Maki Japanese Restaurant & Sushi Bar, Iloilo

If you’re in Iloilo, you should definitely eat at Maki Japanese Restaurant & Sushi Bar. On DAY 3, we had their lunch buffet, which not only had Japanese cuisine, but also Filipino dishes. With two of my favorite kinds of food, how could I say no (mind you still full from breakfast, which was also a buffet)?

This is the table of Japanese food. There’s sashimi and different kinds of maki and tempura and Japanese dumplings and a bunch of other dishes I didn’t know what were, but were all good, nonetheless. I know quite a number of people who don’t eat sashimi since it’s raw fish, but those people are completely missing out. I love sashimi (dipped in wasabi-loaded soy sauce – yummmm) , and I put loads and loads of it on my plates (take note: plates – plural form).

There was incredibly tender chicken teriyaki also, which I made sure to get second servings of.

This was what I ate the most: grilled squid! Why it’s yellow, I don’t know and care. All I know is that I almost cried tears of joy upon tasting the squid, with tons of onions and tomatoes stuffed inside them.

Pork tonkatsu

This was a pleasant surprise: they gave us oysters, which weren’t on the buffet table

For dessert, they had a halo-halo station with homemade ice cream. I don’t eat halo-halo, so I settled with two bowls of ice cream instead – vanilla ice cream (not homemade) which I topped with real ube jam, and ube (homemade), which tasted great. It had just the right amount of sweetness (haha these pseudo-food critic comments are making me laugh hahahahaha). Seen in the picture is Benj, who consumed his vanilla ice cream right down to the last melted drop.

What Paolo Thinks:

Maki Japanese Restaurant & Sushi Bar is located at the Smallville Complex, Diversion Road. For inquiries and reservations, call (033) 321-3885.

Breakthrough Restaurant, Iloilo

On our second night in Iloilo (which I blogged about HERE), we had dinner at Breakthrough Restaurant. Many people had recommended it to us, and the parents, feeling celebratory after Ateneo de Cebu’s victories, decided to be all festive and triumphant at Breakthrough.

Breakthrough is located right by the sea, which must probably be lovely during good weather, but it was raining hard when we were there, so it was terribly chilly and slightly wet. We had a long, LONG table good for 50 people who could not stop talking about the games we had just watched.

Their specialty, as you may already have figured out yourself, is seafood. One kind of seafood that Iloilo is famous for is Diwal, which we didn’t get to try, unfortunately. Diwal is also quite pricey at 500 pesos for a dozen (the shells are small, mind you). I did, however, manage to take a photo of these mollusks (yes, totally makes up for not being able to taste them =/ ), which are said to be only found in the Capiz region.

Breakthrough has tanks and tanks of fish, shells, crabs, and etc., so you can be assured that whatever you’re eating is fresh.

Oysters which I’ve had occasional cravings for ever since Sam taught me how to love them in Manila. Haha.

I will be eternally grateful that I’m not allergic to shrimp…

…and squid! I love eating grilled squid with the onions and tomatoes stuffed in them.

If you read What Paolo Writes, you probably know that I am a huge fan of kinilaw. I don’t like the kind that has skin, though, and to my slight unhappiness, some pieces of Breakthrough’s kinilaw still had the skin on them. I picked the ones that were skinless, and it was gooooooooood.

I initially did not find the idea of tuna sisig appealing, but after I tasted it, I completely changed my mind!

Breakthrough Restaurant is located at Villa Beach, Arevalo, Iloilo.

Phone number: (63 33) 337 3027

 

What Paolo Thinks: