2016 Manila, Philippines revisited – delicious food!

I’ve had the pleasure of revisiting Manila and stayed at Marriot resorts world again. So am not going to review the hotel but just food this time. The food gets better this trip. Back in 2014, the Italian food at Parmigiano’s impressed me. Food at Parmi’s is still very impressive 2 years after (for our first meal this trip we had vongole in white wine sauce, zuppa de pesce, spaghetti carbonara, seafood pizza, artichoke pizza, and they were so so good and before we left for the airport we had our meal there again so it’s that good!). But this trip included more yummy local food to talk about… The good and the best… It only gets better guys!

Sentro 1771 @ Bonifacio Global City

Sentro 1771 takes pride in preparing local food from scratch as much as possible using the freshest local ingredients available. Their menu should satisfy any diner as it was pretty extensive. They also have private dining area for about 30 on the upper level. Walk through the bustling main dining area, and arrive at a narrow flight of stairs which leads to the private dining room. It’s a cosy space but there is a minimum charge for usage. For a group more than 15, it’s worth taking the room. Now on to the food, here’s a few snippets of their menu.

Then the dishes we ordered and the must tries were fried squid, catfish adobo flakes, tilapia fillet, seafood bagoong rice. Beautiful flavors, nothing extreme and very very delicious!

For dessert, it’s has to be the deep fried and caramelized banana & sweet potato and the ginataan (banana, sweet potatoes, sago in coconut milk). Sweet, warm, delightful and it seems I cannot get enough of banana and sweet potato dishes, hmm…

When I first visited Manila in 2014, I’ve tried Fely J’s and wasn’t too impressed though I knew it was a popular restaurant offering delicious local food. But this trip, the dishes were really great! As I’m typing this, I’m missing the food… It’s that good!

So let’s take a look at some dishes they offer.

The must orders are literally everything we ordered… Here we go… From ceviche like dish to delicious sautéed shrimps to a savory soup to green bean coconut dish, to ikan bilis rice, seafood paste pork, beef stew kare, Malaysian fish dish, grilled chicken and springy fried noodles. Food’s really fresh, tasty, attractive and served fast to fill our hungry tummies.

For dessert, my favorites were cassava (homemade tapioca cake with coconut) and Maja Blanca (coconut based custard with corn). The other two were Claude’s dream – macapuno (coconut mutant with soft jelly like flesh) cream with coconut meat & pandan jelly (tasted like coconut ice cream with jellies) as well as canonigo which was caramel meringue with custard sauce and mango balls but tasted too sweet.