THESE days, almost all hotels who take their business—and food—seriously offer lunch and dinner buffets in their respective coffee shops or all-day dining restaurants. But while some big hotels always try to outdo each other in terms of presenting the most extensive buffets in the metro, it really isn’t the size of the buffet or the wide selection that it offers that truly matters. It is, rather, the quality of the food and the good mix of all the top favorite cuisines in the world that make a good buffet.
One such buffet that we’ve recently found is the Grand Lunch Buffet of City Garden Grand Hotel along Makati Ave. corner Kalayaan Ave. in Makati City. Spice Café on the 7th Floor of the hotel offers this sumptuous lunch buffet, which has been hailed as one of the best in Makati because it covers all the top favorites of buffet diners.
Spread over the long buffet tables are a tempura station, where diners can watch assorted tempuras, such as ebi tempura (prawn), kisu tempura (asohos fish), kani tempura (crabstick) and vegetable tempura, are cooked nonstop throughout service time; as well as the carving station, which serves prime roast beef with Yorkshire Pudding. The Yorkshire Pudding is a unique feature of Spice Café, as other hotel buffets do not have it as an option to enjoy the beef with.
Next to the carving station is the takoyaki station. Now, this is something diners usually find in Japanese restaurants offering lunch or dinner buffet. Takoyaki balls, a favorite Japanese finger-food, are prepared continuously at the takoyaki station for diners, who really line up for them because they’re that popular. The chef manning the takoyaki station at Spice Café serves it complete with Japanese mayo dressing and glaze plus bonito flakes. You simply cannot miss it.
Also part of the buffet are the hot dishes, whose prime selections include Pan-seared Salmon with Salsa, Stuffed Chicken Roulade, Kataifi and Potato Croquettes; a whole range of tempting canapes and appetizers plus assorted sashimis, sushis and makis; salads; fruits and desserts.
Now, the dessert buffet is something else! Diners must remember to always leave room in their tummies for dessert because City Garden Grand Hotel’s Grand Lunch Buffet offers all the sinfully delicious cakes, tarts, bars, chocolates and desserts one craves for. There’s a chocolate fountain surrounded by all those bite-sized fresh fruits and cake cubes to “bathe” in the chocolate and turn into Chocolate Fondue, the chocolate truffles are in a corner with fresh strawberries for that ultimate chocolate-and-strawberry treat, cakes and cupcakes come in mini sizes so diners can get to taste more varieties, and mousses, tiramisu and other verrines are like shot glasses bursting with heavenly pleasure.
All for Php988 nett per person. This is a bargain, if you compare it with the sky-high buffet prices offered by other hotels, whose food selections are so wide that it is impossible for diners to get to try everything in one meal anyway. City Garden Grand Hotel’s buffet is more realistic and manageable, and the price is a steal.
The Grand Lunch Buffet is available daily, from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., except Sundays.
(City Garden Grand Hotel is located 8008 Makati Ave. corner Kalayaan Ave., Makati City; with telephone number 888-8181.)
