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