A taste of Hilton
The newest hotel in the metro, Hilton Manila, recently treated select members of the media to a special food crawl to three of its five main dining outlets: Hua Ting, Kusina and Madison Lounge & Bar. The other two dining outlets are the Port Bar and Freestyle Pool Bar.
At the helm of the hotel’s various F&B outlets is Filipino Australian executive chef Dennis Leslie, who also served as our gracious host for this food crawl along with Hilton Manila director of business development Joanne Gomez.
With over 21 years of experience in five-star and luxury branded hotels and restaurants around Asia, Europe and Australia, Chef Dennis is finally coming back to his roots to serve as the culinary leader of Hilton Manila. We were also given a brief overview of the hotel by Hilton Manila general manager Simon McGrath.
The food crawl began at Hua Ting, a restaurant that specializes in authentic Shanghainese cuisine. After a lovely demonstration of the delicious fried Shanghai pork buns cooked by the hotel’s chefs from Shanghai, we tried some of the restaurant’s signature dishes. I loved the rice cakes with scallops, marinated chicken and the fried pork buns. Its food has no MSG and its ingredients are sourced sustainably.
Our next stop was Kusina, a massive Filipino kitchen with an array of different food stations, such as a samalamigan station, a salad bar, and at night, it even offers dampa-style seafood selections. This is probably the only hotel coffee shop where majority of its food is Filipino.
For the final leg of the food crawl, we visited the Madison Lounge & Bar at the first floor of the hotel. This modern cafe lounge captures the urban view of New York City. It serves as a café during the day, and transforms into a bar at night. Its very own rendition of everyone’s favorite corned beef, the Grilled Corned Silver Side, was amazing. I never thought that corned beef, caper berries, anchovies, pomegranate and Mornay sauce would be heaven in my mouth!
Most of the appetizers and desserts in Madison are quirky and original. The fried baby shrimps with hummus, smoked salmon macarons, and the signature dessert of apple pie in white chocolate called “The Big Apple” are excellent. Its food offerings have complex flavors that’s why Madison is probably my favorite dining outlet in the hotel.
Watch out for more of Hilton Manila’s official opening in this column soon!