Yabu, House of Katsu

Yup, we braved the traffic and the throng of Christmas shoppers at Megamall for our Christmas lunch at Yabu. There is so much hype about this new Japanese restaurant that we just had to make an extra effort to make this lunch happen. We arrived before 12 nn and we were seated immediately.


Wakame and Potato salad at Php 175
For starters, we had the Wakame and Potato Salad. The seaweed salad was very good but I thought that the potato salad had too much mayonnaise.

Hire and Seafood Katsu Set at PHp 425
I ordered the Hire and Seafood Katsu Set. This set had Hire (pork tenderloin), cream dory, scallop, tiger prawn and an eggplant. I really enjoyed this dish especially since it had pork tenderloin which was fat free. The scallop was to die for. I exchanged half of my cream dory for Ella's oyster which was not in my set but in her Chicken and Seafood Katsu Set. Oh my, oh my! The oyster was humongous and so, so good. Of course, that's me because I just love everything oysters. It really was my lucky day that Ella does not eat oysters.

It was an excellent set if not for the little details that the service staff missed out big time. When we asked for the sauce that goes with our dishes, the waiter said that the mustard was for the scallop (notice that yellow blob on the top right), and the tartar for the fish and the shrimps. It was only when we were almost done with our meal that I remembered reading about the sesame seeds that we should have been served. When I asked the waiter about it, he came back with a bowl of bulldog sauce with sesame seeds on top. No pestle and mortar for us. By then, we only had about a slice left of our katsu.

Rosu Katsudon at Php 265
Ruby had the Rosu Katsudon which she exclaimed was excellent. I suppose this is the Katsudon you would ask for if it was your last meal on earth. Unfortunately, she also had a side order of the tiger shrimp which she claimed was nothing spectacular. I would have preferred dipping the tiger prawns in tempura sauce but they didn't have tempura sauce. Sigh.

As you can see the table was too small for the dishes we ordered. It would have been a great lunch if not for the missing sauce and oysters.

Notice those two humongous oysters sitting on my set. Can you believe that the chefs forgot to put these in the Chicken katsu set. We had to ask for it and they brought it to us when we were almost done.


The food at Yabu is really great and so in the spirit of Christmas, I will forgive the waiters and the chefs for forgetting to serve us the sauces and oysters that were suppose to be part of our meals. Maybe, they were simply overwhelmed by the Christmas crowd. I will definitely return with my family after the holidays. Hopefully, the waiters will be better trained and there will be quality control in the kitchen next time.

Yabu, House of Katsu
2F Atrium
SM Megamall

Vikings Restaurant

On the day of our reservation, things were definitely not going our way. I received a text from Jane that her flight to Manila was delayed due to bad weather. There goes our ride to MOA. Ruth and Myrna's landlines were not in service and they were not answering their cellphones. What to do? Should I cancel our birthday lunch date with Jenny, again? It has been rescheduled so many times that Lucy and I tried to convince each other to call Jenny to cancel. We knew that she would go ballistics. You see every year, we always have a problem scheduling her birthday treat since her birthday falls in between my birthday and our Christmas party. But this year, we added Che's birthday which falls between my birthday and Jenny's birthday. This means that we have to schedule lunch every week from Nov 19 to Dec 15. That's really tough. Thank goodness that Ruth was able to convince Myrna to drive us to MOA in the heavy downpour, with roads flooded and Myrna still recuperating from a bad cough. Thanks Myrna. We owe you one.

At 12:30 pm, Jenny called to say that they couldn't find our lunch reservation. Apparently, someone made a mistake and confirmed us for dinner instead of lunch. Ayayay, it just wasn't our day. Since our reservation was made through its owner, we were put on the priority waitlist and given the first available table at 12:45 pm. Not bad.

When I entered the restaurant, I was so overwhelmed. There were so many people and so much food. The crowd was louder too compared to the hotel buffet crowd. But the service staff seemed to know what they were doing. All the dishes were promptly refilled and even though it was self-served, they didn't complain when we requested coffee and drinks to be served to us. The line at the buffet stations were non-existent too except when I wanted my tenderloin and lamb cooked medium rare.

To give you an overview of what to expect, here are the various food stations: One wall was for the Chinese station of hakaw, pork siomai, scallop siomai, shark's fin siomai etc., herbal soup, cuapao, fried mantao. The middle wall housed the sashimi and sushi station. The salmon sashimi was melt in your mouth good. They were in the process of refilling the salmon sashimi and so I had to request the chef for some. Without batting an eyelash, he gave me 6 thick slices of the sashimi. That's the type of service that you get here. Their sushis were not your usual sushi either. They had the squid ink sushi which really had the taste of squid ink. The other wall was for the hot pot station.

The center station had the appetizer station with salad, cerviche, liver pate, spinach dip, boursin dip, various cheeses, hummus, egg salad, nachos, sandwiches etc. Be forewarned to stay away from the crostinis because they were as hard as rock. The other side of the center station had the hot dishes of Japanese fried rice, Yangchow, garlic rice, wheat, white and walnut breads, dinner rolls, pata tim, lengua and osso buco.

