How to Get Your Money’s Worth at The New Spiral

Spiral has arguably the best buffet spread in Manila.  Usually, it’s a shit load of dishes with maybe the prime rib really standing out.  It gets overwhelming that it becomes a parade of mediocre dishes that gets covered up.  Sure, there’s the usual prime rib station, the pasta section, the Indian, Chinese and all that shebang — but what makes Spiral so good, in my opinion, is that there are clear dishes that stand out.

But it’s also incredibly expensive.

My last visit to Spiral was a while back.  It was a victim of a huge storm and after getting flooded, they renovated the whole place, worked up the menu, and raised the prices.  So how much is it?

As of writing, cost is around P2,100.00++ (or $47.00++) to P3,888.00++ (or $86.00++).  The only reason this cheap bastard¹ visited Spiral is that my boss was feeling quite generous that time². But you can get some bang for your buck and this is how I think you can do it.

DON’T

• Don’t go for the usual suspects.  Sure, Indian food is nice.  So’s a good katsudon, sukiyaki, and even oysters, but they fill you up when you can go for so much more.  If you really want some breaded pork, go to fucking Yabu or Tokyo Tokyo.  You’re not paying close to 4,000 bucks for fucking katsudon.

• Don’t go for the unnecessary carbs.  Forget the rice, pasta, noodles, and bread.
• Sure, sushi’s expensive and I’m gonna get killed by chefs because the real ingredient of sushi is rice.  Not the fish.  But rice loads you up.  So while some of the sushi looks cute, we don’t do cute in Food Porn Junkies.  Go with the sashimis, but try to stay away from the pink crusted sushi.

• Fuck their prime rib or their lamb.  They’re dry, not very flavorful.  They’re shit.

DO’s

• Go for the cheese room selection.  Underrated and some cost quite a bit.  You know they invested a lot in building a special room for the cheeses.

• Cured meat, people.  Cured meat.

• Go crazy with the cured jamons, head cheeses, and pates.

• Crustaceans always closes the gap of the cost of the buffet.

• Lobster³.  Grilled and basted in butter and garlic.  Enough said.  I had about 4.

• Instead of the prime rib, go to the teppanyaki station.  They have shrimp and pork, but stuff yourself with the Angus Rib-eye.  Just awesome umami flavor.

• And of course, foie gras, foie gras, and more foie gras.  I seriously had 10 servings, so I knew I was good.

I loved their dessert station last time but I was a bit disappointed this time around.  There’s still the collection of candies, which they put inside these boxes that looked like Harry Potter’s luggage, and there’s still the crepe station, but I felt they weren’t as good as last time.  And they fucking took out the waffle station!

There are selections of chocolates that looked interesting, but what piqued my interest was the chocolate cake with chili.  Not very good, different, and definitely interesting.  But still not very good.

And of course, the absolute best way to get your money’s worth is to run into NBA players.  Instead of paying 30,000 bucks for court side seats, you can accidentally run into James Harden for 3,000.

Or go follow the crowd around Jeremy Lin.

And if you don’t get to see one of your heroes — Larry Legend — then at least get a photo with one of the guys he coached.

Give the people what they want, brother!  Just a solid night of champaigning and campaigning with steak, foie, and NBA players.

How to Get Your Money’s Worth at The New Spiral 2013-12-22

piral has arguably the best buffet spread in Manila.  Usually, it’s a shit load of dishes with maybe the prime rib really standing out.  It gets overwhelming that it becomes a parade of mediocre dishes that gets covered up.  Sure, there’s the usual prime rib station, the pasta section, the Indian, Chinese and all that …