Last Weekend Mostly in Food Photos II: Cyma, Oarhouse and Mercato Centrale

Friday Dinner: Cyma
A number of my friends started surgery pre-residency at the Philippine General Hospital last Saturday. Because that, in a nutshell, is a month of exhaustion and sleeplessness and stress and hunger, we decided to have a "Last Supper" on their last free night. :D

While waiting for the others, the first of us to arrive had the Lamb and Watermelon Salad. Watermelon and grilled lamb with olives, feta cheese, lettuce and sunflower seeds in vinaigrette. It was my favorite food of the night and we finished it super quick. Haha I swear med school really trains you to eat fast! Some of the lamb was a bit difficult to chew, but the rest of the salad was yummy and refreshing.

Lamb and Watermelon Salad - 570php (To Share)
Attacked by the time I fished out my camera. :D

Rom and Mac also brought us a treat: Mochi from Dezato! Some had milk chocolate filling, others had dark chocolate inside. After I had a milk chocolate mochi I took another one in the hopes of getting dark chocolate but no such luck. Boo. Haha.

Dezato's Mochi.
Chocolate center, some tikoy-thing around it then chocolate powder on the outside.

My half-eaten second mochi. Still milk chocolate. :(

The Roka Pasta was essentially spaghetti sauteed in extra virgin olive oil with tomatoes, arugula and parmesan cheese. It was colorless with a pile of leaves on top which didn't exactly inspire confidence, but it tasted the way all Greek food should taste: simple but packed with flavor. The pasta was peppery and a bit spicy. I loved it! We were curious about where the flavor was coming from so I did a little research haha. Apparently it's from the arugula which really has a rich peppery taste. According to gourmetsleuth.com, arugula is also purported to have aphrodisiac properties, so this dish (or alternatively, the roka salad) is a good dish to order on a date. Hahaha.

Roka Pasta 420php (To Share)
Simple fare, but flavor packed. :)

We also had the Paidakia (grilled lamb ribs) with Greek roasted potatoes and the Chicken Souvlaki (skewered chicken and vegetables). The paidakia tasted like grilled meat hehe, yummy, but really nothing special. I would have liked some mint sauce with it. The chicken souvlaki was the same, but the yogurt garlic sauce was good and complimented it well. It was also cheap compared to everything else at only 340php. :D

Paidakia + Potatoes 630php

Chicken Souvlaki 340php

For dessert we ordered Flaming Mangoes just because we had low EQs and wanted to hear them shout OPA! again. Haha. It was a whole mango (complete with the seed), flambeed with caramelized sugar and added dash of cinnamon, served with vanilla ice cream! Tasted good enough, although I'm not really a fan of the burnt sugar taste. I liked the ice cream, at least. And I enjoyed seeing my dessert up in flames. Haha.

OPA! No this guy wasn't the one who served us dessert, but he was the
one with the smiling picture. :)))

I was really wondering about what KALI OREXI meant because I keep seeing it in Greek restaurants. I learned today it has a similar meaning to "Bon Appetit!" :)

We did enjoy our meal. :)

Let's do this again to celebrate after your pre-residency is done!

Friday After-Dinner: Oarhouse

Last Friday, my favorite pub Oarhouse celebrated its first birthday on its new location, so we dropped by to celebrate with them. :)

After ordering a beer each, we got a delivery of food on our table, on the house! I really love this place.

Potato chips, onion rings, and blue cheese with crackers.
Oarhouse's birthday blowout. :)

I love the onion rings at Oarhouse. I find it annoying when onion rings taste like batter and oil instead of onion. These rings had a very light batter so the taste of onion was more appreciable. The potato chips were potato chips so of course they were yummy. And the cheese! Delicious! My problem with blue cheeses is that they're sometimes too gritty or grainy. The cheese they served was mixed gorgonzola and cream cheese, so it was creamier, smoother and not as salty. Perfect with crackers. And when they ran out of crackers, they gave us french bread instead. We couldn't stop eating the cheese!!! By the end of the night they had given us three small plates of cheese. Hehehe.

