A Happy Tummy in Tacloban City

Hi! It's been too long since our last post. As I was thinking about what to blog about next, I realized that I need to share some cool dining places that not everyone has heard of. And since I just spent a lovely vacation from my beautiful hometown, This post will be all about Tacloban City.

Tacloban City is the capital of the province of Leyte. It is the first to be classified as a Highly Urbanized City in Eastern Visayas. The San Juanico Bridge, McArthur Park and the Santo Nino Shrine are one of the many places you can visit. But since this is a food blog (yay!) I'm going to share 3 awesome places to eat, drink and party in Tacloban City.

1. Mex 'Em Up Grill.

Mex 'Em Up Grill is a restaurant with a fusion of Mexican, Italian and Filipino cuisine located the ground floor of Robinson's Tacloban. Their dishes are very tasty and suprisingly inexpensive! The main reason why I decided to include this place on the list is because of their amazing cream of mushroom soup.

This, right here is the tastiest mushroom soup I've ever had. At 49 pesos, you get a serving of creamy heaven. Just the right amount of mushroom, a hint of garlic and they definitely did not scrimp on the cream.

This is their cheese and beef supreme nachos. The dip is loaded with bits of onions, tomatoes and lots of beef and melted cheese. Yum!

Now this is the triple burger steak. Three burger patties with mushroom and gravy. I wasn't a fan of it. But my best friend and her boyfriend found it tasty.

We also tried out all three kinds of quesadillas they offered. The bacon and ham melt, pesto and the cheese and beef. All of them were tasty but the bacon and ham melt was my favorite. And oh, just a friendly reminder, if you do try the pesto, be sure to have a TicTac afterwards.  :)

Anyway, here are some of the pictures we took:

with my best friend and foodie partner.

my best friend and her beau.

Our bill:

Not bad huh?



Mex 'Em Up Grill
Ground Floor, Robinson's Place Tacloban
Marasbaras, Tacloban City, Leyte
(053) 323 7460
http://www.facebook.com/mexem.up







2.  Club Rage

Sometimes, when life gets the best of us, all we need is a place to let loose. If you happen to be in Tacloban City, you should visit Club Rage which is located at Tacloban Convention Center. It is owned by Ryan Sevilleja and managed by Aya Santos. This place offers upbeat, euphoric music as their DJs Louie and Niko work their magic to keep the people on the dancefloor.


But if you do need to get a little inebriated before you bump and grind and show off those other dance floor worthy moves, you may wanna try their bestseller: The Caribbean Cocktail.

 

This baby right here is vodka mixed with orange and lime juice. My friends and I order this all the time. It's so sweet and fruity that you can barely taste the alcohol. Don't let this drink fool you though,  a couple of shots paired with a bottle of Tanduay Ice and you'll be doing the dougie in no time.



But if you're a hardcore drinker, here's what you need: The Black Russian.

The Black Russian, according to their menu is a mixture of vodka and Kahlua. If you finish a glass of this drink and you don't feel the slightest hint of being sloshed, then hats off to you my friend.

Club Rage's main men: Ryan (left) and Aya (right)

with one of my closest friends, Rhona.

the girls

the gang

the effect of a few sips of the Black Russian and a couple shots of the Caribbean Cocktail. :) 

Club Rage
Tacloban Astrodome Sagkahan, Tacloban City, Leyte
0917 327 6456
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Club-Rage-House-of-Music/203463656390236





3. Calle Zaragosa

Now, after the drinking and partying, we almost always head straight to this place. Now, before I continue with this post, let me apologize in advance if I did not take a lot of photos of the place. I was not able to bring my camera on my vacation. All these pictures are courtesy of my best friend Elvin's boyfriend, Marcos. 

