Advance Valentine's Day Dinner

Speaking of Valentine's Day, guess where we had our advance valentine dinner?

Where in Makati would you find bulbs for ceiling?

Now, my husband and I, we're simply people. Relatively. Yes, we do eat out a lot but within budget and spending more than PhP 500.00 a meal for 2 pax is already considered expensive. And, no, we rarely have the luxury of dressing up when we do go out. Consider how surprised we were to enter this restaurant along Makati Ave at 7:00 pm with nary a customer in sight, attendants all in black, changing LED lights on the wall, see through glass on the floor, and us in our everyday casual gear. Only to realize later on, when the customers started trickling in, that we were way underdressed. Nevermind, we were there for the food.

Please excuse the quality of the pics as the LED lights didn't help the quality of the images. Also excuse the description as no, I'm not a sophisticated foodie.

Smoked Toro prosciutto tempura roll.

The name itself is a mouthful. Those dots are made from balsamic vinegar and japanese mayo. Just found out that toro means the fatty belly of the tuna and that this is a quality cut. Thank you wisegeek! Being the first dish, unfortunately, I could no longer remember what it tasted like. :| I do remember it to be crunchy on initial bite and to have an embutido-like consistency.

Amaebi set on green tea soba and uni tomazu froth with strawberry faux caviar.

This dish was served cold. I don't eat raw shrimp but I tried this and it's not bad. The strawberry faux caviar takes away that seafood taste I dislike. I will pass on this the next time though.

Hamachi new style sashimi with mixed greens and yamamomo dressing.

This was really good! My favorite among the lot. The hamachi was just really fresh and it went well with the sweet, a bit sour, lemony dressing. And it was served with slices of orange, grape, and strawberry. So I just ate the fish with the fruits in between. You'd think the greens are skewered with a stick but that's actually an edible bread stick. Yamamomo, btw is a fruit from Japan known as a mountain peach. Checkout foodtourist.

Calamansi sorbet.

Wow, next to the hamachi, this is another favorite. For a palate cleanser, this could very well have been the dessert. It was light, not cloying, with traces of lychee and coconut for some reason. Well, that was how it seemed to us and we didn't even notice the calamansi flavor in it. Was there?

And for the piece de resistance:

A medium well-done USDA beef tenderloin for my husband and grilled salmon for me.

I actually prefer my husband's beef to my salmon. The beef still retained a little, just a little juice (my husband regretted that he ordered it medium well). Both dishes came with - get this - wasabi mashed potato. And the tenderloin came with wasabi coconut sauce. How's that for a bit of fire? My salmon tasted like, well, grilled salmon. I had a hard time finishing off this dish.

For this occasion, we had wine instead of our usual iced tea. Red for hubby and white for me which went well with what we ordered for entree - him, his beef and me, my salmon.

As for dessert:

We had mango yuzu cheesecake. A quick search via google yielded that yuzu means citrus. I don't know where the citrus is in this layer of meringue(?), cheesecake, and mango, but this was really good eaten as a whole. The mango was just the correct ripeness, and the crunchy sweet base all went together wonderfully. Or could it be that yuzu is that green substance brushed on the plate?

All in all, a great experience. Service was excellent, place not really my thing as being exposed to changing LED light was giving me a headache (not to mention the wine consumed). But then again, the place is also a lounge and I was informed by one of the attendant that business picks up late most days and that they also have a dj so I'm not really their target demographic. And yes, the restaurant is Robot at Makati Ave near somerset.

Yes, that's the place. In case you don't have any idea where it is, it's the block on Makati Ave between Ayala Ave and Paseo de Roxas.

Our valentine's dinner was a 6-course meal, paid in advance, and which was also reserved days in advance. It was a 54% off deal courtesy of Cashcashpinoy. For recent deals in the metro, checkout cashcashpinoy.com.