The grill station had the usual salmon, panga, shrimps, squid, liempo, barbecue sticks etc. On the other wall is the lechon, tenderloin steak, leg of lamb, fish and chips and mashed potato with corn. Then, you have to cross the other side of the room for the array of desserts. Oops, I forgot, there was also the drinking station of various fruit juices, sodas, beer, and coffee that's brewed to order. Are you salivating now?

Cerviche, chicken liver pate, spinach and boursin dips, egg salad, salmon sashimi, grilled shrimp and taro pao, raw almonds with raisins..

Jenny stayed away from the meat dishes and so she contented herself with the grilled shrimp and various sushis.

Tenderloin steaks and slices of leg of lamb with a side of mashed potato. The steaks were cooked to order and our request for medium rare steaks were done just right. The meats were so tender.

Lengua, liempo and walnut bread. Yum.

Mediterranean pasta cooked to order.

Dragon fruit with chocolate sauce.

Egg tarts, pichi pichi, biko and red velvet cake with cream cheese topping. The pichi pichi tasted like Amber's so this was exceptionally good. The crust of the egg tarts was not flaky and so I didn't like it.

The birthday lunch that was doomed to fail if not for our all out effort to make it happen.

Happy Birthday, Jenny.

My verdict? Vikings would give the hotel buffets a run for their money. I think that the food here is even better than most of the buffets at the hotels. The food was really tasty. I was wondering if they used a lot of msg since the dishes were so good but I didn't break out nor was I thirsty at the end of the meal and so msg, if used, was very minimal. Of course, you don't get the ambiance of the hotel buffet but the price more than makes up for it. They charged 688++ for lunch but we were able to borrow a discount card and so we ended up paying 650 pesos per person. As I said before, when I go out with the XS moms, it's very seldom that we pay full price for our meals. We always find friends who have discount cards. Would I eat here again? You bet....again and again and again. Yup, it was that good.

Vikings
located near the Esplanade, MOA
846-3888; 846-4888; 846-5888; (0917) 565-3888

Naci Comfort Food & Dessert Bar

Naci is a restaurant located in our neighborhood and so we decided to eat here for Che's birthday. We were given the private room which was great because our group was creating such a ruckus. I must admit, we were really loud although I don't remember why we were laughing so much.

We started with Junior crabcakes @ Php 210. The crabcakes were really crunchy and just ok.

Kani Mango Salad @ Php 160. The salad was priced right. It was an average Kani Salad that one gets in a Japanese resto. The vermicelli noodles was a nice touch but it lost its crunchiness when we mixed it with the salad.

Lengua @ Php 320. I liked this dish. The lengua was not overcooked and had a nice bite to it. I would have preferred it to be creamier though so that the sauce does not run all over my plate.

Nadine's Adobo Canneloni @ Php280. We had mixed reviews over this dish. The flavor was there and it tasted good but the sauce didn't ooze out when we placed it into our plates. Maybe the bechamel sauce was overcooked. The bread was chewy too.

Longganisa & Green Grapes Pasta @Php 220. The sourness of the green grapes balanced the sweetness of the longannisa sauce. I wish we were given a choice of noodles. I would have preferred spaghettini noodles instead of the linguine.

I don't remember the name of this caramel cake. It was really delicious. It wasn't sweet at all.

Raspberry cheesecake @ Php 145. We had mixed reviews over this cake. I liked it but some of my friends said that one ingredient overpowered the dish. Maybe the sour cream???

The XS moms in the private room of NACI.

The birthday girl, Cheryl Whang. We gave her an orange cake from Bellini's and Malted Milk Ice Cream from Carmen's Best.

Now, for more photo ops. The service staff were really great not only with serving the dishes but also with taking our photos. They asked if they could do close-ups and knew how to take photos from an Iphone.

On our way out, we decided to have more photos while getting free taste of their cookies and chocolate barks. Actually, we could have done away with ordering dessert with our meal since there was a wide array of desserts to taste for free. I'll go back for their chocolate barks.

More photos while waiting for our last minute buys from their dessert counter.

The birthday girl showing what we decided to buy for our kids, i.e. cookies and brownies. Our family should really love us to the max because when we have our girl lunches we almost always bring home some goodies for them to taste.

Overall, Naci is a nice place to hang out with friends. The food and desserts are good and the service staff were very attentive. I suggest that you order the coffee pod though because our brewed coffee was so watered down. We complained to the waiter but he said that there was nothing he could do because the coffee was premeasured. Since they are so close to Xavier School, maybe they can buy their coffee from the school which sells Batangas ground and bean coffee. The proceeds from the sales of the coffee goes to the XS Educational Trust Fund. A win-win situation, don't you think?

Naci Comfort Food & Dessert Bar
2/F Fox Square Bldg.
Connecticut St.
Greenhills
(02) 726-7266