Every diner's a winner at Edsa Shangri-La, Manila

MANILA, Philippines - Edsa Shangri-La Hotel serves up to one million diners a year at its food and beverage outlets and that doesn’t include the hotel’s room guests.

That’s a lot of plates and sumptuous food considering the hotel is neither in Makati nor Manila. But its location — right smack in the middle of the Ortigas business district and surrounded by the upscale subdivisions of Pasig, Mandaluyong and Quezon City — is what makes Edsa Shangri-La a favorite for weekend get-togethers over a meal. It is also a favorite for weekend getaways, being a “city resort” with a pool area that’s surrounded by lush gardens. It’s a quick ride to an oasis for some quiet time for families. In fact, the hotel’s clientele is composed of 85 percent local guests.

Edsa Shangri-La F&B director Udo Wittich says, “It’s challenging pleasing the local residents, and we take our guests’ feedback seriously. We have a one-question survey at our outlets: How can we make your dining experience better? We have a weekly meeting about this and make our assessments from the food to the ambience, and so we look at the things that come up more often. Some guests come back two weeks later and say, hey, you changed the music or something else. We’ve had guests saying, ‘You actually read our suggestions?’ Of course we do.”

A culinary adventure at Heat with its 13 open-theater kitchens with chefs on standby for an interactive meal

Citibank credit payment products director Bea Tan speaks of the same experience at Citi. “We’ve done a lot of tie-up with Shangri-La properties and Edsa Shangri-La Hotel is one of our clients’ favorites. In 2009, we did a Dine for Free program and we’re bringing that back because of customer demand.”

So, with two institutions that have a long tradition in customer service, a fun collaboration was in order. From July 9 to Sept. 30, the four restaurants of Edsa Shangri-La Hotel give guests with a minimum purchase of P2,000 a chance to get from 10 percent discount all the way to 100 percent, which means they don’t pay for their meal in any of the hotel’s four restaurant — the main dining room Heat restaurant, and the three specialty restaurants, Summer Palace (Chinese), Senju (Japanese) and Paparazzi (Italian).

The Citi cardholder draws from the Dine for Free Box a Citi scratch card that contains the corresponding discount that will be applied to his bill. Discounts on the scratch card are 10, 20, 30 and 50 percent off or dine completely for free for a maximum of P20,000 (net of VAT and service charges). Only one Citi transaction is allowed per table.

Summer Palace’s cornflake king prawns

There is absolutely no restriction — guests can apply their discount on their bill for that day and even on special days like the Japanese buffet on Sundays at Senju, or on special weekdays or weekends at Heat.

“Every participant is already a winner,” says Wittich.

“When we first had it at Edsa Shangri-La, you’d hear the screams of delight from tables that have just scratched a Dine for Free card,” says Tan.

Shangri-La executive chef Warren Brown says guests are in for a treat at the hotel’s outlets, especially since it is celebrating its 20th year in the Philippines (it was the first Shangri-La property built here). “All three specialty restaurants are very creative in what they do. Our chefs all come up with their own individual dishes,” Brown says. 

This creativity was very obvious at our de gustacion meal at Summer Palace. The chefs chose for us from the restaurant’s menu of traditional south china cuisine the bestsellers. The cornflake prawns top our list for its crunchy and soft textures and flavorful taste. It is a personal favorite of many Shangri-La patrons — including Citi’s Bea Tan, who has celebrated milestones at Shang properties through the years, including the proposal of her husband-to-be, her engagement party and wedding reception.

Pan-fried beef steak in black pepper

“My family loves this outlet,” Tan says. “Typically the one we always order are the cornflake prawns, the Peking duck two-ways (deep fried with salt and garlic and pepper), the gindara with light soy sauce, the beef with asparagus, and the chicken double boiled soup, which is slowly cooked for eight hours.”

 “There is some comfort food in there and we are famous for our variety and have such a loyal local following,” says Brown. 

Executive Chinese chef Tony Sum, drawing from his extensive Southeast Asian background, also served us green apple salad, seafood rolls, shrimp dumplings, pan-fried beef steak in black pepper, soft-shell crabs with pork floss, and lemongrass sorbet.

The all-day main dining room of Edsa Shangri-La, Heat, features 13 different open-theater kitchens — from Filipino to Indian, Japanese, Italian, Chinese — and dishes can go up to 320. Eating here is an interactive experience. There are chefs on standby, so you can have your salads or seafood made to your liking. If you don’t like your crustaceans cold, you can have a chef steam or cook them for you.

Soft-shell crabs with pork floss

The Italian restaurant Paparazzi has seen its fair share of marriage proposals during Valentine’s Day and throughout the year. Its interiors of quiet elegance go well with its traditional and innovative dishes. Chef Warren is all praises for its new chef, Roberto Cimmino. “He’s quite young (25 years old), very adventurous and plays with traditional dishes. There are the classics there but Roberto does them very unique, like his lasagna uses double yolk. His tiramisu, instead of doing the mousse he does jelly. His dishes are quite unusual.”

Chef Cimmino comes to Edsa Shangri-La after his stint in Shanghai, where the Italian restaurant he helmed was named “the most authentic Italian restaurant in Shanghai,” and where he won the prestigious Escoffier Award, which honors five distinct restaurants in Shanghai.

Wittich adds, “Roberto’s specialty is that he takes the dishes apart and puts them back together. He’s also very good at plating — the food looks great and tastes even better. Those who have eaten before at Paparazzi will have a completely new experience in Italian cuisine.”

The Japanese restaurant Senju has one of the most beautiful modern Japanese interiors we have seen. Here, Japanese master chef Kiyoshi Ogawa brings his world experience in Japanese cooking — from traditional, kaiseki, sushi, robatayaki, and fusion Japanese-European — to the Filipino table. Senju’s signature dishes include the dragon roll, baby lobster, tamago, kyui, unagi, hokki-gai, tobiko, mango and nori; and sumi udon, charrcoal noodles with spicy cod roe, shitake, enoki, shimeji, unagi kabayaki and mentaiko.

Green apple salad

From July to August, Edsa Shangri-La Hotel also whips up special themes in its outlets and you can use your Citi card for the Dine for Free promo. To celebrate this year’s Olympics, it has Olympic Feast for Champions at Heat, which features signature dishes from the UK, Canada, India, Italy, Singapore, Japan, and the Philippines (lunch and dinner, from July 27 to August 12). Blazing Barbecue at Summer Palace features the restaurant’s new Malaysian barbecue chef Chang Kean Min, who whips up flavorful roasted dishes that include taro pork roll wrapped in bacon, barbecued chicken wings filled with glutinous rice and barbecued pipa duck (lunch and dinner, until July 31). Buon Giorno! at Paparazzi takes you on a culinary tour of southern Europe with a scrumptious set lunch of classic Italian dishes (lunch, until July 31).

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The Citibank Dine for Free promo is available until Sept. 30 at Edsa Shangri-La, Manila’s four restaurants — Heat, Summer Palace, Senju and Paparazzi. For a minimum bill of P2,000 per table, diners who use their Citi card get a chance to draw a scratch card that gives them 10, 20, 30 and 50 percent off or they get to dine completely for free for a maximum of P20,000 bill (net of VAT and service charges).