TRUST Chef Jessie Sincioco to give you a most unique and enchanting dining experience. This has been proven in Chef Jessie’s at Rockwell Club in Rockwell Center, Makati, as well as in Top of the Citi. Now she’s proving it a third time over at 100 Revolving Restaurant, a rooftop restaurant located at MDC Building at the corner of Eastwood Drive and C5 in Libis, Quezon City. And, as its name suggests, the restaurant is indeed revolving.
The restaurant, which occupies the top floor of the MDC Building, takes on a circular shape. It adopts the same revolving concept as the other revolving restaurants that can be found in other countries such as Singapore – only the perimeter of the circular restaurant stands on a revolving mechanism, with the center part of the restaurant constant and unmoving while the carpeted perimeter, lined with dining tables and chairs, revolves at a very slow pace. The pace is so slow that diners would hardly feel that they’re moving, except if you’re seated facing the glass windows and you see your view changing a little bit at a time. The idea of the revolving restaurant is to provide diners with a 360 degree view of the Eastwood, Green Meadows, Blue Ridge and White Plains communities, the whole stretch of C5 from Blue Ridge to Ortigas, the Sierra Madre mountain ranges framing Rizal province and scenic Laguna de Bay while enjoying their lunch or dinner.
In case you’re worried that you might get dizzy as the restaurant revolves, the pace has been consciously slowed down so that it takes two to two-and-a-half hours to make a full revolution. Besides, there are tables in the unmoving inner circle of the restaurant which you can occupy should you prefer standard dining.
As for the food, Chef Jessie isn’t a celebrity chef for nothing. The food in her restaurants is consistently good, and 100 Revolving Restaurant is no exception. The menu consists of delicious comfort foods ranging from Japanese to French , Italian, Continental to Filipino. Diners will find a number of the best-selling items from the menus of Chef Jessie’s and Top of the Citi, including her famous Ciabatta bread with her signature Special Dip (olive oil with bell pepper, Parmesan cheese and secret herbs and spices) for appetizers.
As she has mastered the art of preparing and serving steaks, 100 Revolving Restaurant specializes in steaks, which are served with a choice of sauces (Morel, Goose Liver, Creamy Whole Pink Peppercorn, Bearnaise, Bourgignonne, Pommery Mustard, Bordelaise and Creamy Pepper), as well as other high-end dishes like Chilean Sea Bass with Goose Liver and U.S. Black Angus Burger with Foie Gras. For dessert, diners can order Chef Jessie’s famous Souffle, whose variants include White Chocolate, Dark Chocolate, Vanilla, Strawberry, Pistachio, Coffee, Orange, Mango, Banana, Caramel and Grand Marnier.
A lot of the dishes offered at 100 Revolving Restaurant, however, are unique to the restaurant. These include Ubod Salad (with alugbati, peanut and shrimps in garlic soy sauce), “100” Pork Ramen (flavorful ramen noodle soup with pork), Charcoal Grilled Lamb Kebab (in tomato herb sauce, capsicum, olives, shallots and eggplant), and Chicken Adobo in Creamy Coconut Sauce (with pickled raw papaya). The restaurant also carries several makis on its menu, such as California Maki (lettuce, mango, cucumber, tobiko and crabstick), Dragon Maki (shrimp tempura, cucumber, kampyo and black sesame seeds), Spicy Tuna Maki (tuna, togarashi and tanuki) and Vegetable Maki (lettuce, kampyo, cucumber, Japanese pickles, sesame seeds and tofu).
Owing to its location and target clientele, 100 Revolving Restaurant likewise offers Solo Pizzas – Pinoy Pizza (sisig, longganisa, adobo, tomato and kesong puti), Capricciosa (pepperoni, Parma ham, olives, artichokes and mushrooms), Mediterranean (grilled capsicum, onion, mushrooms, aubergine, courgette and olives), Quattro Formaggi (blue cheese, Parmesan and mozzarella), Classic Pepperoni (pepperoni, mozzarella and tomato concasse), Ai Frutti di Mare (shrimps, baby clams, calamari, fish, onion, tomatoes and roasted garlic), and Smoked Salmon & Organic Arugula (smoked salmon, arugula and cream cheese) – as well as sandwiches – Surf and Turf (grilled beef patties and seafood cake, cucumber, horseradish, homemade mayonnaise, mustard, lettuce, tomatoes and onion), Chicken Teriyaki (grilled chicken, tomatoes, onion and cheese sauce), Tuna Melt (lettuce, tomatoes, onion, pickled gherkins and cheese), 100% Beef Burger and 100% Mushroom Burger (with homemade mayonnaise, lettuce, tomatoes and onion, and which can be had with either bacon or cheese).
“It’s everything you want to eat, anything you crave for,” says Chef Jessie, when my husband Raff and I had lunch at 100 Revolving Restaurant about two weeks ago.
Chef Jessie served her signature Ciabatta bread with Special Dip on the table. I have always loved her bread and dip, so I enjoyed quite a few slices. Then came Smoked Salmon Caviar Pie (layers of grated egg white, cream cheese, smoked salmon and caviar with shallots) for me and Ubod Salad for Raff, with Dragon Maki for sharing.
A salmon monster, I had Grilled Salmon for my main course, and it was served with Berlinoisse Sauce, Black Wild Rice and Brown Rice combi, asparagus and vegetables. The salmon was very fresh, and I like the fact that it was served with a combination of black rice and brown rice because I do that in the house on weekends – combine black rice and brown rice, that is. Chef Jessie does it better, though, as she cooks them separately before combining them and mixing in some greens. Raff had Lapu-Lapu Cordon Bleu (in lemon butter sauce, served with mesclun greens and French fries) for his main course. I forked a bite and it was just as fresh and good. Consistently Chef Jessie’s!
We then shared a Revolving Torta, which came highly recommended by Chef Jessie, for dessert. It came in Mango, Macapuno, Banana, Pineapple and Jackfruit variants, and we went for the Jackfruit topping.
Other interesting dessert choices were Chocolate Caramel Fudge Cake, Chocolate Cream Pie, Peanut Butter Cheesecake, Dulce de Leche Loaf, Coffee Panna Cotta, Orange Crème Brulee, Mango Crepe and the Souffle selections. The soufflés are available in three sizes: Regular, Medium and Demitasse.
(100 Revolving Restaurant occupies the entire 33rd floor of MDC Bldg., owned by Mercury Drug Corporation, located at the corner of Eastwood Drive and C5, Libis, Quezon City.)
