The gastronomical experience below happened during our 2011 vacation in the Philippines.
It’s the 4th day of March and it’s now Autumn here in the land down under. The season started off with lots of rain and the temps have gone down a few notches that we are now grabbing our light jackets on our way out the door.
Today also signals the start of our month-long countdown to going home—Manila. Yes! The Husband and I will spend a few days in the Philippines to have our much-needed leave from work. I’m excited and a bit agitated about travelling again. Excited because I can’t wait to not work, travel again, see airports, spend time with the Husband, our families and friends, rest and eat! I’m a bit agitated because at this state, well, we still have a few things to finish before we go on holiday–there’s work, getting stuff organized and packing suitcases which we hope won’t go over the weight limit. But all in all, we are happy that things are slowly falling into place and things will be settled in time for our vaycay.
There’s always that expectation when we travel that we’d find new dishes to enjoy and love. The Philippines is fast becoming a food haven with so many new restaurants sprouting one after another. During our 2011 vacation, Manila did not disappoint in satisfying our tummies as we discovered a few good dishes from new restaurants (new to us at least).
First on our list is our Lechon experience at Mesa Filipino Moderne. It was called Crispchon, succulent baby pig with crispy skin that you order in wholes, halves or quarters. We ordered a quarter of Crispchon (there were four of us that time). Half of it was sliced and put into wraps, while the other half was deep fried in chili and garlic. We loved this experience because the lechon was deliciously tasty and the skin was so crisp. For people like us who didn’t see the need to buy a whole lechon, this was our next best alternative to having lechon.
Crisostomo is our newest favourite Filipino restaurant when we visited in 2011. We liked the interiors of their restaurant in Resorts World Manila from the blue chairs, lighting and paintings on the wall.
We love them for their modern take on their dishes. We immensely enjoyed their Sisig, Bangus with Ensaladang Mangga and Pork Barbeque.
We’ve heard so much about Kanin Club and we were glad we had the opportunity to eat there. We loved their Seafood Kare-Kare because the sauce was simply more flavourful than any other Kare-Kare we’ve tried. And it’s amazing that even if it was a seafood dish, it tasted fresh.
A small restaurant in Greenbelt 5, likened to an American diner, caught our fancy because we saw Beef Tapa Overload on their menu. Mr. Jones makes their Beef Tapa tender, juicy and lots of garlic.
My Mom introduced us to Conti’s because I love Vigan Longganisa. Their Vigan Longganisa were okay although I hoped it would be less dry. Conti’s is also know for their Mango Bravo cake (no photo, maybe next time) which we loved!
The art of eating Yakiniku style has reached the shores of Manila and when we’re there in 2011, Yakimix was one of the famous restaurants that satisfied our love for buffet and cooking while we eat. We enjoy this kind of meal because we get to spend a long time catching up with friends over an abundance of great food.
My parents treated us to seafood dinner at Blu Fish (Eastwood City) for some massive red crabs!!!
Fely J’s Kitchen is another restaurant we had Filipino dinner at Greenbelt 5. I wasn’t totally impressed with their dishes but if I were to pick which of their dishes I liked best, it would have to be their Sisig. The serving of their dishes “underwhelmed” me and the tastes of their dishes didn’t give me that “wow!” feeling.
It was the peak of Summer then so a refreshing Halo-Halo from Razon’s gave us a sweet respite. Their Halo-Halo’s finely shaved ice and delicious leche flan makes it one of the best halo-halos in the Philippines.
The desire for dessert after dinner brought us to Cafe Breton (Greenbelt 3) and it was then that I got to try their La Pinay Crepe which consists of ripe mangos topped with vanilla ice cream. It’s sooooo yummy!
We found a stall that sells Ice Scramble, a childhood food favourite, at PBCom Tower when we visited our former workplace. Sosyal na scramble siya kasi pwede kang maglagay ng toppings. The name of the stall escapes me right now but it’s the one and only stall at the PBCom Tower food court so it’s hard to miss.
I was gifted with a huge Banoffee Cake from Banapple. It was the best banoffee cake I’ve ever had. It had a lot of bananas and the cream is addictingly sweet.
We were in Manila for five weeks and it wasn’t enough to try the new restaurants in town. There was just so many! But we’re glad we were able to balance our time eating between the ones we missed and ones we’d like to try.
We currently have a list of what to eat and where in Manila and our list is kind of long already. Can’t wait!
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