What’s Cooking: Hotel Highlights

By Patricia May P. Catan, with Christian Jay B. Quilo

TWO hotels in the city are in quite a mood to showcase their long-standing specialties and freshly introduced culinary innovations. These selections are worth checking out, and you’d surely find a reason to head up to any of these gastronomic feasts and satisfy your discerning palate.

UNO’s Modern Filipino Taste: Flavors of Cebu

UNO’s Modern Filipino Taste relentlessly waves its homegrown flag by highlighting dishes that are locally sourced. One may truly wonder what flavors will bring back to his roots or generally, what Cebuano flavor tastes like. Waterfront Cebu City Hotel & Casino is catering to curious minds (or palates) and will hopefully satisfy every diner who walks in.

Taking center stage are Cebuano flavors that are well thought-out and prepared with utmost appreciation for what one can say its homegrown.

UNO’s executive sous chef, Tristan Encarnacion, proudly demonstrated three dishes served at Flavors of Cebu. These local favorites — danggit flat bread with tuyo and tinapa, smoked tomato granita and dried mangoes, and rum glazed cashew nuts with caramel and vanilla ice cream are a spin in the modern Filipino cuisine, added with a hint of Cebuano flavor.

Satisfy one’s palate to a gastronomic trip at UNO’s Modern Filipino Taste: Flavors of Cebu. Flavors of Cebu will run until Nov. 30, so don’t miss out.

Signature Six

A delightful mix of sweet to savory and light to indulgent, Marco Polo Plaza Cebu’s Signature Six is a foodie must-try and a culinary destination in itself.

Tender cuts of pork and chicken coated in a savory flavorful sauce, Marco Polo Plaza Cebu’s Adobo hits all the right spots of the classic Filipino entree. Whether it’s ordered ala carte or at the buffet, this dish will require more than one serving of rice.

The Malicious Cookies need no long introduction. These sinful discs loaded with chocolate chips have received several awards including SunStar Best of Cebu’s Best Chocolate Chip Cookies for 2016.

Another signature dessert, the Mango Cheesecake is topped with luscious ripe Cebu mangoes. The best part: this already decadent dessert is made more indulgent with a crust made of the famous Malicious Cookies.

The Ensaimadas come in plain, ube and mango variants and are the perfect accompaniment for an afternoon coffee sesh.

The Silk Road Iced Coffee is overnight-infused coffee on ice with cinnamon syrup and milk capped to the brim with torched meringue and marshmallow, served with a perfectly warmed Cinnamon S’mores to complement this rich caffeinated concoction.

The Earl Grape Iced Tea is not your ordinary iced tea. This blend of elderflower syrup, seedless grapes and earl grey tea — served in a sophisticated carafe, no less — makes a refreshing drink.

While the first four of the Signature Six are exclusive to Marco Polo Plaza Cebu, the two signature drinks are available in all Marco Polo properties — whether it’s in the Philippines, Hong Kong or China.