Going away without leaving the city
Our sister Cookie is nearing the third trimester of her pregnancy and complaining of being tired. Take a day off work, we told her. Are you insane? she replied. She’s already worried about work piling up when she goes on maternity leave. Obviously the only way to get her to rest was to lock her in a room. So we locked her in a room last Sunday.
The room was actually a Signature Suite at Maxim’s Hotel in Resorts World Manila.
Our sister, brother-in-law and niece took the bedroom; we camped out in the vast living and dining room. Territorial borders had to be defined or we would spend the whole time bickering with our niece. If you’ve ever bickered with a 5-year-old, stop. It’s exhausting.
Cookie with our niece, Mika.
Having woken up too late to catch the breakfast buffet (Niece had already gone off to school with her dad), we had an early lunch at the hotel’s French restaurant, Impressions. Their new Executive Chef Cyrille Soenen (His Cafe Cicou recently transferred to Greenhills) has redone the menu with fail-safe and fuss-free favorites like prime rib and lobster.
Good thing we missed breakfast.
We started with oysters, which were so fresh they needed no drama. Pick up shell, slurp, next.
Then a creamy seafood bisque which tests your table manners because you may want to lick the bowl.
The main course: Prime rib with foie gras and truffled mashed potatoes. The portion was just big enough to be filling but small enough to allow you to stand up after the meal.
Afterwards the staff brought a tray of chocolate whatnots that we mistook for dessert. It wasn’t dessert, it was the appetizer before the main dessert selection of profiteroles drowned in chocolate, flourless chocolate fudge cake, and mango tart. But the main course was so satisfying that to follow it with dessert seemed excessive. So we declined dessert. Incredible but true.
Impressions at Maxim’s is open for lunch and dinner daily. There’s a Sunday brunch buffet (Php 1,888) where you can enjoy prime rib till the cows come home.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
March 6th, 2012 at 08:55
Man, you just made me hungry. :)
March 6th, 2012 at 20:24
The dessert is so fancy that it needs a dessert appetizer? Now that’s my kind of meal.