Hotel Celeste - Makati

Standard Room or Deluxe Room about P4,300/night

Ed, making the bathroom look ultra cool....

Hotel Celeste is a year old boutique style hotel located in Makati. I have a like/love relationship with boutique style hotels in that they are more intimate and personalized than the bigger franchise hotels. Besides what they lack in certain amenities like a pool, they make up for in swankiness and cool products like an Ipod docking station or flat screen TV.

While we didn't come here for the hotel our curiosity was piqued that we asked the staff to see the rooms so that if friends or family came, we can recommend it. They gladly accommodated us and showed us two rooms, one standard and one suite. They have a total of 30 rooms, each with a different design and motif.

Suite room....w/adjacent living room below about P7,200/night

I so love the bathtub...it isn't claw foot, but still cool!

The rates for Hotel Celeste seem pretty reasonable for what it offers. The rooms are a bit small, but then again, most hotel rooms are getting smaller and smaller anyway. If I didn't have relatives or family here, I would definitely consider this hotel.

Hotel Celeste
San Lorenzo Ave. cor. Arnaiz
www.hotelceleste.ph

Snow Garden Korean Restaurant - D Mall Boracay

After a lovely swim at the Regency Boracay we were all craving for some Korean food. It was hot that day so we were looking for anything we could find. We noticed one along the main beach, but somehow with the heat and being so hungry we had no patience to walk back and forth to look for it. We also asked around and no one seemed to know of any except for on at D'Mall. If I only found one Korean tourist, I'm sure we would've hit a really good one.

For this resto, they didn't have ojingubokum so they opted to have bulgogi and two orders of chap chae. The bulgogi was as good as it gets in the Philippines, meaning it was better than some others. The chap chae was just ok too, but at the portions for this was a big serving plate. It didn't have all the yummy goodness of the vegetables that it normally has, but the serving made up for it.

The condiments weren't as good as you would normally get at other Korean restaurants, but we weren't complaining as they kept refilling the ones we requested.

Snow Garden Korean Restaurant
D'Mall Boracay
Price: Moderate to High

English Bakery and Tea Room Boracay

English Bakery is not in the long strip of food places you can find. As a matter of fact, you have to cross a few alley ways and one main road, depending on where you are coming to reach it.

Their menu is varied as it consisted of your usual filipino fare and continental or american breakfast. I got the ham and cheese omelet with french bread for about P85. There was no french bread or baguette, it was plain toast...a small one at that with some plastic strip I found after eating it half-way. However, the omelet was of good size, but nothing spectacular. As a matter of fact it was "meh". If there is one thing I hate about my omelet is how they overcook the egg to become a flat mass of nothing. I prefer the fluffy goodness of egg ooze coming out as you dip your fork into the egg.

Best bests here are probably the filipino breakfasts as I didn't hear any complaints from my friends.

English Breakfast and Tea Room
Price: Budget

Smoke's - D Mall Boracay

The bulk of our eating was done in this restaurant. Why? Because its darn cheap and pretty good. Smoke's is your typical Filipino food served on a sizzling plate or other. The selection is varied, but most of what we had (and we ate here three times) was fairly good. The winner for all of us was the Spicy Chicken, which is a rice plate. I also had the Bicol Express and I liked it because it was spicy and I mean SPICY! My nose was dripping wet after I ate this. Another recommended dish is the Salpicao.

On our last night as I talked to the waitstaff, we didn't realize there was another location of Smoke's at D Mall. The one we went to is located where they sell fresh fruits meaning, its further behind the mall past most of the tourist stores. There are a lot of Korean tourists and locals who eat at this place.

Here are some photos of food and the bill to show you approximately how much we spent.


Smoke's Boracay
Price: Budget

Villa De Oro - Mongolian Grill All you can eat in Boracay

Again, we just ran into this restaurant as we were walking around the beach. This is located a bit past Boracay Regency, probably where station 2 meets station 3. Who knows exactly where we were. There are a lot of these all you can eat type places in station 1, but this was the cheapest we found at P200 per person. The selection includes noodles, rice, veggies, meats and some seafood. What makes the food as good as it gets is basically the mixture of sauces that you put into it. If you ain't good with the combination of sauces, then your food is going to taste nasty and it ain't the fault of the chef who cooks the meal.

