Dining the Escolta way

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In contrast to both my parents who grew up somewhere near Chinatown in Manila, I was a Quezon City girl. Exploring the different food spots along Tomas Morato at a very young age was my weekly past time. Even my husband was a Manila boy. Oh how I enjoy it as I listen to their simple childhood stories of them walking around the safer streets of Manila.

When I think of Manila I remember my history class teaching us about how life was back then during the Spanish colonization. Pretty ladies in frilly clothes and men in white coats fill my imaginative mind. I remember how my mom would tell us that two horse carriages would bring her to school and back. She was considered privilege by having this type of luxury.

It makes me realize how colorful our history really was. Having a mix of Chinese, American and Spanish influences, life back then was more simple, fun yet very colorful.

A visit to the Manila Peninsula hotel for a surprise date with my husband just a month after our wedding brought us to Escolta. This new restaurant serves good quality dinner buffet--Do not expect a long line of dishes as the choices here are pretty limited but what we liked about it was that it has quality offerings. It somehow makes us feel good that we are not feeding ourselves with just about anything but with something that was well-planned and prepared for its guests.

I started off with the sushi platter while Paul went straight to the tiger prawns. He loves his chilled prawns with cocktail sauce and it was a good thing Escolta had just that. I, on the other hand, indulged on a plateful of salmon and tuna sashimi, tamago and some hand-rolled makis. Delicious! We were both planning to get some lobster and mussels but decided to just have this on our second round.

For our main course, Paul made sure he had a fill of the roast beef. While the initial slice was too rare for him, the chef gladly grilled it a little bit more to make it medium well--his preferred level of doneness. There are also a couple of pots with different sauces and he went for the good ol' barbecue sauce.

I wanted something light and so I went for the seafood options. I started off with the seafood fried rice and some fish fillet and more tiger prawns. I tried a little veal which I didn't like. It was too grainy for my taste.

While bonding over good food, little did we know that more than two hours had passed. I enjoy laid-back dining as I get to enjoy every single bite and the conversation exchanged is always the best.

It was time for dessert and Paul headed straight to the cake station while I zeroed in on the cold station where all the ice cream and yogurt tubs were. I got a bowl of frozen yogurt topped with fresh strawberries and almonds.

Escolta is not your buffet place when you are into a wide-array of choices, it is perfect for dinner dates where you just want to have a handful but top quality dishes to choose from. Aside from their steak, seafood and sushi options, I also enjoyed their salad station where you can ask the chef to prepare a plate of Ceasar salad for you.

Buffet Rate:
Lunch: P1350 net (monday - saturday), P1842 net (sunday)
Dinner: P1473

Note: I used my Citi Gold Card and got a 15% discount! Weeee!!

Escolta is located at the Ground Floor of The Peninsula Manila corner of Ayala and Makati avenues, 1226 Makati City. Call them at 887-2888.

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