotel which kind of reminds me of a residential condo's hallway.




TV needs an upgrade. Its one of the things that ruins the modern/minimalistic effect of the hotel.

All rooms are equipped with a mini kitchen. Definitely a convenience we sometimes take for granted when we check in a hotel.

G Hotel Manila by Waterfront

2090 Roxas Boulevard, Malate

Manila

Tel: (+63 2) 5250888

Website: http://www.ghotelmanilabywaterfront.com/ppc/

The Heritage Hotel Manila

Since I was already having lunch at Riviera Cafe, I decided to take a look at one of their guest rooms to update me on how the rooms look like at present.

It was not so long ago when the hotel underwent a renovation of its rooms (2008 to be exact) so I was expecting the rooms to still be 'fresh' if not new looking.




The hallway is a bit darkish. Maybe because of the lighting or it could be the dark hued carpet






The desk is strewn with various hotel promos. The compendium placed on top of the desk would have been a nicer touch.


I was told that they will be upgrading to LCD TVs on the next wave of renovations.


View from the room window. You can see a bit of SM Mall of Asia on the upper left side. I don't know if the window glass needs cleaning or Metro Manila is just smog ridden.

Room is very clean and simply furnished. All the basic amenities are provided for. It doesn't do a very modern and minimalistic design as most of the other newer hotels have been doing but I guess this is in line with the Millennium Hotels concept.

On a different note, the hotel offers guests an excellent location as it is only 15 minutes away from the airport and about 5 minutes away from SM Mall of Asia. They offer five complimentary scheduled transfers to and fro the Mall of Asia.

The Heritage Hotel Manila

Roxas Boulevard corner EDSA

Pasay City 1300

Tel: (+63 2) 8548888

Website: http://www.millenniumhotels.com/ph/heritagemanila

Riviera Cafe

I had the privelege of lunching at Riviera Cafe yesterday, The Heritage Hotel Manila's main dining outlet. Riviera Cafe located at the Heritage Hotel used to be the 'in' place for buffet dining and I wanted to see how it is doing nowadays. When I entered the hotel, I noticed that the lobby was buzzing with a lot of people. I was to learn later that there was a Mayor's of the Phils activity that day at the hotel, ergo, busy lobby. I then proceeded to the coffee shop and it was relatively quiet the time I entered (around 1230ish)

If I'm not mistaken, Riviera Cafe was one of the first hotel coffee shops to pioneer the Interactive Kitchen concept in Manila. What this means is the chefs/cooks will prepare your food right in front of you in the dining area as compared to the yesteryears when food was cooked in the kitchen and presented to the diners in its cooked state already. Riviera Cafe of today still practices the Interactive Kitchen concept but I noticed that there are times when the cook would be missing from his/her station.

As I usually do, I started with the Chinese sections. They had a small corner with a roast duck carving, dimsums and other Chinese dishes were located. I was only interested in the dimsum as the other dishes did not interest me much.

This was my first plate of the day consisting of fried dumplings, shirmp covered in strips of wanton wrapper, some canapes and a bun with sweet black bean paste. The bun was a bit too thick that it was like looking for the sweet black bean paste in the middle of nowhere. The shrimp and dumplings were ok but I was looking for some steamed dimsum which, unfortunately, they did not have. The canapes were just so-so.

My next plate consisted of potato wedges, a penne pasta dish, a single maki and lemon chicken. I liked the pasta combined with the potato wedges. The lemon chicken was a bit too bland even with the lemon sauce.

My two favorite things would be mussels and prawns. So I stopped at the grilling station to have the cook grill me a couple of mussels and prawns, nothing else. So I wasn't surprised that it turned out good because: 1. they're my favorite 2. how could one go wrong with grilled items.

And for the finale, dessert!

I first had a serving of two scoops of ice cream, chocolate and strawberry flavor. Then a plate consisting of cheesecake, chocolate cream and palitaw. I really love palitaw, specially if its from Via Mare and the palitaw from Riviera Cafe is also good. So I decided to go back for two or three more. I was about to grab my palitaw plate when out of nowhere, a critter from the cockroach family came crawling out from one of the other palitaw plates. Suffice to say, I decided to skip my second serving of palitaw altogether.

