Banchetto Megatent

It was a Friday night when I was craving for the food in Banchetto, I convinced my friend to drive here in Ortigas since we rarely go here because of the proximity of the place to our home. Mercato is much nearer to us. Sad to read about what happened to the infamous Banchetto Emerald. Please bring it back to its original location!

Well anyway, we still decided to try Banchetto Megatent which is their newest location in Ortigas replacing Banchetto Emerald. At first I thought the feast was done inside like Mercato because of the tent but when we reached the place it was done outside and the parking was for free. The tenants were already different and the feast was not that numerous unlike Banchetto Emerald. The crowd was also very far from the crowd flocking at Banchetto Emerald.

It was like a competition between different desserts stalls and grilled burgers only!

One that caught our attention was the Big Ben's Chicken (Php 120 for 6 pcs), which is a competitor of Manang's Chicken of Mercato Centrale. These were the last pieces of wings for the night and the preparation took long so we got another piece for free. For me this tasted better but the cons was the chicken were very minute. The sauce was awesomely yummy!

We rarely order burgers from a food market since burgers were everywhere and easily available. But this time, we were tempted to try the burgers because of their tempting thick patties. 

This is Juicy Lucy, a best-seller from AM Burger. I like the bun and the cheese, the beef patty here was almost okay but it was grilled too much, see its black and the burned taste dominates.

Another burger we tried was the UNO Burger. Too much powder seasoning was placed on the burger while grilling.

This was Cheese Stuffed Burger (Php 170), which comes with veggies and caramelized onion. I like the veggies and onions but the buns were already getting hard to chew. The beef patty here was better but salty because of the powdered seasoning.

I was craving for the kebab at the Banchetto Emerald and I was expecting that it was still here at Banchetto Megatent but unfortunately its gone and there's only one stall selling a kebab so I tried a chicken kebab but its really not worth trying.

Another food that I miss from Banchetto Emerald was the Crepe Man but again sad to say that they are gone too. The only crepe stall was the Crepe-Papips. It was like the same as Crepe Man but Crepe Man offers more flavors than Crepe-Papips.

There's only one crepe maker so wait for your turn while he process your order. I ordered the combination banana and peaches (Php 65) since it was the only available combination left. The chocolate they used here was not Nutella but was home-made according to the crepe maker.

The outer crust was hard except for the crust that was spread over by the chocolate but still yummy and heavy for the tummy too.

I was really disappointed by what happened to the tourist friendly food market at Banchetto Emerald. The organizers said, it was because of politics which saw the upward success of Banchetto Emerald that made it gone. Of course, when you're already up, there were always people who would like to pull you down because of envy on what you had.

I hope that they could improve the food selection on Banchetto Megatent, there were so much redundancy on desserts and burgers. I suggest more food choices like Banchetto Emerald. I know that there are still room for improvements and that they are still on the transition period. c",)