Frannywanny

Cucina  is the all-day International dining restaurant of Marco Polo Ortigas Manila  and is one of my favorite hotel buffet restaurants in the metro too. While it may not have the widest array of dishes to choose from, I love how each dish is well-curated making it go very well with the rest of the line-up. I also love how they make it a point to change the themes every so often so I don't feel like I'm having the same old, same old in every visit. One visit, I had Italian , the next I had Thai, in another visit I enjoyed the best Filipino dishes and so on. There was even that one lunch wherein we had the most authentic British fare too . Despite the regular thematic changes, the top favorites are there to stay. I also love breakfast at Cucina ! I'll never forget that one memorable breakfast during our babymoon staycation at the hotel and I woke up so early because I was starving. I tell you, pregnancy hormones can sometimes just get so crazy. So there I was, part of th...

Here I am again, reliving my love for quiet afternoon tea breaks at one of my favorite hotels in Manila. If you've been reading my blog for sometime now, you'd be pretty much aware of how often I'd spend my Saturday afternoons in the Lion City with my girl friends as we would enjoy a good variety of savory and sweet finger treats . From tea sandwiches to canapes, from fruity tarts to sinful mini donuts, afternoon tea time was my favorite weekend activity and I'm so glad to be able to do it again at The Peninsula Manila , no less. Of course, it was also because we wanted to continue celebrating Paul's birthday as I just felt like a one day celebration is not enough for this amazing guy. I've also been planning to take my twins to The Peninsula Manila as I remember spending a lot of time with the family when I was a kid then. It was at The Pen where I had the best tasting Strawberry Sorbet and I was so thrilled to find out that they still have that. I have ye...

Every year, Paul and I would make it a point to celebrate our wedding anniversary. On some years we went out for a nice dinner date but more often than not, we'd take the weekend off for a nice R&R at a hotel of our choice. This year, we decided to check out Marco Polo Ortigas Manila  for one full weekend of non-stop eating and relaxation. After all, this will be the last wedding anniversary where it's just the two of us. Next year, we will be joined by our beautiful twins so looks like it will be a family getaway from then on. Marco Polo Ortigas Manila opened just a few years ago when we were already in Singapore making us even more excited to check this hotel out. Personally, I'm a fan of the Marco Polo group as my family and I used to frequent their hotel in Hong Kong many many years ago. One thing that I'll always remember about Marco Polo is its spacious room. The one in Hong Kong is also adjacent to one of our favorite malls -- Harbour City, making it so co...

Warning: Lots of photos ahead! :) The past few weeks have been fun for us corporate folks. We had a back-to-back long weekend giving us 4-days and 3-days workweeks one after the other. I know that the after effect of this led to spending more hours at work to catch up with the pending tasks but still, a break is a break and I truly enjoyed mine to the fullest. While half of Metro Manila were out of town or out of the country, Paul and I drove about 5km away from home to stay the night at the beautiful Manila Marriott Hotel . We have reached our travel quota for the year so we decided to just stay in town and to have that much needed R&R. As I arrived at the lobby of the hotel, I was warmly greeted by the doorman and a couple of security staff. Seeing that I was trying my best to balance Paul's heavy camera bag plus our overnight luggage on one hand and my shoulder bag and laptop bag on the other, he quickly offered to hold on to our bags while I checked in. The reception d...

I love Chinese food!  Yes, you read that right. Despite the fact that we always have Chinese food at home and most, if not all, of our family gatherings are held in Chinese restaurants, I tend to choose a basket of dimsum over a slice of pizza anyday. It's then no surprise that I immediately said yes when my friend and fellow blogger Spanky invited me to have dimsum lunch with him at Hyatt Hotel's signature Chinese restaurant -- LiLi . It was actually not my first time to dine here. A couple of years ago, I had the privilege to accompany my former boss on one of his monthly restaurant reviews and it just so happen that he invited me to join him at LiLi ! I can't remember exactly which dishes we had but all I remembered was they were all delicious and I had a marvelous time admiring Lili's beautiful modern Chinese interiors. Our meal began with the traditional Gongfu tea ceremony . In China, this is being done to show guests how welcomed they are in a friend...

To achieve perfection, I always believe that everything relies on the details. Big or small, adding the right detail can simply turn an ordinary hotel overnight stay into a memorable one that will last forever. Exactly a year ago, Paul and I spent our first night as husband and wife at the Discovery Suites in Ortigas. I remembered how surprised we were upon entering our 1-bedroom suite to see a bottle of wine on our table and as we walked towards our bathroom, the entire floor and bath tub was filled with red rose petals. We were speechless yet our hearts were screaming words of gratitude towards the very thoughtful staff of Discovery Suites . Today, we celebrate our 1st wedding anniversary and instead of flying out of the country or taking a long drive out of town, we decided to book a night once again at Discovery Suites , thanks to the amazing deal that we got from Deal Grocer . I got the 2nd to the last coupon for a 1-bedroom suite stay with breakfast for 2 for only half the ...