Ben Razon, the owner of Oarhouse, and Sol Vanzi, journalist and the
maker of our cheese! Thank you for filling us with food, drink and stories. :)

Saturday Brunch: Mercato Centrale

It was my first time to go to Mercato in the morning! Weekends are mostly nonexistent in medical school. And the rare free weekend mornings are mostly spent lazing in bed, because there's a satisfaction that comes from turning off the alarm and diving back under the covers. Hehe. Now that every day is a weekend for me, Cha and Ada, we decided to have brunch at Mercato Centrale. We all had our agendas: Cha wanted Manang's, Ada wanted some Angus beef tapa, and I was after the bagnet sandwich.

When I got there at 10am, the first thing that entered my mind was: why is it so empty!!! Few people, and few stalls actually. Thankfully everything we wanted to eat was there and it was actually nice not to wrestle with people and hover around until we got seats. It just looked a bit sad compared to the Midnight Mercatos I was used to seeing. I don't know if it's the usual set-up or just because we were late or because of the threat of Typhoon Ramon. :(

Well, Ada had her tapa from this stall:

I think it was The Angus Beef Lady, but I'm not sure. :D I was really distracted because I haven't seen Ada and Cha since June! No pictures because once we started talking we just got very preoccupied. Zarrryyy.

I got my Pan de Bagnet from Bale Dutung. Strips of bagnet and a huge pile of greens, diced tomatoes and onions on ciabatta bread. It was good, tasted like salad on bread really because of all the veggies and the vinaigrette. The bagnet was easy to chew. It was hefty though both on the tummy and on the wallet, haha I was very reluctant to hand in my 200 pesos! :D

I wish they offered it in half-sandwiches because even half was filling already. I ate the other half later during the afternoon and I remembered to take a picture yay.

Pan de Bagnet.
This was taken on a moving bus, it was so difficult to focus :))

5 hours later, the bread still wasn't soggy, the meat wasn't makunat and the veggies no longer had crunch but were still passable. Hehe.

My favorite part was dessert. I've been reading about Merry Moo in food blogs but I keep forgetting to try it! They were offering free samples of their ice cream too so I tried their Sea Salt Caramel, Earl Grey Tea, Candied Bacon and Dark Chocolate. All yummy!

Free tasting before choosing. :D

Ada and Cha got the sea salt caramel, I was torn between candied bacon and earl grey tea but finally decided on the latter. I wanted second helpings, really delishuz!

Cha happy with her Sea Salt Caramel 

If you look closely, my ice cream has flecks of tea leaves in it. :)

I was planning to buy Baked by Anita cupcakes for my Intarmed barkada's girls-night-in, but we got so engrossed catching up, we didn't realize it was closing time and all the cupcakes were sold out na! Boo. Reason to go back. Hehe.

Next week it's another Oar night and another Midnight Mercato trip. The food never stops! I think I should quit eating on weekdays. :D

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Cyma (Robinson's Place Manila Midtown Wing)

Yummy greek food, great service and a nice ambiance. After several weekends of going to humid food markets I appreciated the airconditioning. :D Make sure to reserve a table, unless you're willing to fall in line until one becomes available. (The line is quite long too.)

Food: 4.5/5

Price range: 500php - 750php per person

The Oarhouse Pub of Manila (Bocobo Street, Malate)

Homey. Good place to have dinner with friends or to meet interesting people (journalists, photographers, musicians). Good food, ranging from chili, to pasta to steak. Beers are very cold and the cocktails are good (their margarita is awesome) and are also available by the pitcher for groups of friends.  Lighting is great for taking pictures haha

Food: 4/5

Price range: 250php to 500php per person for a yummy dinner and a few beers

Mercato Centrale 

Not as packed as Midnight Mercato but also not as many choices. Still, you and your friends are bound to find something you like. There's also an organic market if you dig that stuff. 

Food: 3.5 to 4/5 depending on where you get your food

Price range: 200php to 400php for a full meal and dessert

See also: Last weekend's food finds and other food posts. :)