Update July 11, 2012: This restaurant is now closed and moved to BRASSERIE CI COU.
There’s nothing like a hearty breakfast to start your day.
I’ve been in search of the Best Breakfast in Manila because I’m always looking for places to eat after a good run (more than the usual fast food places). Most of the restaurants still don’t cater to the breakfast crowd and, at best, they only serve breakfast on a Sunday.
Cicou has a daily ala carte buffet breakfast for only P850 (+10% sc) where you can order anything that you want from the menu and as many as you want. This is available from 6am-10.30am daily and extends until 2pm on Sundays.
I like ala carte buffets because the food is not prepared beforehand. They only cook it when you order it. You can also drink as much hot chocolate and cappuccino as you want.
On the Buffet:
There is a small buffet table that serves items that do not require cooking like Chilled Fruit Juices, Assorted Fresh Tropical Fruits, Cereals, Muesli, Milk, Yogurt, Bread and Viennoiserie, Marmalade and Honey.
Benedictine and Cocotte with Hot Chocolate
Eggs:
You can order eggs cooked the way you want it — Sunny Side Up, Scrambled, Soft Boiled, Hard Boiled, Benedictine and Cocotte. We ordered the benedictine with poached egg on a bed of ham and bread with hollandaise sauce on top. We were curious about the Cocotte, so we ordered it. It was a soft boiled “malasado” egg mixed with some butter, which is like egg with creamy soup around it. We liked it. 🙂
Hot Beverages:
The Hot Beverages are drink-all-you-want and you can choose from: Espresso, Cafe Americano, Decaffeinated Coffee, Cafe Latte, Cappuccino, Tea, Herbal Tea, and Hot Chocolate.
The hot chocolate was powder-based and sweet. The cappuccino we ordered was done well.
Egg White Omelet with Everything, Sardines and Tapa on the side
I chose to have a healthy breakfast (which was my last breakfast before I ran my 42k marathon in Nuvali). The tapa was a bit tough — Tapa King can serve a better Tapa. They might want to get the Angus Beef Tapa of Jam Foods & Co., which foodies raved about during the recent Ultimate Taste Test 4.0.
Omelet:
You can choose from Regular, Egg Whites or Spanish omelet. You can include Ham, Chicken, Sausage, Cheese, Onion, Tomatoes, Fresh Herbs, Mushroom and Eggplant Caviar in your order.
Longganisa and Bacon with Garlic Rice and Sunny Side Up
I was not able to try the other meat dishes, but they looked decent and yummy.
Garnish:
Just think of anything that you crave for during breakfast, and Cicou would most likely have it. Here is the list of fish, meat and side dishes that you can order:
– Sausages: Pork English Banger, Chicken, Skinless Longganisa
– Hotdog
– Bacon
– Corned Beef
– Beef Tapa
– Tocino
– Sardines
– Daing Bangus
– Hash Brown Potatoes
– Grilled Tomatoes with Herbs
– Sauteed Mushrooms
Rice:
Steamed, Garlic, Rice Porridge: Sweet or Savory, Oatmeal
Another thing I like about Cicou’s buffet is the option for a cheese plate. 🙂 The choice of cheeses could be improved, though. I only liked the Blue Cheese.
Here are the other options in the Cicou Breakfast Ala Carte Buffet:
Salad: Mesclun, Carrots, Cucumber, Tomatoes, Onions
Cold Cuts: Salami, Ham, Lyonner, Chicken
Pancakes with Maple Syrup
French Toast: Brioche, Croissant or Bread
Sandwich:
Choice of White Bread, Wheat Bread, Croissant
Choice of Salami, Ham, Lyonner, Chicken, Sausage, Cheese, Fresh Herbs, Mushrooms, Eggplant Caviar, Mesclun, Carrot, Cucumber, Tomatoes, Onions
The best thing about Cicou breakfast is they add an ingredient (like eggplant caviar) or dish that you don’t typically find in any breakfast spread (like cocotte). The Cicou Ala Carte Buffet Breakfast is promising. They just need to improve the assortment for the cheese platter and find the right choice of tapa. This place is ideal for breakfast meetings or if you want to have a lovely breakfast with someone special.
