MOST hotels offer a full buffet for lunch and dinner in their all-day dining restaurant. For the per head price of the buffet, you end up either being a glutton, since you try to eat as much as you can in one meal to get your money’s worth, or getting short-changed for the price you paid because you could only eat so much. Either way, you are unable to try everything that has been laid out before you because it’s next to impossible.
So, for diners who are looking for a place where they can still enjoy the flexibility of a buffet yet not have to pay extra for the food that they would obviously be unable to eat, Dusit Thani Manila has come up with the idea of offering a ‘semi-buffet.’
But what’s a semi-buffet?
It’s actually still a lunch and dinner buffet that offers wide selections of appetizers, salads, soups, grilled items, even a carvery, plus desserts, and chilled juices and sodas, but for your main course, you have to choose your main entrée from a shortlisted a la carte-type menu, and it will be cooked a la minute for you and served right when you’re ready to have your main course.
Diners also have the option to have just the Salad and Dessert Buffet (which is inclusive everything on the buffet spread, plus coffee, tea and softdrinks) at Php975++ or experience Basix’s ultimate dining experience with a buffet spread and diners’ choice of a Chef’s a la carte masterpiece at Php1,450++.
For someone who has tried it, the buffet itself is enough to satisfy diners. There is an interactive station for Vietnamese Spring Roll and Fresh Lumpiang Ubod near the entrance of Basix. Diners can have the chef stationed here assemble either or both spring rolls for them. Then the appetizer buffet spread is very extensive, offering several prepared salads and starters, such as Sweet Corn and Apple Salad, Coleslaw Salad, Pasta Salad with Zucchini and Roasted Tomato, Tunisian Couscous Salad, cold cuts, assorted cheeses, freshly baked breads and spreads, and a Salad Bar where diners can assemble their own salads or have a Caesar Salad tossed for them. There are at least five different soups to choose from, the grill is actively taking orders, and the carving station features a beautiful piece of meat, such as Roast Peri-Peri Pork Belly, complete with sides and sauces that go perfectly with it.
For the main course, diners do not have to contend with food that has been sitting on the buffet table for quite some time, as their waiters will be presenting them with the main course choices for the day for them to choose from, have their order prepared by the chefs a la minute and served straight from the kitchen. At any day, there are seven main courses choices, and these choices are changed following a daily cycle.
When Flavors of Life visited Basix to try its new buffet recently, the choices were Grilled Fresh Pork Sausage with Sage-Garlic Jus, Grilled Baby Back Pork Ribs with Corn Kernels in Chili Butter, Grilled Beef Medallions with Sautéed Spinach and Marsala Sauce, Grilled Tandoori Marinated Lapu-Lapu, Braised Red Wine Chicken with Pearl Onions and Croutons, Callos Madrileña, and Snapper En Papillote, Fresh Mushrooms, Manila Clams and Bacon.
On other days, the main course selections include Kare-Kareng Bagnet, Lamb Kofta Curry, Chicken Tikka Masala and Grilled Baby Back Pork Ribs and Garlic Mashed Potatoes.
After the main course, it is back to the buffet table, this time for the extensive dessert spread of cakes, kakanins and fresh fruits plus a chocolate fountain. There is also an interactive crepe station to prepare various types of fruity dessert crepes for diners upon order.
By the time you’re done, you’re full, happy and satisfied.
Basix is one of the leading interactive buffet restaurants in Metro Manila and one of the first to introduce the new ‘semi-buffet’ concept of dining, which allows diners to have more freedom to choose which dishes they want to relish but still get to sample and delight in the restaurant’s extensive buffet offerings.
(Dusit Thani Manila is located at Ayala Center, 1223, Makati City. Basix is open for lunch and dinner from Mondays to Sundays. For inquiries and reservations, call 238-8888.)
