Greek Feast at Cyma

Cyma will always be among the top restaurants of my choice! That's why I was very delighted when I was privileged to have been chosen to be their Mystery Diner, which entails dining at their restaurant in exchange of an honest opinion about their customer service, food quality & the entire dining experience. I have never imagined that Mystery Diners exist! So, people in the restaurant industry, lo & behold, your customers might actually be observing you!;-) Nonetheless, I think this is a very good way of improving their service & it was such a fun filled experience for me:) I feel terrible though for forgetting my camera, thus the low resolution photos from which are not at par with the excellent food quality:(

They do have a new branch at the Robinson's Place Manila, 2nd Floor of Midtown.

 Sundate special, care of Cyma Restaurants!

For the Mezedes aka appetizers, we chose Tzatziki - a dip made from fine grated cucumber, garlic and Greek yogurt. This was served with pita bread as shown below. I enjoyed this so much! It's very refreshing and serves its purpose well as an appetizer:) We finished this in an instant!

For the Salates / Salad, of course - it just has to be Roka Salata! This has to be the best vinaigrette based salad. We never leave Cyma without ordering this best seller:) The salad is made from fresh arugula (Roka), chopped romaine lettuce, sun-dried tomatoes, candied walnuts with shaved parmesan in Traditional greek vinaigrette (description lifted from Cyma's website). This delicious salad is simply heavenly. My brother who's anti vegetables can't resist this dish as well!

For the Gyros, we ordered their Chicken Gyro, which is very similar to a shawarma, only better:) The mouth watering Gyros are also a staple order at Cyma. I wasn't able to take a photo from the right angle, thus I had to borrow Cyma's photo:) Before I could even take a picture of it, my brother indulged in this tasteful gyro.

This picture was taken from Cyma's website

We also got a Chicken Souvlaki. This was really good too! It's my newly discovered favorite. The souvlaki is also similar to the kebab. It's basically skewered grilled meat served with tomatoes and onions, yogurt garlic sauce and pita bread. Despite the simplicity with how it was cooked, the meat is just tender, juicy and deliciously grilled to perfection.

We also had to try a new dish from their menu, and so, we tried this Fennel Mashed Potato which basically was mashed potato with shaved Parmesan on top. I wouldn't really recommend this dish since it's too plain and readily available elsewhere, plus it isn't as Greek-y as it should be. When going to specialty restaurants, I believe you must take advantage of unique tasting dishes. Nonetheless, the potatoes were finely mashed and it serves as a good side dish specially for kids!

They do serve brewed iced tea, which has improved from their typial powdered Iced Tea:)

To complete our Greek experience, we chose their Glyka (dessert) Sampler so that we could have a little of everything which included (Upper left clockwise) the Baklava, Yiaourti Me Meli, Galaktoboureko, & ryzogalo. What a tongue twister! haha! The Baklava is layered phyllo with walnuts & orange honey syrup. Yiaourti Me Meli is Greek yogurt served with pistachios. This yogurt is authentic and isn't your typical sweet yogurt found everywhere! Galaktoboureko is my favorite - creamy semolina custard in phyllo with orange and lemon zest syrup. Lastly, the ryzogalo is traditional creamy rice pudding with cocoa powder. Their desserts are okay, but basing on the taste & given the same value for money, it's probably better to either get a main dish, or the flaming mangoes, which I think is their dessert specialty.

Boy, we were stuffed with great food! We really enjoyed dining at Cyma! It will always be among my favorite restaurants because of their delicious, mouth watering & explicit Greek dishes. Thanks to Leo and my little brother, Nikko for accompanying me to my first ever Mystery Diner task!:) And of course, many thanks to Cyma Restaurants for the splendid treat! Hope my honest feed back would help you:)

Mission Accomplished:) That's it for the Greek Feast!:) 

August 5, 2012