So it's graduation season once again. My younger brother graduated from high school, and I from the last ever educational institution I will attend - college. Graduation season is equal to eating time once again, and in this case it's kicked up by a notch for our hotel buffets scheduled right after another. Our food splurge this week does not disappoint.
Some highlights and lowlights:
Circles, Makati Shangri-La (my brother's graduation Friday night)
We like it for its wide variety of food, good service, flourless chocolate cake, lamb chops with mint jelly (unfortunately, none today!) My mom and aunt also loved the noodle station, with hand-pulled noodles and seafood portions of large mussels, squid and shrimp (bigger than you can find it at the frozen area). My uncle also had some prawns cooked in butter, but he said it was just okay.
Sushi platters. Don't worry, I didn't finish all of that by myself. My brothers and I started off with sushi appetizers while waiting for the rest of the family. Included here is the trademark salmon sashimi, tuna sashimi, lapu-lapu sashimi and spicy tuna (quite good all in all).
I got chocolate chip cookies, drizzled it with vanilla sauce and strawberries. Although, Spiral in Sofitel still has the honor of having the most delicious cookies.
Tonight they had a chicken shawarma station. It was really good! I put lots of garlic sauce in mine. Yum. The fried siomai was also quite good. I'll pass on the peppered beef, Indian naan bread (I had to put butter on mine), steamed siomai, and this weird bread and meat pudding that I don't know what convinced me to get.
A slab of prime rib. Personally, I enjoyed it with mint jelly rather than the gravy sauce. Also, I can never resist the wood oven-baked pizzas of Circles and Spiral. Four cheese, give it to me!
Almond jelly with nata de coco and all the good stuff. Light, sweet and refreshing.
I got some smoked salmon with garlic cream sauce from the salad station which was hidden behind the noodle soup area. I almost didn't see it if not for my aunt pointing it out. I also shared this heavenly cheese platter with my aunt and brothers, paired with raisins, walnuts, grapes and crackers. It was so good. Grapes with cheese is always a superb combination.
Trademark flourless chocolate cake goodness, and this horrible raspberry cheesecake burger that looked great, but didn't taste it.
Paseo Uno, Mandarin Oriental (my graduation Saturday night)
We were supposed to eat in Heat, Edsa Shangri-La but it was already fully booked. Graduation night, it is. So we decided to eat at Paseo Uno at Mandarin, a place where we haven't gone for quite some time due to establishments like Spiral being more competitive (in terms of variety and promo pricing). But it was a very good decision because Paseo Uno offers a variety of food that is uniquely available only to them. While the other hotel buffets have the usual spread of Japanese sushi, prime rib, and other marginal add-ons like Indian Stations and Chinese stations to relay the impression of variety, Paseo Uno has a carefully selected, quality buffet spread. For one, it has a foie gras station and various high-end seafood offerings that actually look appetizing (sea bass, sea mantis, lobster, etc). The only complaint I have is service! I feel that they are drastically undermanned. All the attendants look harried and are hard to flag down. This creates bottlenecks in the buffet line at times. My dad ordered a temaki from the Japanese station, and it took three follow-ups for it to finally be delivered to our table. My brother ordered sea mantis and it arrived during dessert already. Very poor service, but good selection. It's a wise choice not to compete with other typical hotel offerings, and instead carve out one's own niche.
This time, I decided to focus on seafood, dessert and cheeses. I'm not a very big beef person, and the prime rib from the previous Circles night really filled me up and didn't bring me as much satisfaction as the cheese platter did (tee hee). I did however take a bite of my brother's prime rib and tempura just for sampling purposes. He went back for a second serving of the prime rib so I guess he liked it! There was also roast chicken and lechon, but again those dishes aren't very big on me as they're readily available else where so I didn't attempt to get portions.
The salmon confit (middle left) was quite good, and the sea bass (topmost) was so soft and flavorful that I had to come back for seconds and considering thirds. The scallops were very hard (upper right). But if there's one thing that they're famous for, and something they truly deliver on, it's the foie gras (bottom). It melts in your mouth in a unique, rich taste.
Garlic and lemon prawns (top left) and the slipper lobster (middle top) were quite good. The deviled prawns (top middle), siomai and seafood dumpling, truffle crusted fish (middle bottom) were just okay. I also got smoked salmon and seafood salad which were also nice.
I forgot to take a picture of this plate, so you can see it's now quite demolished. But it was basically an array of cheeses, grapes (that we had to request for as their refilling was quite slow), smoked salmon again, salmon sashimi, and kani salad. This was a good plate. My mom and I loved the blue cheese.
I'm not usually a dessert person, but for this dish I would make an exception. The milk tea ice cream and the chocolate crumbly cookie dipped in the chocolate fountain were so good I went back for more. Not visibly seen also are the chunks of nata de coco that I got. I also had a bite of my mom's marble cheesecake, top grade too.
My brother's sea mantis. Quite good, but each piece didn't have much seafood meat.
My dad's halo halo bonanza.
Pictures of some stations.
All in all, Paseo Uno seems to have a smaller yet better quality selection. If you're tired of the usual Japanese spreads and looking beyond just the usual meat offerings, Paseo Uno has its foie gras, sea bass, sea mantis, slipper lobster and milk tea ice cream to offer. Calories well-spent!
In the mean time, it's time to get back on that treadmill.
Posts
