I’ve been holed up in my girl cave a couple of weeks now and work has been taking up most of my time. Nonetheless, I managed to try out some new places in between work and play. I will hit three birds with one stone this time.
By the way, after this, I will be taking pictures with my 12mp camera on my phone! I’m excited. Haven’t taken any food pics but the ones I made. Want to see that? Lol.
Let’s begin:
1. Cuore Buffet: In a nutshell: affordable,unexciting
But one shouldn’t complain when one has only paid 300 pesos, right? Well, I want to, they’re right smack at Session Road and they might as well be worthy of the prime spot they’re in!
The food selection was limited and unexciting. You find the semgyapsal at the end of the buffet spread–errr–table — it’s unlimited — so that’s one reason to be happy. If this were a beauty contest and the dishes were contestants, they sure looked plain and unattractive. Maybe it was how they were presented — it felt more like a cafeteria than a nice buffet. Oh and the dessert selection is a joke — they served — cupcakes — the kind you’ll find in stores! They couldve loaded up on the sweet poatato cubes with sesame seed sprinkle that I love so much in Hodori. They had fruits too, but that was it. This isn’t much of a gastronomic adventure than a busog lusog meal. We paid their promo price, regular would be a little under 500 pesos, I think, which is just a litte under what you would pay for a thousand times more awesome buffet in Yakimix. I mean, they’re both not extra-ordinary, gastronomically speaking, but at least one gives more bang for your buck, and it’s not Cuore buffet.
Meat swimming in brown sauce 🙂
The appetizers
2. Citylight Vietnamese Pho (Upper General Luna Road): Unimpressive dish in an impressive location
Citylight hotel is a fancy place to have the humble Vietnamese Pho – a vietnamese noodle dish with herbs and meat. So yes, there are three elements to this dish — noodle, herbs and meat. They got everything right except for the herbs. And if you don’t the herbs right, you might as well make your own soup out of nilagang baka broth and throw in some noodles. The herbs are a very critical part of this dish. They had it served separately in cute containers. A few leaves of basil and cilantro, some sprouts here and there and condiments I couldn’t name.
It reminded me of the side soup I always had at this eatery I used to always go to when I was living in Burma — it was the perfect combination of herbs — no meat, just herbs. This Vietnamese Pho version, unfortunately for me, was just a simple beef broth with noodles.
3. Everything Nice in Camp John Hay. Nice
Yes, that’s what they are, nice. 🙂 The interiors are bright and fresh, their food selection is cute, their serving size — cute too!
On my first visit, I used my (why yes another one) 500 peso voucher I got from my boss. I ordered a pasta dish, blueberry cheesecake and the chili hot chocolate drink. The chili chocolate drink was my favorite. The blueberry cheesecake was okay, but I was looking for a kick, maybe a lil more sourness? But that’s just me. The fish-pasta dish was — okay. Nothing memorable though. The sahog fell short.
Di naman mahal ang gulay sa Baguio, bat pa parating tintipid?
Second visit, some friends and I were supposed to go to SM but parking was full and since all of us lived that side of Baguio City, we headed out to John Hay for a nice snack. I had their Greek salad of sorts for about 150. Very bad use of my 150 here in Baguio. Serving was small — okay, cute — and the dressing was just not there. Not sure what made it Greek– the pine nuts and the cottage cheese? The buffalo wings were hilariously tiny, it wasnt the entire wing. it was the fore-wing. haha. That tiny little thumb shaped structure with lots of bones a very little meat — that was about 190 or something.
The redeeming “dish” was their signature cassava cake. It was soft, moist and gooey and had cheese on top. Anything with cheese on top is worthy of redemption! Haha. For 4 people we paid about a thousand bucks, one had the cassava cake, dome cake, i had salad and we shared the buffalo wings. We would’ve gotten more for our money at Volante– which was full, at that time. Bu if you’re simply looking for a pastry shop, this IS the place for you. Place to load up the tummy? Nope.
Three eats and not very excellent reviews. It might be my PMS — or not! But you have to find out for yourself.