After sampling yummy dim sum dishes at Li Li Restaurant, we went down to the 3rd floor to have our lunch buffet at the Market Cafe.  It was my first time at Market Cafe in Hyatt Hotel and Casino Manila.  I was expecting a huge selection of food but it turned out that Market Cafe opted for quality instead of quantity.  It makes a lot of sense as we can’t really eat so much food in one sitting.

I actually thought it was a bad idea that we had a lot of food already at Li Li.  I wanted to stay at Market Cafe and eat much more food especially the seafood but my stomach couldn’t handle it anymore.  I must have been bad yesterday as gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins.. but good food is something we cannot resist!  Market Cafe definitely has them!

I’ll make sure that if I visit Market Cafe in Hyatt Manila next time, I’ll go there super early like 10 minutes before they start the buffet.  I want to have as much time as possible to enjoy the wonderful dishes that Market Cafe serves.

Enjoy the pictures as I share the different stations included in the buffet of Market Cafe in Hyatt Manila.  I have my personal favorites, get to know them.. read on! 🙂

Bread Station

Homemade breads baked by Market Cafe’s chefs.  There were lots of selections but I ended up skipping the bread station as I had my eyes locked on seafood! haha!

Cheese Station

The cheese station offered a selection of cheeses and condiments.  Perfect with bread.

Salad Station

The Salad bar had fresh market produce with varied homemade salad dressings such as blue cheese, yogurt-citrus, Caesar, thousand island, and balsamic vinaigrette dressing and toppings such as diced fruits, cucumber, bacon bits, Parmesan cheese and potato marbles.

Pizza Station

Market Cafe offered a variety of Pizzas and they were newly cooked!  I feel so bad now that I wasn’t able to even taste it as I was too full to take in more food 🙁  I’ll surely be back and I won’t miss pizza next time!

Chinese Section

As soon as I saw the roasted chicken on display, I already knew I was in the Chinese section.  As expected, there was a lot of food selections like noodles, dim sum, roast duck, soy chicken and more.

Indian Section

Popular dishes from India included curry and that is what you can expect in Market Cafe’s Indian section.  There were roti bread and other Indian dishes too!

Japanese Section

The reason why I find Market Cafe Buffet very unique is because there are some sections where the chef will gladly cook for your food and serve to your table.  One of them is the tempura selection in the Japanese section.  You can have either shrimp tempura, veggie tempura and squid calamari freshly cooked!  You might have to wait for a few minutes but once you’ve eaten them, you’ll surely be satisfied!

Mongolian Section

You love Mongolian food?  Market Cafe has it covered for you 🙂

Carving Section

A buffet favorite: Prime rib will never be absent, and I found it immediately at the carving station of Market Cafe.  I asked that my prime rib be cooked well-done (my preference).  I’m really scared of blood! 😛

Grilling Section

The grilling section offered a wide range of meats for cook to order.  I appreciate that Market Cafe chose to offer this labor-intensive section just to be sure that we get to enjoy the food the way that we want them to.  Offerings include pork and chicken skewers, tanigue fillet, lamb chops, liempo and blue marlin.  Most of the seafood here were raw, so you could pick what you wanted and have them cooked to order.

Seafood Section

The seafood section served fresh prawns, lobsters, mussels, fishes, clams and oysters on ice.  You can ask the chef to cook it the way you want whether fried, steamed, grilled or whatever.  It’s your decision!

I have to talk more about this section because this was my favorite yesterday!  I consciously skipped some of the sections in the Market Cafe buffet in order to get more seafood!  You can just see the twinkle in my eyes (in the photo below) when I saw those baby lobsters that we can eat all we want!

I tried those shrimps & lobsters cooked in three different ways:

cooked in butter garlic

cooked Singaporean way

and cooked in sweet chili sauce

I loved all of them but my choice has got to be the butter garlic!  You can also ask the chefs to peel the shrimps for you just in case you get lazy (like me!) hehe.

Dessert Section

The way to end a beautiful satisfying meal is to have desserts.  Market Cafe surely knows how people LOVE their desserts!  They have this huge section to put all their yummy creations in!

This section is Pastry Chef Johann Dreisger’s baby.  He specializes in creating yummy high quality desserts and bread.  With over 25 years of experience, we were surely in for a treat!