I prefer to separate my rice as they cook the meal, that way you don't get as full and you can get seconds. I notice here in the Philippines, they like to make it as if it were a rice meal thingy. But I've always remembered Mongolian to have the rice separate.

All in all the selection wasn't bad. The meats could've been bigger and better. Actually it just reminded me of a more expensive Mongolian Quick-Stop franchises you see in Manila, except you can get it yourself and with much varied selection.

After you create your own bowl, you give it to this chef who cooks it for you. They give you number and when its done, its delivered to you.

Mongolian Grill at Villa De Oro
Price: Moderate to High (P200 per person for all you can buffet)

Restaurants in Boracay

We tried other restaurants that other bloggers have not recommended in Boracay. What's the point of regurgitating the same resto's everyone goes to. Again, the point for us is to comment on every resto we go to good or bad whether or not its a known place. This time....I was with recession foodites that budget meals mattered and I mean budget. So I'm going to compile a list of restaurants we've eaten at Boracay.

White Beach de Boracay - Motel not Resort

We stayed at White Beach de Boracay Resort....but uh, i guess you can call it more a motel or an apartelle without the kitchen. The location is ideal in that it is in Station 2 right below Yellow Cab and Havaianas. It has a beach front view...if you get those rooms in the main area. At P1,500 per night, you get a basic bed, one closet, TV and a toilet that didn't have any shower curtains. The restroom was so small and the toilet oddly positioned so close to the wall, I had to spread my legs using the toilet and I could kiss the wall. We stayed at room 203 as it was pretty clean because its fairly new so that was a plus. The owner lady is fairly accomodating too....again another plus.

If you travel during non-peak, I suggest making arrangement when you get to Boracay. There are many accomodations around that were offering real deals so it makes sense to call around. My sister and her family also came during my trip and stayed at Boracay Regency. Now that is a hotel with all your amentities, clean, nice and beach front as well. As a matter of fact at night its restaurants are packed. It also has nice pools. The normal rates at P14,000 for a family room, but she called up and got the room at half the cost or P7,500. The family room had four beds that could easily fit 8 people.

Boracay Regency Family Room

White Beach de Boracay

Station 2
http://boracayreservation.multiply.com/

Boracay Regency
http://www.boracayregency.com/

SeaAir - "Holy Sh@#t, that's one scary ride!"

So the reason why we decided to go to Boracay was because of the cheap non-peak fares SeaAir had going on that a friend forwarded to me. The fare touted P69 one way (yes for you non-Philippine folks, that's less than $2). Of course that's just the base fare....online with taxes that is about P375 ($7.81) one way. Can you say "Whaaat"? That was the cheapest fare I've gotten in my life, so I booked without hesitation and told my "budget" traveler friends about it.

As our flight neared, I realized I didn't know much about the carrier I booked on nor the plane we were on. I just assumed we were on a nice prop plane like the picture shown on their site. On the day of our flight and upon check-in we noticed they weighed us with our carry-on bags. Jaja and I kept wondering why, but were just too groggy in the morning to keep thinking about it. As our flight was called we saw our plane from afar and thought we were good to go. It was one of those cute modern turbo prop ones. We kept taking pictures of us in front of it as it was our first time riding a small plane like it. But to our surprise, they were redirecting us towards a smaller plane and it scared the crap out of us and other passengers. We basically got screwed and moved to a smaller and scarier plane. Both of us didn't want to go. It was a 19 seater plane with no frills. The stewardess came in, counted us and basically left the plane. There was no room for any service whatsoever, just us passengers and two pilots. As we started up the plane, there was no A/C or anything so it was mighty hot and I began to pray...like I never prayed before. Our FATHER.....!

As we were up on the air, I noticed that you can smell the gasoline of the plane and it was hot. As a matter of fact, I believe I saw one of the windows in cockpit slightly opened. I guess that's why we didn't go high up in the clouds, hence....it took longer than our friends who took the pimp daddy Dosier plane.

To block the sun in the cockpit, they used the sunvisor snap on's as those used in a car. Haha, that was hilarious! In air, I realized that the run way was short, so we were going to break hard to stop....and break hard we did. My heart and guts landed invisibly on the floor! As we were about to go out the pilot said "thank you" and I could've swore I said "God, I could kiss you " loudly because the passengers and pilot looked and laughed at me. All I can say is....I arrived in Caticlan airport in one piece. So thank you Mr. Pilot & co-Pilot man.