I really do feel sad for Riviera Cafe as I wanted it to be back to its old glory days but, unfortunately, the food selection is not enticing enough. It was limiting itself to Asian dishes which can only be saleable to a certain niche. Hopefully, Riviera Cafe can restore itself back to its old glory

The Heritage Hotel Manila

Roxas Boulevard corner EDSA

Pasay City

Philippines 1300

Tel: (+63 2) 8548888

Website: http://www.millenniumhotels.com/ph/heritagemanila/restaurant/rivieracafe.html

Operating Hours: 0600H-2230H

Heat

Heat or short for Healthy Eating and Amazing Tastes (bet you didn't know that! because I learned about it only today) is Edsa Shangri-la Manila's main coffee shop where buffet breakfast, lunch and dinner is served 24/7. When we are in the mood for a hotel buffet meal, we usually think of Sofitel's Spiral, Makati Shangri-la's Circle, or Hyatt Manila's Market Cafe. Heat is never at the top of our minds when we select the coffee shop that we would want to go to since they are not known for good food. But having dined today at Heat and the other times that I have been able to taste their food selection, I think my impression of the restaurant is about to change for the better.

I started off with a bit of dimsum, fried dumplings, veggies, hainanese chicken and a slice of pizza. I was very hungry at this point and wanted to tear away at the food on my plate as they looked appetizing. In no time at all, my 'appetizer' was all but consumed.

Since I am a big fan of prawns, my next plate consisted of at least 7 prawns, egg curry, salted eggs and garlic bread. It's a weird combination if you look at it but I was looking more at the balance of tastes and for them not to conflict with each other. The egg curry was spicy (in a very good way since how often does one get spicy curry taste here in Manila). After consuming the egg, I used the remaining sauce as a dip for my steamed prawns. The other set of prawns cooked with crab fat sauce is taken together with the salted eggs (cholesterol attack!). And finally the garlic bread was to neutralize the strong flavors brought about by the curry sauce and the salted eggs.

I'm more of a dessert person so two full plates was enough for me. Now its time for to move on the best part of the meal. I started out with a platter of fruits with watermelon, cantaloupe, dragon fruit, oranges and grapes. The colors may not be as vivid as I'd like the fruits to look but they are truly, and without any doubt, sweet! I truly enjoyed my fruit platter this time as the fruits really were at their best taste.

I also tried a little bit of the ice cream cake and had I been less conscious of my body weight, I would have gone back for one or two additional servings. This was actually just your basic ice cream flavors like chocolate, purple yam and strawberry but it is the overall taste that truly tickled and pleased my taste buds.

And for the grand finale, I had this trio of mini cakes which really looked mouth watering when I saw them. Usually, hotel buffet cakes disappoint me once I bite into them but this was an exemption. The cakes were divine and I wanted to get some more but I had to stop myself since I already was very full and getting more would have equated to gluttony.

Service has also considerably improved. My cutleries were changed everytime was empty plate was whisked away. I didn't notice it at first but my water glass was never empty with the food attendants discreetly filling my glass everytime I drank from it.

Overall, it was a pleasurable dining experience and I didn't mind having to travel all the way to Edsa Shangri-la just to sample their buffet at Heat. The selection may not be as extensive as some other hotels but you will leave the restaurant gratified nonetheless.

Heat Restaurant

Edsa Shangri-la Manila

1 Garden Way

Ortigas Center

Mandaluyong City 1650

Philippines

Tel (+63 2) 6338888

Website: http://www.shangri-la.com/en/property/manila/edsashangrila/dining/restaurant/heat

Operating Hours: 0600H-0000H on weekdays / 0600H-0200H on weekends

Amadeus

Was recently invited by Amadeus Phils to attend a sort-of product update called Solutions Awareness Program. This was co-sponsored by Cebu Pacific and an insurance company whose name I completely forgot (one thing I remember though, it was previously called Philamlife AIG Travel Insurance but they have since 'divorced').


Amadeus Phils was represented by two speakers namely Ms Rowean Torres and Mr Jenell Abunal whom, due to time costraint, was breezing quickly through all the slides. Too fast that I don't recall a single thing about what they talked about. This may not be entirely their fault as I consider myself a newbie when it comes to working on any GDS.

Cebu Pacific then had their representative talk about all the existing promotions of the airline plus all the air buses that they would have purchased by 2014!

And lastly, the insurance lady whom honestly held a fascination for me as I had the patience to listen to her the whole time she was talking, not because she was an engaging speaker but it was like, I was thinking...if she was selling me insurance, I would definitely not get from her.

Last but not the least, since the venue was Don Henrico's, we had a buffet lunch. Although, if you look at my plate, looks more like something you would see in a kiddie party.

The best part about the event though, was for me to be able to catch up with my old friend from Amadeus Phils, Anton...so I would say, not such a total waste of time =)