The dessert section featured homemade cakes, pastries, hot crepes and a chocolate fountain.  Not only that, Market Cafe also served our favorite Filipino delicacies which we rarely see in hotel buffets.  I was happy to get hold of sago’t gulaman but I felt it was too sweet for my taste.

Seasoned fruits were on display and for consumption.  You can eat all you want, you don’t even have to worry about eating it before or after the main meal, but if you ask me, eat fruits before the meal for better digestion 🙂

Halo Halo and Market Cafe’s bestselling homemade ice creams were available too!  I enjoyed putting the rainbow sprinkles over dalandan and cream cheese ice cream that I ordered!  My golly, those 2 ice cream flavors should not be missed!  It is important to note that the ice cream were made with high quality of ingredients – no preservatives and no artificial flavorings.

The “Hot Love Sundae” was brought out to our table and I must say it looked lovely!  It’s perfect for lovers dining inside Market Cafe.  The beautiful creation was made of vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, hot raspberry sauce and chocolate lip.  Cuteness!

I usually skip all kinds of breads but I was told by a Hyatt manager to try out their dessert bread.  I was just so glad that I had a portion of it because it was really divine!  The flavors were just right on and it has the right sweetness that I rarely see in desserts like that.

Beverage Section

Photo by Hyatt Manila

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw this beverage container!  Dining guests of Market Cafe Buffet actually can get any of those soft drinks and local beers as much as we want!  Yes, they are free flowing and boy, do I love to get those Coca Cola cans in my hands 🙂  For guys, I’m sure they have their eyes on San Miguel beers.  How many can you consume?

Today is Mother’s day and as a souvenir, we got ourselves a box of Pastry Chef Johann Dreisger’s homemade Swiss Felchlin chocolate pralines to give to our moms.  My mom isn’t in the Philippines so I just took a picture of the chocolates and shared it to my mom.  I hope she’s having a good day today 🙂

Overall, my first experience in Market Cafe was a good one!  I love the concept of having your food freshly cooked by the chef with the way we want them to.  I also love the free-flowing soft drinks and beers that the buffet offers.  Most of all, I super duper love the service!  I was just in awe on how cheerful, accommodating and friendly the staff are.  I didn’t have to call them for attention as they were proactive enough to know what we would ask for!  It was impressive.

I rarely go to Manila but if I do, Market Cafe will be one of my top choices for dining!

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Market Cafe
3rd floor, Hyatt Hotel and Casino Manila, 1588 Pedro Gil corner M.H. Del Pilar, Malate Manila, Philippines
+63-2-2451234
Php 1,800 Buffet Lunch 12:00nn to 2:30pm – Mondays to Saturdays; 11:30am to 2:30pm – Sundays
Php 1,900 Buffet Dinner 6:00pm to 10:00pm – Mondays to Fridays
Php 1,950 Buffet Dinner 6:00pm to 10:00pm – Saturdays to Sundays

I had the privilege of trying out Li Li restaurant at the Hyatt Hotel Manila yesterday.  Li Li serves Cantonese cuisine and has been awarded quite a few times as one of the best restaurants in the Philippines by Philippine Tatler and Dineasia.  Currently, Li Li has also been nominated as one of the top 20 best restaurants in Asia by Miele!  Just wow!

I had to wait for the group to be complete so we couldn’t start eating yet.  I then decided to look around Li Li and appreciate its interiors.  The restaurant was named after a real person named Lili Ho.  Lili grew up in a high profile scene.  She loves elegant and sophisticated things.  That was pretty obvious as her love for arts and interior can be seen throughout the restaurant.

Li Li Restaurant is somewhat a resemblance of Lili’s home.  Each room signify a part of Lili’s life.  I’m really impressed as to how a restaurant like Li Li could have so much history and story behind it.  It was just beautiful!

First up is the dining area where most people usually dine at.

The upper dining area has pictures/painting of Lili’s ancestors.  Having those pictures situated on the upper area signifies respect to the elders.

The library, on the other hand, is a place where the men hang out after dinner.  In this room, you’ll see Lili’s travel souvenirs displayed as well as her favorite art & travel books.

The latest room in Li Li restaurant is called the drawing room.  It was named as that because it’s a room that the ladies usually hang out in when their husbands are in the library room (a place where women would withdraw).  The drawing room has its own bathroom.

The tea bar is where all the selections of tea are displayed.  It’s also the place where the Gongfu tea ceremony usually happens.