Restaurant Cicou (pronounced see-sue)
Hotel Celeste
Cyrille Soenen Restaurants Inc.
2 San Lorenzo Drive corner A. Arnaiz Avenue
Makati, Metro Manila
Telephone: +632 889-6728
Mobile: +63917 885-8841
Email: restaurant_cicou@yahoo.com
Live an Awesome Life,
Founder, www.OurAwesomePlanet.com
Call or Text Me: +63917 5683-627 (LOVE-OAP)
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Disclosure: We had a business meeting with OAP’s latest partner — Power MAC Center. I’m not connected with Hotel Celeste, Restaurant Cicou or Cyrille Soenen. Thanks to Joey for the breakfast! 🙂
Beautiful breakfast spread! Yum! Have you tried their lunch or dinner courses? OK din ba?
You mentioned Nuvali, if not for post I would not have known about Solenad, so I also shared it here:
http://www.mymomfriday.com/2010/05/quickie-from-cliff-house-to-nuvali.html
Off topic I just wanna say UTT 4.0 was awesome. Too bad we we’re not introduced that night, I was with Maong, et al. You and Rache did a great job.
Anton, I concur with you that this is my absolute favorite breakfast place in Manila. A great second would be the Pen Lobby and the third would be Apt. 1B. Sofitel is also very good but quite steeply priced. And I really like the idea of breakfast a la carte, instead of served buffet style where the food dries up because it sits too long outside. 🙂
Thanks Mom-Friday for sharing your link as well 🙂
i twice had buffet breakfast (came with our room package) at oakwood premier apartments,
and i remember how, on those separate occasions, i was very impressed with their buffet
selection, asian and continental, a combination of warm and cold dishes, egg and bread
stations, etc. the only downside then, was they did not accept walk-in customers and the
buffet was exclusively for their guests. it is now ascott towers, and they have since
changed that policy..i have not been there lately, but i would like to hope that they
have retained, if not surpassed, the quality of their buffet..maybe it is worth a try.
it is not a la carte, but the food always looks, and actually tastes freshly prepared.
it was so good that turnover and replenishment was fast, so there was barely anytime for
the food to dry up or anything like that.
Something to look forward to!
By the way, do they have parking there?
Thanks!
There are a few parking slots in front and they have valet service as well.
Thanks, Anton! I’ll check this out!
And at Cicou breakfast you can enjoy The Fruit Garden jam.
What else can we ask for!
This is a nice find! How long before they serve your order on average? I’m asking because I don’t think I can wait 20 minutes in between order. Haha. It’s too embarrassing to order a lot of things at once. Or it isn’t?
Wow, this is so indulgent 😀 A sinful but yummy breakfast if you try all the fried stuff plus cheese. I can’t wait to go here! haha 🙂
A bit long about 10-15 minutes… What we do is order it in sequence so that it comes out one after another 🙂
try Greenhills Elan in San Juan. they have a daily breakfast.Their website is http://www.greenhillselanhotelmodern.com/site/home.htm
hi anton
thanks for featuring this.. would give it a try when i get back
I am so glad to have found this post. That has been my frustration is not finding a good breakfast place when I vacation in PI. This will be on my list to checkout in my next trip. Thanks!
You're welcome! Please do let us know about your experience when you are back in Manila…
One of the worst breakfasts if you have the “meats” (corned beef, longganisa and the sausage were horrible), the rice porridge and the pancakes. PhP850+ for what essentially will be an egg and cheese breakfast would not make it on my list of breakfast eats. Quality comes in past breakfast, guess, the resto is not a morning person.
The food was horrible. The daing na bangus was so oily. The pork sausage banger was full of fats. The pork longganisa looks like its boiled (supposed to be grilled) and very reddish. The pancake was too thick and looks like it was soaked with lotS of oil. THE WORST BREAKFAST BUFFET i have ever tried.
Canteen food is better.
It was really really disappointing specially since you raved about it in your blog. The pancake was like rubber. The corned beef seemed like low-grade canned good – very red and mushy… Ugh! The eggs benedict was nothing great… can easily do at home.
Hi Anna,
Thanks for the feedback. I guess the quality of the food has started to deteriorate.
I won't recommend this anymore. Thanks so much!
Anton