Anyway, this place serves the best bulalo in Tacloban City and I think the most affordable too. At 110 pesos, you a get a cup of rice and a bowl of bulalo. The serving size is good for two people. Its hot, tasty, light broth is oh sooo comforting! It's as good as a back rub while you're throwing up all those Caribbean Cocktails and Tanduay Ice from the party. Hahaha. But seriously, their bulalo is one delicious cure for hangover.

Add caption

We also ordered their tocino meal. A cup of rice, one fried egg and a thick piece of tocino for 50 pesos. All I can say is that everytime we visit Calle Zaragosa, we always get our money's worth and a big happy tummy. :)

Calle Zaragoza
39 Independencia St., Tacloban City Philippines 6500
 +63 53 321 3197; 325 8582, +63 917 306 0168
http://www.callezaragosa.com/



Anyway, there are lots of cool places to hang out and dine in Tacloban City and I haven't even started with Club 6500 yet which has lots of good restobars. So watch out for my next posts about Tacloban City.

Ciao!


Submitted by: D
Photos by: Chang and Elvin Grace.



Note:  Prices of food and location of establishment are in Philippine currency and are subject to change without prior notice.

Breakfast at Harolds

A couple of days ago, my friend Lovella texted me saying she’s going to spend the weekend here in Cebu to visit her friends. So I replied, “ Let’s have breakfast together on Saturday!” to which she gladly agreed.

So the minute she arrived, she went straight to the office to meet me. We were joined by our friend Hearty which happened to have ended her shift too. We went to Harolds Hotel for their breakfast buffet at Php 250.00 per person.

We had to wait for a couple of minutes before we got a table because we didn’t make reservations (oops! I forgot that we had to). Luckily, we were there early and there weren’t a lot of people waiting to get a table.

 Anyway, here’s what I had for breakfast:

Fried rice with bits of vegetables, chicken tocino, hotdog, ham and a pancake.

I’m sorry to say but the chicken tocino was not at all tasty. It wasn’t well marinated and was dry. The pancake however was soft, fluffy and yummy. Exactly the way a pancake should be. J

fried rice with bits of vegetables

ham

sausages

the salad bar

Ah..the salad bar. I was not a fan of eating raw vegetables until lately. I had a serving of these. Mostly it was just lettuce and carrots..haha! I hate cucumber. J  I had a bit of each of the salad dressings they served. I liked the Caesar dressing, the Thousand Island, not so much.

corn and choco flakes

 bread and pastries

mmmm..the soft and fluffy pancakes.  J 

the omelet station

I loooove omelettes! I had mine with bell peppers, ham, onions, mushrooms and lots of cheese!

Lovella's third plate: lettuce, carrots, cucumber, croutons and a slice of pineapple.

Lovella. J

fish fillet

I also had a piece of fish fillet. It was okay, it tasted right but the sauce was surprisingly good. Just the right mixture of soy sauce, vinegar and lots of different spices.

The amazing Maja Blanca. J





This was the highlight of my meal. The maja blanca. It’s a thick, sweet coconut-flavored pudding with toasted coconut on top. I’m not a fan of this dessert but Hearty encouraged me to try it. She said it tasted like ube ice cream. And good heavens, it did! It was creamy, but not too sweet and just like M & M’s, it melts in your mouth! I would have gotten myself another piece, unfortunately I was too stuffed.


And by the way, this may probably be uninteresting, but I’ll say it anyway J, just before we left, Zanjoe Marudo, Rayver Cruz, Matteo Guidicelli and a comedian (don’t know his name. Sorry) came to eat their breakfast at Harolds. Here’s a picture of Lovella and Hearty with Zanjoe and the comedian.

Anyway, there were lots of other food  that we didn't get to take a picture. In fact, I was too shy to go around the buffet table to take pictures of each dish. Hearty was sweet enough to do it for me. Thanks Heart ! They had vegetable dishes and crisp, juicy bacon. Now the question is, would I go back for their breakfast buffet? Definitely. Would I recommend this place to my friends? Sure. Overall rating? Three and a half stars out of five.




submitted by: D