A Gongfu tea ceremony is a presentation based on the tea preparation approach which originated in Fujian and Guangdong in the 1940s.  Gong fu cha means ‘skill’ or ‘capability’.  The ceremony is being done at Li Li to show guests how welcome they are at the restaurant.

Behind the tea bar are two rooms created in tribute to Lili’s daughters: Fei Fei and Bai Ling.  The rooms have the same design, they just have a bit of difference with chair fabric and art decorations.

Last, but not the least, is the Wine Cellar room which coincidentally was where we had our dim sum.

I was already so starved when we sat at the table.  The excitement was over the top for me as I got a nice tour of Lili restaurant and my expectation just went up a notch!

Boiled peanuts were served as appetizer.  I super duper love boiled peanuts and I don’t even know where I can buy those a la carte outside.  If I want more, I guess I have to come back at Li Li or cook them myself!

For drinks, I highly suggest you order Hyatt Hotel’s guava iced tea!  I love the taste, I wish I can drink more but I knew then that I would be eating so much food that I can’t enjoy this iced tea too much.  Apart from guava, there’s dalandan iced tea and guyabano iced tea 🙂

Before we started with our dim sum, we were presented with a Gongfu tea ceremony.  I was pretty excited about it since Gongfu was mentioned during our tour of the Li Li restaurant.  The ceremony was just about 10 minutes but it was impactful!  I found it super cool!

1. warming the pot and heating the cups
2. appreciate excellent tea
3. the black dragon enters the palace
4. rinsing from an elevated pot
5. the spring wind brushes the surface
6. bathe the immortal twice

You might be wondering what the steps I mentioned are but I highly suggest you go to Li Li at Hyatt Manila to see for yourself. 🙂  Gongfu tea ceremony is a very unique tradition that you rarely see in Chinese restaurants.

If you’re dining at Li Li for their dim sum all you can, you’ll be given a dimsum menu where you can check out the items that you want to order.  The food is cooked right after you order it.  With that in mind, you have to wait a bit for your food to arrive but it’ll be all worth it for sure!

The price is Php 788 net for dim sum all you can from mondays to saturdays, 12noon to 3PM.  On sundays, Li Li serves the Sunday Yum Cha Dim sum Buffet.  It serves the usual dim sum all you can but this time the buffet comes with free-flowing iced tea, soft drinks and local beer as well as desserts.  Of course, no left-overs and no take out.

There were tons of dim sum selections in Li Li!  Considering we’ll be having our lunch buffet at Hyatt’s Market Cafe, we ended up sampling ten of Li Li’s dim sum bestsellers.

Our meal at Li Li was considered our appetizer but boy, it could be a meal in itself!

• Har Gao – steamed shrimp and bamboo pith dumpling

• Sio Mai – steamed pork and dried scallop dumpling

• Shanghai-style steamed pork and crab meat dumpling

Don’t forget to use the spoon when eating this as you don’t wanna miss tasting the wonderful soup inside the dumpling!

• Pan-fried shrimp and spinach dumpling

My fav!

• Deep-fried taro and assorted seafood dumpling

another favorite dim sum for me!  I appreciate the abundance of ingredients in each and every bite.  so tasty and so yummy!

• Beijing-style wok-fried pork dumpling

• Deep-fried bicho-bicho, shrimp, wasabi-mayonnaise sauce

• Lobster and asparagus dumpling

• Glutinous dumpling, white chocolate, peanut

I loved how the white chocolate oozes out of the dumpling when sliced or opened.

What a great way to start a food-filled day at the Hyatt Manila!  Each of us had an awesome time especially with the warm hospitality by Hyatt’s GM Richard Simmons, Director of Food & Beverage Ranjeet Rajebhosale, Marketing Communications Manager Loni Balagtas and Public Relations Coordinator Laurie Reyes!

It was my first time at Li Li and I must say the experience was truly memorable!  I didn’t even realize how meaningful each part of the restaurant is.  I felt like I met Lili Ho herself by just dining at Li Li restaurant!

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Li Li Restaurant
Php788 net dim sum all you can from 12nn to 3pm
Php1550 net Sunday Yum Cha Dim sum Buffet (with desserts & free-flowing drinks)
5/F Hyatt Hotel and Casino Manila, 1588 Pedro Gil corner M.H. Del Pilar Manila 1004, Philippines
+63-2-2451234