I have been patrolling the online deal sites for restaurants discounts over the last several weeks to get ready for my birthday this year. I started outlining my different sets of friends with whom I intend to celebrate and whenever I'd see a good restaurant deal, I'd figure out which set of friends I would bring there and then I'd buy an appropriate number of vouchers.
I saw a couple of deals in restaurants I had never been to, but before buying them, I made sure to check out their online menus first and see if they had decent items that my friends would be interested to order. The first set of deals I got was for Relish at Ponte. I was initially marking those vouchers for some of my friends who are Makati-based since this resto is located in Salcedo Village. However, when I suggested a restaurant in Ortigas to my friend Mitch for our annual joint birthday celebration, she instead suggested that we just have lunch in Relish instead. My immediate reaction: "I have coupons for that place!" So we picked a date and got the Manila-based gang all together - Joyce and Iona plus JP and the kids, and also of course Ferg, Aidan, and Rory. It was my first time but Mitch had been there a few times before already. She highly recommended the Roasted Chicken with Garlic, Lemon and Oregano and even with that hype, this dish didn't disappoint. All the food we tried here was really good, from the appetizers to the pasta dishes. I heard Relish is packed during weekdays but as we were here on a Saturday, it was pretty calm. You can check out their menu here. I will definitely be visiting this place again.
The next set of deals I got was for Harvest Gastro Pub. I had never heard of this place before either but it is located in BGC, which is where my office friends - Joh and Raffa, Me-ann, Pia, Chris and Shar, Peegee and Randee, and Mike - usually hang out. (Mike brought our common friend Tricia with him when he arrived because Tricia lives in the area, and she was only planning to say 'hi'. However, as I have not seen her in a long time, I asked her to join us as well.) Harvest is located at the ground floor of Hamptons Tower II, and I was a bit rattled when I got there and realized this place was really like a restobar, with loud music, dim lights, and lots of people drinking. While some of us enjoy hanging out in bars and drinking, not everyone does and it's definitely not family friendly, at least not on a Friday night. The noise made it tough to have good conversation but we somehow managed. The food was pretty good for the price but I especially enjoyed the fact that alcohol was relatively inexpensive. We got a bottle of red wine for only P450 - normally you would have to pay anywhere from P700 to P900 for a bottle of inexpensive red wine in restaurants - so we ended up getting a couple. :) You can check out the Harvest Gastro Pub menu here.
We moved to Segafredo after dinner (it was just a block away) to have coffee and better conversation. Peegee and Randee were able to join us here (they weren't able to join us for dinner because they had to bring their baby with them and Harvest on that Friday night was definitely not a place for babies). Mike, who was in town to attend a friend's wedding, decided to cover coffee and dessert in Segafredo. We called it a night at around 11pm, although since Me-ann's ride was still not there, we walked over to Honeybee Patisserie/Bubble Tea near Burgos Circle so I could have more coffee and some dessert (I didn't really have a proper dessert in Segafredo because I was still full.)
So as I start my celebrations with friends and family, it's good that I have now tried three new places - Relish, Harvest, and Honeybee. Hopefully I can sustain this and try a few more places in the upcoming weeks. :)
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