Part of our Cebu tour for our 98 year old grandmother is treating her around Ayala premises so she can sample different cuisines during her vacation. As agreed upon this week, we took her to Banana Leaf, an Asian fusion restaurant. The servers were prompt and polite, genuinely interested in giving her the best service they could provide even though the place was packed during lunch time.

 For starters, we had Thai Style pomelo salad, a fruity and nutty blend of grated coconut, pomelo and greens, a serving of Roti Canai, an Indian influenced flat bread that goes well as is. Once we were done, we ordered granny dearest a set meal of Hainanese Chicken, complete with chicken soup stock, slow broiled pieces of soft meat, Pad Thai, two hearty slabs of baby back ribs and a serving of black curry lamb.

Most of the orders here were somewhat of a disappointment, given the fact that many had coconut as an extender. The Black Curry Lamb didn't even have a hint of curry but just had tons of blackened coconut gratings cleverly hidden as "curry", and the pomelo salad, something we were sure that didn't have coconut cream now tasted awful because of it. The served ribs were so-so, assuming you were into over cooked meat with too much sauce in it. On the good side, the pad thai, the roti and the hainanese chicken were good orders, thankfully.

Banana Leaf, Ayala Center Cebu

Apparently, McDonald's released a new type of burger in their arsenal of food as a response to the newly opened burger house at IT Park, Lahug. They aptly named it the "Big and Meaty Burger", which is composed of a big burger patty topped with a generous amount of sauce, a big slice of melted cheese, slivers of sweet pickles and finally chilled fresh lettuce. The burger meal comes with the typical regular fries and soda that can be upsized to your liking.

This is the first time we brought our 97 year old grandmum out to a decent restaurant in ayala center Cebu. What bothered me was that Cafe Laguna had average PWD facilities, making it almost impossible to use wheel chairs.

Upon entering the facility, the servers were too busy with what they were doing despite the fact that the place was vacant. I never really understood why that was the case, but it continued for 20 minutes tops.


We had their Pinoy High Tea which is composed of mini treats like small buns with tuna flakes, some bibingka (rice cakes), espasol (rice treat with ground rice powder and caramelized sugar), and turon (caramelized sugar placed on top of fried banana). We also ordered an additional serving of Puto (rice cake from manila), puto bumbong (again, another rice delicacy with melted butter, graded coconut and sugar) and bibingka. It seemed like they forgot the serve us the tea once, and when it was served, it was warm.when it should have been HOT, and oh, did I mention that no one wanted to attend to us when we were requesting a few glasses of water?



The food is exceptional I'll grant that. But it seems like we just caught them at a wrong time and date.




Café Laguna
Ayala Center Cebu Branch
Level 1, The Terraces
Ayala Center Cebu,
Cebu Business Park, Cebu City
(+63 32) 231.0922


Verdict:

3.5/5

I'll be fair and give it a passing 3.5 when it should have been a 4.5. Maybe The service will improve eventually.