Bacon Steak Heaven: Balboa

Friday traffic never fails to discourage me from exploring other places. Just like last Friday, R and I were supposed to visit Xocolat near UP. But since traffic gets more intense on Fridays, we decided to go to Shangri-La instead. And I find it tough to choose where to eat there since I already tried all the restaurants. (Good thing my favorites such as Spätzle, Kettle, Balboa, Brotzeit, and Duck & Buvette are there.) R let me choose where to eat and I chose…

Balboa! It has been a while.

I still remember how much I raved about its roasted chicken. I told my family, friends, and colleagues how much I love Balboa’s roasted chicken. I’m a fan. (Okay, enough of the chicken.)

This time around, R and I ordered the following: Cream of Squash (PHP209), Bacon Steak (PHP448) and Lasagna (PHP319). For drinks, R got the Salted Caramel (PHP175) while I chose Lychee, Lime and Honey (PHP138).

The drinks arrived first and my drink was quite refreshing. It wasn’t that sweet and it has a slight citrus taste from the lime. The lychee taste was faint though.

R loved his salted caramel. It was quite milky and surprisingly not as sweet as I thought.

The Cream of Squash had a light texture making it a good appetizer. I loved the slight sweetness of the soup.

Restaurant Love: Balboa (Take 3)

I love Balboa. In fact, I think this is my third entry on the restaurant. I ate there around 6 times already and I still crave for more. I have the Balboa addiction! But I have finally moved on from my crazy fascination over its Roasted Chicken. This time, I tried other dishes.

F sent me a random message about Balboa one Friday night and asked if I want to try the place out. Since I had no plans for lunch that day, we agreed to meet and K joined us as well.

I arrived a bit late (because I had to finish my weekend chores first) and F and K were halfway done with their meals. But given that I love to order a complete meal, I ordered a bowl of Cream of Squash (PHP209), Smoked Salmon (PHP348), and Carrot Pineapple (PHP138). I also ordered an Espresso Cheesecake (PHP228) for sharing.

 

My cream of squash was not as smooth as I wanted it to be but it sure was creamy and thick. It was sweet and slightly salty just the way I prefer it to be. I enjoyed it with my toast.

Restaurant Love: Balboa

Chicken. I really do not know what made you so charming but most Filipinos love chicken. Tinola, Adobo, Fried Chicken. There’s Max’s, Jollibee, Mang Inasal, Baliwag, Andok’s and much more. And because of our love for it, Max’s and Jollibee are now in other countries too!

It’s funny how we always think that whenever we have a balikbayan friend or relative around, we assume that they want to eat Filipino food. You’d be surprised that most of them are more Filipino than we are and they get to eat Filipino food more frequent than us who are here. 

 

We were thrilled when M and D are both here in Manila. We immediately planned a reunion as we just have to. Last time I saw M was way back in 2009 and it was over a year since I last saw D. However, D’s oh so cute baby got sick so she had to back out. But we still pushed through with the plan and met up with M.

 

Thinking that most of us are near Ortigas (except for K), we decided to have dinner at Shangri-La. We were all late except for T. (Sorry!!!)

 

Since we were all famished and because T was at the 4^th floor of the East Wing, we decided to have dinner at Balboa. I got so excited when we all agreed to eat there as I will get to eat my favorite roasted chicken!

 

The place was pretty packed when we arrived and it was around 8:45 p.m. already that time. We got a table though but it was farthest from the counter so the servers can’t really see us right away. Lucky though that there were a lot of people eating outside so there were servers who pass by every 5 minutes.

Restaurant Discovery: Balboa

It has been a tradition for my friends and I to celebrate our birthdays through lunch or dinner dates. A few weeks back, A celebrated her will-not-mention-her-age birthday and we decided to explore the new wing of Shangri-la (my new favorite place!) and have an early dinner there.

 

While walking around, we spotted Balboa, a casual restaurant that serves pasta, pizza, steak, and the like. We browsed through the menu and liked what we saw so we ended up staying.

We had a hard time choosing as A has a strict budget to follow (I kid). But Balboa has a lot of tempting choices but we cannot order too much as we wanted to have room for dessert. In the end we ordered Spinach Artichoke (PHP249) for appetizer, Shrimp and Sausage Spaghettini (PHP328) and Half Roasted Chicken (PHP399; PHP689 for whole) for our main course, and Cucumber Pineapple (PHP138) as my drink. 

Service was quick (well, given there were only 2 other tables being served). Our appetizer arrived in less than 15 minutes.

The spinach artichoke was served really hot and it sure was stretchy. It had a slightly tangy flavor which I love and it was a great way to start the meal. I just hope that they gave us more toasted bread (crostini). 

 

We were almost done with our appetizer when the pasta and chicken arrived.