Ninyo’s Fusion Cuisine and Wine Lounge

Undeniably, L.O.V.E. is in the air! It’s  Feb-ibig as what some of us calls it. In today’s blog I thought of sharing with you a very romantic place where Ryan and I celebrated our wedding anniversary last November. For those couples out there who still have no place to go to on Valentines Day, you are in for a treat. (I hope I am not too late though – insert peace sign).

AMBIANCE AND LOCATION

Ninyo’s Fusion Cuisine and Wine Lounge is located at Loyola Heights in Quezon City. It is actually an ancestral house turned into a fancy restaurant indoors and a garden restaurant outdoors. I also love the fact that it is not situated along with typical hotels and restaurants, giving you a feeling of positive isolation I must say. You have the option to dine indoors, al fresco or in their outdoor private gazebos.

Their outdoor gazebo’s are perfect for intimate celebrations like wedding proposals, anniversaries and of course, dates during valentines day.

Luckily, we were able to take the only gazebo upstairs. I really pushed my luck to have it reserved because one, we had a better view of the entire restaurant. Second, the air is much cooler and lastly we were free from hearing the conversations of other couples and diners. It’s like having our very own personal space. I just got a bit worried because the staircase squeeks a little but it  is completely safe.

MENU AND FOOD

The restaurant serves ala carte menu and degustation packages (set meals) as well. Most of the dishes being offered here is a fusion of asian and european cuisine. The serving is quite big and presented in an exquisite way. Since what we celebrated was our four years of being married and we wanted to have a very intimate dining experience, we chose the Degustation Paris menu (P2,990.00).  This date package for two includes a four course meal, use of any gazebo with flower petals, candle light set up and a love lock (You will know more about this below). This package is strictly for reservation only so better book ahead of time.

We started the evening with glasses of eye spy cabernet merlot followed by some slices of bread and butter. The red wine was served perfectly chilled. Couple toast!!!

For appetizer, we each had a trio of oysters: oyster rockefeller topped with red lumpfish caviar, washabi fried oyster with citrus mayo dressing and baked oyster with foie gras.

The oysters are fresh, no weird after taste. I am not a fan of the wasabi one though but the other two were so delicious. Admittedly, I ate a total of five oytsers. Ryan is allergic to seafoods so he just tasted one :p Servings of pumpkin soups were given next which we found very creamy and tasty.

To clean up our palletes and prepare it for the entrees’, we were given calamansi sorbets with mint leaves on top. It really did a great job cleansing our tastebuds and left a very refreshing feeling.

For the entrees’ we had  honey glazed grilled salmon. Pieces of salmon with sweet citrus miso sauce served with light wasabi potato, grilled asparagus and demi-dried tomato. The fish itself is flaky, soft and has a hint of sweetness to it. The garnishes are crisp and intricately put together. 

U.S. Braised Short Ribs. A slab of meat in mixed mushroom miso, served with shitake mushroom risotto and konbu marinated seasoned vegetables. Until now, I still remember how tender the meat was. The risotto underneath was cooked perfectly while the crunchiness of the fried potato completed the different textures in the dish.

For dessert, we had two cakes. The first one is called Mango Pavlova, made of sweet meringue topped with mango bits and syrup. The other one is Chocolate Chocolate! which is very comparable to a lava cake except that it is much softer. It is served with a small glass of milk. Ryan enjoyed them a lot, he is more of a dessert person than me.

We really appreciated the effort of the pâtissier to indicate personal greetings in the dessert plates. (Thanks Chef!). 

SERVICE

If I was to rate their service, I am going to give them a ten! Our server was very accommodating and approachable. We did not even have to call him and request to have our photos taken, he even suggested poses and angles for us to do (parang artista lang lol!). Each dishes were served in perfect intervals giving us enough time to talk, enjoy the ambiance and look forward for the arrival of the  next course.

LOVE LOCK

Included in the degustation paris package is the “paandar” of putting love locks on a designated part of the garden.

We were provided a padlock, a key and a marker. Couples are free to right anything on it.

GOOD NEWS!

As I checked their FB page, I saw that they are offering a VALENTINES DEGUSTATION MENU! So perfect for this love month. How cool is that?!

Visit their Facebook Page for details. 

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