Secret Recipe

The other night I had dinner with Yeyi at Secret Recipe. She got enslaved in graveyard shift and this is her first nightout with real people in over a month!

This bistro/ coffee shop is located at the 4th level of the Midtown wing of Robinson's Manila. I noticed they have trimmed down the number of available cakes. If you want a dessert fix, come to this place and try the Choco Indulgence (P110 for a big slice) it's a winner!

Now, if you want a taste of the extraordinary, I recommend you try their Tom Yum Spaghetti (P180). Neither a soup or a pure pasta dish, the TYS is a fusion of exotic Asian flavors, the well-liked Tom Yum, the Thai specialty and the Bolognese Spaghetti. Give your tastebuds a perk with mildly spicy, sour and refreshing flavor. This is what I always order and recommend my friends to try.

I also ordered Chicken Cordon Bleu (P 220). A generous sized chicken breast (Dude, Breast is good for you. Agree?) stuffed with creamy cheese and herbs. Cordon Bleu is still cordeon bleu, but theirs was pretty good.

And for dessert Choco Banana Cake. Good grief, we would've taken our time and savoring this dessert if the mall extended closing time. Sorry no pics for this post, I left my digicam at home.
Till then.

holy cow!

A new steak place just opened in the new wing of Robinson's Manila.

Holy Cow! was packing them in last Easter Sunday.

I wasn't in the mood for steak but since my sisters wanted to try this place, I gave in.

A lot of new "meating" places have opened in Manila (5 cows and sizzling pepper steak in Trinoma Mall) Holy Cow! tries to set themselves apart by offering value-for-money imported steaks and a laidback ambiance; not too boring and not too Western.

The 300g Australian ribeye costs 950 pesos/ roughly $23 (kaching!) inclusive of 2 side dishes (choose from the standard mash potatoes, garlic rice, steamed veggies, chinese fried rice, steamed rice, potato balls, and their innovative potato ribbons.) What I liked about this place is you have 5 different choices of gravy (red wine gravy, mushroom gravy, i can't remember the rest)

There are smaller cuts and a mix and match of steak with fish or steak with prawns.

Steak with prawns will set you back for just 390 pesos.

So after viewing my options, I settled for New Zealand strip loin steak. The menu said it was soft and tender. For 545 pesos and weighing at 300g i ordered mine medium with a smile. My mom had spaghetti and my sisters ordered porkchops.

Orders came late since the place was packed even at 1:30 pm.

First to arrive was the Bolognese Spaghetti which tasted like really bad Filipino sweet spaghetti trying to be fancy with pesto on french bread on the side. It was pure crap. Avoid it.

Then the porkchops arrived and my steak. The steak's size was generous but for medium cooked steak it was tough. As I sliced blood kept coming out of my steak, so I had it cooked again well done. I was very disappointed.

So much for holy cow! it's holy crap!

Since they're on soft opening, i can forgive their mistakes.

But the steak was a different story. And what made the experience was our server named Rick who asked us to bill out even when I was not even finished eating, how rude!

Ratings:

Ambiance 4 forks

Food 1 fork

Value for Money 5 forks

Service 2 forks

Variety 3 forks

Holy Cow is located at the ground level of Midtown, Robinson's Place Manila Ermita