WHILE a lot of my friends and colleagues went out of town or out of the country last Holy Week, Raff and I decided to stay home and enjoy the peace and quiet of the metro that doesn’t happen – ever – at any other time of the year. It’s a staycation in Metro Manila, as you call it. But to escape the scorching heat of the summer season, we decided to check in at Edsa Shangri-La Hotel on Holy Thursday, just to enjoy the hotel’s air-conditioned environment for a day. I’m a simple person who enjoys simple things in life, and quietly watching TV in the room, surfing the Net and working on some articles for the magazine I’m working for at a leisurely pace already brings me joy.
More than just the air-con and the leisurely pace, Raff and I really looked forward to the breakfast buffet at HEAT the following morning. We both agree that HEAT has one of the most comprehensive – and delicious – breakfast buffets in the metro, and we love its selections.
Upon arrival at Edsa Shangri-La for check-in at around 2:00 p.m., we were surprised to find the hotel packed with guests on a Holy Thursday. But then again it was understandable that families were there, enjoying the air-conditioned environment and the facilities of the hotel during Holy Week. It took us quite a bit of time to finally get the key card to our room, but the staff was very apologetic and solicitous, so that the delay didn’t matter, and the room, a Garden Wing Deluxe Room with a King-sized Bed, was worth the wait. It was spacious, clean, very well made up, and had a lounging area and lovely work table with complimentary in-room wired and wireless Internet access. It also had a pool view.
The highlight of our overnight stay, though, was the breakfast the morning after, which we looked forward to so much so that we woke up early the next morning. By 8:00 a.m., Raff and I were down at HEAT, and the receptionist ushered us to a table near the window facing the pool. We spent more than an hour leisurely savoring our breakfast, which we began with a platter of fresh fruits. I read in the Internet that it’s best to start your breakfast with fresh fruits to cleanse your stomach and flush out toxins from the day before, so that’s how we start our breakfast at home every day and that’s how we started our buffet breakfast at Edsa Shangri-La. We had our fresh fruits with a cup of brewed coffee, and then we went for fresh fruit juices from the juice bar. I poured myself a glass of Sunshine Surprise, which was a combination of pineapple and pink grapefruit, and Raff went for Tantalizing Trio, which was a combination of mango, cranberries and orange. Both were good. There were also other fresh fruit juices and fresh milk in the juice bar to choose from, but you cannot mix up too many combinations in your tummy.
Next, we visited the Japanese Station, which consisted of a sushi bar and a soup area. We got some sushis and makis and a small bowl of egg noodles with kombu (seaweed) and kani (crabsticks), to which I added a ladle of hot miso soup. It was lovely. That alone was enough to satisfy me. But, well, the breakfast buffet was laden with so much food, presented in a most appetizing way, that it was difficult to resist.
We skipped the appetizer and salad area, whose Flavored Cheese called my attention but which I ignored, as well as the cereals part where glasses of Parfait (cut-up fresh fruits with nuts and muesli) looked very inviting. We visited the noodle soup station, where the chefs would gladly assemble a bowl of hot, steaming noodle dish for you according to your preference of noodles, meats or seafood, and vegetables, but decided against that, too, since we already had a small bowl of Japanese noodle soup. We sashayed along the Indian corner and worked our way through the Filipino breakfast area, the egg station and the Chinese dim sum kitchen, and finally decided to assemble our main breakfast meal from these stations. Since it was Holy Week and I had successfully avoided meat all week (*I actually do not eat red meat, but I take chicken, and for Holy Week, I decided to fast on chicken, as well, so that it was all seafood for me the whole week), I went for an all-fish selection. I had two pieces of steamed fish fillet, two pieces of cut-up daing na bangus from the Filipino corner, and a stir-fried fish fillet from the Chinese kitchen, to go with a little garlic rice, broccoli and sunny-side up egg. I ended up not eating the egg because it was too raw for me. Even the egg white, which I loved, was still jiggly, and the egg yolk had been broken. I usually carve out the egg yolk with my table knife, leave it on my plate and eat the egg white. But that wasn’t possible with the sunny-side up egg I had that morning. Oh, well, you cannot have everything, and a simple egg gone a bit wrong wasn’t going to ruin my breakfast. It was still great, by far!
So, ready to put a nice finishing touch to our buffet breakfast at HEAT, we went to the desserts station and surveyed the choices. First, we passed by the breads and pastries section, then we went to the desserts area. There were so many choices, with ready to eat desserts, including Filipino choices like Cuchinta and Cassava Cake, on the dessert spread. There was also a crepe station, where the kitchen staff would gladly make a crepe for you fresh off the creperie machine and then top it with a scoop of frozen yogurt.
Frozen yogurt! Yes, frozen yogurt! We peeked into the frozen yogurt refrigerated display and found three delicious flavors waiting for two frozen yogurt monsters. Raff and I got a bowl each and had two scoops. He went for Dark Chocolate Almond (No Sugar Added) and Strawberry (No Sugar Added), and I opted for Banana Pecan and Strawberry (No Sugar Added). But for purposes of taking a picture, we assembled all three flavors in a bowl once back at our table, took a few shots, and then returned the “guest” scoop to its rightful bowl, and we enjoyed two small scoops each.
After the frozen yogurt, we had no room for more. So we washed down our sweet (but no sugar added) indulgence with water, smiled at the wait staff in our area and declared “We’re done.” By the time we left HEAT, the coffee shop was still teeming with guests, both overnight guests and walk-in guests who had arrived at the hotel on Good Friday morning to enjoy a good breakfast at HEAT and then a nice and quiet bonding time with the family at the pool.
HEAT’s breakfast buffet is awesome.
