Travel 2017: Tacloban, Leyte, Philippines

One of the resolutions to ought to make for this New Year is to be able to continuously update my blogs. :) And with that, I chose to write about the places I have gone and will be going to this 2017.

First stop, Tacloban, Leyte.

I went to Tacloban last December 30, 2016 to spend the holidays and celebrate the New Year with my family.

To maximize my short stay in Tacloban, my family made sure that I will be able to see some beautiful places in our hometown. Places I’ve never been to. And that excludes the historical places in our province because this time, they took me to different food spots in the city. :)

SurpRice

While accompanying my cousin with her shopping ecklavu, she decided to treat me lunch (which I actually deserve noh! Hehe.) This cute restaurant is located Gomez Street, offers different viands of rice toppings. Here, we tried one of their best sellers, the Chilli Chicken.

At first, I thought it wasn’t that spicy, but the more I eat, the more it gets really hot in my mouth! Whooh! :) Ranging from 100-150 pesos, customers can leave the place really full.


SAMSAM Bistro

After taking some rest upon my arrival in Tacloban, my family took me to one of their favourite restaurants in the downtown area. In SamSam Bistro, they presented us different types of pinoy foods such as sinigang, inihaw, pancit and Filipino desserts. We opted to order their combo of inihaw na manok, inihaw na baboy, sinigang na hipon and their version of halo-halo. Their service was good but it took them almost 20 minutes to serve our food. Overall, everything was delicious! :)


HIGHSIDE

Sunday, after attending the New Year’s Holy Mass, my family and I had our dinner. We decided to try the one the newest resto at the Robinson’s Place Tacloban, the Highside. 

This motorcycle themed restaurant offered some western type of food such as burgers, grilled pork in rosemary sauce, creamy beef and mushroom, chicken in tomato sauce and many more.



The food was good and delicious. But their service… sadly, we had a bad experience with their service. Our food was served after about 30-40 minutes after we ordered. Of course we would kinda understand if the food would take some time be served, but for a burger to take about 30 minutes??? And what’s even worse, customers who just came in and who seemed to be familiar to them were served first and were fully accommodated. We couldn’t help but complain. Good thing, their staffs were sincerely apologetic. Sigh.

SunZiBar

Having been unable to see each other for a long time, my college buddy residing in Samar, island next to Leyte, took some of his time and came to Tacloban to catch up with me. He took me to another restaurant in the downtown area, SunZiBar. This food spot offers steaks, pastas and salads. Jude, my friend who is much more acquainted with the place, ordered their bestseller, Diablo. It is a 2 piece thinly sliced steak served in hot and spicy sauce on top of rice and vegie side dish. Apart from their good service, I totally enjoyed the food! The spice was enough to compliment the steak and was perfectly cooked that I couldn’t resist finishing the whole plate! Haha! Thanks to my friend. :)

HQ Food Park

Who would have thought that food parks do not only dominate Metro Manila but also, Tacloban?!? Yes! This Yolanda-devastated-city in the Eastern Visayas region has moved on and has a lot of growing businesses. And I was just glad to see much improvement since my 2015 visit in Tacloban. Now, to see a food park in this city is such a delight!

January 2, my last night in Tacloban, my cousins invited me to hang out and chill. Since it was a Monday, not all stalls were open. There, we only had a few bottles of beer, nachos and fish balls! :)

My family and I also visited the San Rafael farm in Babatngon, Leyte. It is a lovely place just outside Tacloban which I will feature in my next blog entry. After a 4-day trip, I can say, I truly had a gastronomic stay in Tacloban which I definitely enjoyed.  :)