Station Zero & #3
It’s always heartening to see homegrown companies enter particular industries and aim for a high standard and achieve it, especially when the industry is traditionally dominated by global brands. In the high-end hotel and hospitality industry, I would only consider a handful of local brands as having made that breakthrough. So it was great to join a dinner announcing the impending arrival of the third Chroma Hospitality Crimson establishment, The Crimson Resort & Spa in Yapak, Boracay. This after the success of the hotel’s Cebu Mactan and Filinvest Corporate City, Alabang locations.
Up and running by December of this year, the Crimson Boracay will sit on a serene, secluded section north of Station 1 (near the Shangri-La and Mövenpick Boracay resorts). It will house a Presidential Suite, 22 villas with private pools, 72 one-bedroom suites and 97 deluxe rooms. Saffron will provide all-day dining, there are three pools, a Latin American Steakhouse, a Grand Ballroom, a pool bar, the Azure Beach Club, a fitness center, the Aum Spa and the Crimzone Kids Entertainment center.
The Crimson Boracay general manager Laurent Bourgeois has a story with an element of serendipity. He spent part of his childhood in the Philippines and visited Boracay back in 1981 as a young boy. He recalled the serenity and scenic expanse of Boracay back then, and while appreciative of the way the island has developed and progressed since then, he feels that the Crimson Boracay goes a little way in recapturing the peace and “sanctuary” element that he was impressed by on that first visit. For Laurent, there is kind of coming full circle with this assignment and he can hardly wait to formally open the doors of the resort.
It was no coincidence that the intimate dinner was held at Vask, for chef Chele Gonzalez of Vask recently opened Enye, a new F&B restaurant outlet at the Crimson Mactan, highlighting Spanish cuisine. Some of the special dishes he had created for Enye were on the dinner menu that night — and they collectively provided one more special reason for not forgetting Crimson Mactan when planning holidays and long weekends.
While it may still be a couple of months away, the dinner served as an excellent teaser for why Chroma Hospitality may soon be making Boracay’s Station Zero the hot new address on the fabled island.
Everyday mysteries
Whether it’s a traditional mystery (but with a narrative structure twist), the mysteries of being a man in this day and age, or finding your “hometown” is more than strange; these novels unravel and provide reading enjoyment.
Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz (available on
Amazon.com) Popular and immensely rich crime fiction author Alan Conway has committed suicide...or was he murdered? His latest novel, Magpie Murders, arrives at his publishers with the last chapters of the manuscript missing. What ensues is a very smartly executed doublehelix narrative — one strand is the Magpie Murders manuscript in its entirety with the frustrating aspect of those missing chapters, and the other narrative has his editor, Susan Ryeland, playing investigator herself, and attempting to find the purloined ending, while slowly realizing that there certainly may be more to the apparent suicide than meets the eye. A rich page turner that works tremendously on both levels, this is Horowitz at his most nimble and entertaining. Guaranteed to keep you guessing, and reading!
All That Man Is by David Szalay (available on Amazon. com) What it means to be a man in 21st century is what Szalay has in mind with this latest novel. Shortlisted for the Man Booker in 2016, the novel is propelled by its unique structure. Told over nine chapters, each chapter is a vignette about a man in a particular age, starting from a teenager to a 73-year-old man. Like some compass of man, the stories deal with missed opportunities with older women, of making the best of strange situations in order to learn more about sex, about handling violence, about unwanted pregnancies, about “starting over” when your fortunes have taken a downswing, and of course, negotiating the dim twilight of your life. While some chapters are more memorable and engaging, one can’t deny the talent at work and how, despite his age, Szalay enchants.
Himself by Jess Kidd (available on In a remote Irish west coast village, a young stranger suddenly appears — this is Mahony, who was raised as an orphan in Dublin, knowing that his mother Orla came from this village. Based on this simple premise, Kidd gifts us with a novel full of eccentric characters, the dead walking and communicating with Mahony, and of a sordid story of small town prejudices and cruelty. Filled with elements of contemporary magical realism, this novel works both as engrossing character study — primary here are Mahony, and Mrs. Cauley, the retired stage actress who mounts a play every year in the village — and as a mystery, as we unravel the truth behind the disappearance of Mahony’s young mother back in 1950, and the repercussions created by his arrival in 1976. Fiendishly clever writing!