The Pantry Of Dusit Thani Manila

My mom promised a hotel staycation for my birthday but my November was loaded with school works, thesis and final exams and requirements. So we canceled our booking in Azure for my birthday and ended up booking another one in Dusit Thani for the end of the term. We got a more expensive hotel but I think we also got one with higher quality. I saw Miss Universe Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters, together with the other Miss Universe 2017, spent their nights in the Philippines in Dusit Thani. I saw their selfies with the hotel lobby and photos with the giant Christmas tree. I witnessed their dinner in one of Dusit Thani’s restaurant, The Pantry, and spotted Demi making her halo halo. Although we just caught the Dusit Thani and The Pantry moments of these beautiful girls in their Instagram feeds, I’m happy that our stay in the hotel has a complementary breakfast buffet, making my own The Pantry moments.

Dusit Thani’s The Pantry offers a farm-to-fork food coming from Indian, Italian, Filipino and pan-Asian cuisine. Let me tour you around its stations.

Filipinos use glasses or mugs when eating taho, right? But I couldn’t see glasses under the taho table. So I used the soup bowl for their cold taho instead. As of eight in the morning, it wasn’t hot anymore as how Filipinos want it to be and there’s no more champorado. We were there from eight to ten but it wasn’t refilled. I wanna cry.

Although we have this at home, like a kid, I was in joy to see this station full of wanted cereals, grains and dried fruits. Having a sight of this, I was excited to start my morning. They also have a ready-made granola parfait but it tasted weird. So it’s still better to create your own mix.

The bread in the pastry station do not have names on it. I wanted to know if their croissant had fillings or none but it didn’t say something. I opted for the cinnamon thingy in there, blueberry pancake and soft rolls instead. The pancake was dry and tough. On the other hand, the soft roll was indeed soft. It was absolutely good with butter.

Say hello to Halal! I’m totally willing to be a bit vegan with all these dishes. I think I tried a scrap of everything on this table as they interests me with their taste, especially with Samosa’s. Apart from the Indian cuisine, there is the Filipino cuisine that I shouldn’t miss. Filipino rice cakes, dried fish and squid and longganisa – my kind of food were here!

When it comes to presentation, their pasta and egg station was my favorite. I found it hard to take photos of the other stations because aside from me not being a great photographer, the stations are meh. There were no clear divisions. Anyway, I admired the flavor of their pasta as well as the guy cooking there. The eggs in different ways were perfect.

Despite of my love for ramen, I have to skip it to make room for the other dishes. The toppings were inviting! If I have the chance to go back to Dusit Thani and The Pantry and order an a la carte meal, I’ll have ramen. By the way, if I weren’t roaming around maybe five times or more, I wouldn’t notice the hiding dimsum beside the ramen station.

I’m glad that at least they offer fruits for breakfast because the dessert selection was so limited. I’ve been to a number of hotel buffets and I’ve seen cake slices, pies, mousse and such even at breakfast. I was disappointed because I’m always looking forward into it in every buffet I attend. Although the fruits were sweet and fresh, it didn’t convince me.

Oh I almost forgot! They have the dessert I mentioned but they’re in The Pantry Grab & Go, which wasn’t part of the buffet. Even though it breaks my heart to put out more money so I can have my expected dessert, I gave it a chance. We took out Christmas cheesecake and macarons. And they were luscious that I almost forgot my name.

This was my plate for my first round. I always dig for the main course, together with the bread and soup, so I won’t miss them in case I got full already. And it was getting fewer and fewer on the next rounds. It was my first buffet experience that I didn’t had the feeling of wanting this and that. But hey, I like their hot chocolate.

The Pantry’s lechon was its main attraction. However, lechon is served during dinner and cooked during breakfast so all we could do was to stare. We visited The Pantry the night before our buffet breakfast and I must say they have more desirable dishes and food choices every night. Aside from this roasted pig, they have seafood, sushi, pizza and more desserts. I think I’ll have a better review of The Pantry if we spent our dinner here, too.