Let the feast begin! The season of joy and giving is also the time to indulge, and there’s no better place to start than in the city’s best buffets.

by Kara Mae M. Noveda

There is, perhaps, no more divisive question than: Where are we eating next? Everybody’s a critic, yes, but let’s face it, buffet dining is a reliable answer to this common mid-vacation question. More is more. Buffets offer a wide variety of food selections, making them crowd-pleasers. It’s hard to resist the sights and smells of diverse dishes. Digging into the list of buffet options may be a lot to swallow, so here are some premium picks you can chew on.

Café Marco’s Seasonal Specials
G/F, Marco Polo Plaza Cebu, Cebu Veterans Dr, Cebu City

Marco Polo’s all-day dining restaurant, Café Marco, churns out as many as three daily buffets on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, and select holidays. Their usual breakfast and dinner buffets keep in-house guests and walk-in diners coming year-round. What’s Marco Polo’s secret sauce? Well, Café Marco’s culinary team constantly freshens up the spread. Any regular can swear by this: a buffet dining experience in October with paella specials is not the same as, say, the Thanksgiving-themed spread in November, where they rolled out their turkey, pecan pies, and roast beef. The hotel is known to pull all the stops for the Christmas season as well. To order takeaway like a local, ask for Marco Polo’s signature ensaymada, a fluffy mouthful, which comes in a fruitcake version during the holiday season.

Buffet Variety in Misto
G/F, Seda Hotel, Ayala Center Cebu City

The Cebu Business District is an excellent place to be stuck during meals. With the high concentration of restaurants in the area, there should be no shortage of places to try out, even randomly. Smack in the middle of the financial district is the Seda Ayala Center Cebu. This 301-room hotel is an ideal meeting place in Cebu City thanks to its central location. People often stay here for the food in Seda’s Misto restaurant. With windows overlooking the pocket garden and the pool area, Misto’s indoor and outdoor dining spaces offer the rarity of quiet and cozy nooks in a busy district. Just this October, Misto launched its lunch buffet, offering a healthy selection of mixed green salads, vegetable dishes, and main courses of grilled fish, chicken, and pork.

Misto has more than one kind of buffet for its patrons. They have BBQ Dinner by the Pool on Wednesdays and Thursdays; Seafood Fridays to satiate your cravings on the catch-of-the-day and other specials; an all-meat selection every Saturday, playfully called Meat Your Match; and an ample all-Asian selection in the “Woks of Asia” lunch buffet every Sunday. The Loaded Lunch buffet is available from Thursday to Saturday.

Pan-Asian Flavors in Feria
Radisson Blu Cebu, Sergio Osmena Blvd., Cor. Juan Luna Ave., Cebu City

Hot, sweet, sour, salty, or bitter, the spectrum of Asian flavors is wide and complex. Asian foods, after all, come from different regions, each with a distinctive cooking style. Radisson Blu Cebu understood the assignment when its flagship restaurant, Feria, started building its pan-Asian cuisine. Feria is my go-to buffet when I want to grab a bite from an array of Filipino, Mediterranean, Chinese, and Japanese dishes. With an Indian chef on board, their curry staples are also standouts. Feria can house up to 350 diners at once, but for more intimate settings, you can always request the use of the designated private dining space, available upon reservation.

Live Cooking Station at Café UNO
Waterfront Cebu City Hotel & Casino,
1 Salinas Dr, Cebu City

Waterfront Cebu City Hotel & Casino continues to serve both culinary excellence and warmth of hospitality, meal after meal. The hotel’s Gourmet Walk is its dining center, and it’s a convenient place to sample cuisine inspired from all over the world. If you’re looking for a filling and quick hot meal, walk through the multi-station offerings at Café UNO’s daily buffet. This buffet features a tandem of fresh local produce and inspired cooking.
The centerpiece of Café UNO’s daily buffet is a live cooking and grilling station, which lets diners choose a dish to be prepared right before their eyes. If you’re feeling spontaneous, why not follow the chef’s recommendation blindly? In any case, there are many stations to keep you occupied. Café UNO always offers a well-stocked salad bar, rows of sushi and sashimi, seafood, and classic Filipino dishes.

Chinese cuisine in Abaca
1111 Prissan Rd, Cebu City

The Abaca Baking Company is a homegrown brand known for its café breads, pastries, and brunch specialties. ABC’s Baseline branch has opened a Chinese Dinner Buffet to diversify its menu and offerings. The culinary crew at Abaca has interpreted some of the most well-loved Chinese dishes, which you can find at this buffet.

There are many stations in Abaca’s buffet, but I would like to highlight three standouts. The first is their roasting station, displaying Hainanese chicken, soy-roasted chicken, crispy pork belly, and char siu. Next is the dim sum station. When it comes to Chinese fare, dim sum is everybody’s go-to. It does not disappoint, with several choices of dumplings, manchang, hargao, steamed pork ribs, bean curd rolls, and, if you’re up for it, steamed chicken feet! The third is their Chinese barbeque station, which features pork short ribs, chicken, and pork tenderloin. Vegetarian-friendly choices are available at the grill: zucchini, tofu, shitake mushrooms, and baby corn.

Enjoy the Chinese buffet at Abaca Baseline every Saturday night.head to the dessert station to savor some kutsinta, pichi-pichi, biko, among the many kakanin (sticky glutinous sweets) or native delicacies you can savor.

Consummate International Buffet at Tides
Shangri-La Mactan Cebu, Punta Engaño Rd., Mactan, Cebu

Shangri-la Mactan Resort and Spa is a popular choice for vacationers. Many guests return and appreciate the well-maintained facilities, natural surroundings, and attentive staff. The resort’s restaurants provide reliable dining options for a satisfying meal without leaving the premises. A hearty breakfast at Shangri-la’s Tides restaurant is a great way to start your day. Tides offer a wide-ranging international buffet experience. When you step into the restaurant, you’ll notice its vibrant atmosphere and open kitchen design, assuring you of freshly prepared dishes. The buffet stations cater to various cravings, making it easy to satisfy your hunger from the first meal of the day.

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