Jetsetting Foodistas | Boracay: Everything's Fine in Paradise?

Mark and Boracay
Jetsetting Foodistas: A Travelogue by Mark




Boracay - the hottest beach destination in the Philippines. Half a million tourists crowd the island every year for its beautiful beach, wild nightlife, and various water activities. But besides these, Boracay is also home to some very good eats.

The main commercial area in Boracay is called D’Mall and that is the place where you will find a large majority of Boracay’s restaurants.

Tucked away in a little corner is the original Cyma. It’s a must go I suppose since everybody here seems to love it soo much.

There’s also the seemingly interesting Fishbar. Unfortunately we didn’t eat there, but the next time we go I definitely want to see how they do their fish and chips.

One of the better restaurants there is an Italian restaurant called Aria. Be prepared to shell out a bit of money though, the cheapest pizzas and pastas start at Php 310 ($7.10) and go all the way up to Php 525 ($12). Of all the dishes we tried, the Gorgonzola pasta got the best reaction from my siblings.

They absolutely loved it. It tasted sort of like basic Alfredo pasta, but had a slightly more interesting flavor due to the Gorgonzola. Their pizzas are the very thin and crispy kind, and they tasted fine, but I hated eating the small parts of the crust, which were a bit charred. Overall this is a pretty good restaurant, albeit a bit pricey.

Another interesting place to eat there is Halowich. They serve… well it’s kind of complicated. Basically they are various things such as beef or potato with some vegetables, encased in a flying saucer shaped dough. Like a hot pocket, or a little pie. Unfortunately we didn’t try that, but what we did try is their desert item. It is basically ice cream; fruits such as banana, mango, pineapple and watermelon; crushed ice, some red beans, Cornflakes, and various flavors of sherbet. You can choose from such flavors as milk, wine, lemon, orange, strawberry, etc. I must say, on the hot beach, it is very refreshing with the ice and the fruits. Something you really must try if you go there.

Outside of D’Mall are plenty of other places worth your attention. One of the places we were quite excited to try was Zuzuni, acclaimed by the Philippine Tattler as one of the Philippines’ best restaurants in 2007. It’s a Greek restaurant, so the comparisons to Cyma are inevitable. We tried four items on their menu: their moussaka, lamb souvlakia (kebabs), pistachio prawns, and an appetizer of a spicy feta dip.

Unfortunately Zuzuni was a bit of a let down. For the spicy feta dip, they give you such a disproportionate amount of dip compared to pita bread that you have to order at least two extra orders of pita if you want to finish all the dip. But it did taste quite nice though. The rest of the food was pretty regular I would say, the moussaka tasted ordinary, the lamb tasted ordinary, the prawns were good though; but there were only 4 pieces. How can this possibly be one of the Philippines’ best restaurants when there is clearly a better Greek restaurant sitting a couple minutes walk away? Oh and I can’t believe their menu had waffles in it. Waffles. Would you really go into a Greek restaurant and eat waffles?

If you want some good dessert, you can head over to Discovery Shores, one of Boracay’s best and of course, most expensive hotels. The prices of the desserts there were actually quite reasonable, going from Php 180 ($4.12) to Php 220 ($5). My siblings had a mango cheesecake with passion fruit glaze and homemade almond ice cream, as well as Discovery’s signature cake; a cake of chocolate sponge, peanut butter icing, and a chocolate ganache. I had a coconut crème brulee infused with kaffir lime and pandan.

The crème brulee was quite nice, it had soft, sweet, coconut meat at the bottom and was quite rich. I have to say, for its prices, those were pretty good desserts.

So now that you know a few of Boracay’s restaurants, don’t you think it’s time to leave everything behind and spend a few days on the beach so you can discover it for yourself?

This has been Mark Wu.

I’m out like Greek waffles…

More photos can be found in my Flickr and my Multiply.