When I first heard of the Secret Foodies Tour hosted by RJ Ledesma and Anton Diaz (of Our Awesome Planet‘s fame) in Twitter (retweeted by @Soderno), my mind immediately went to my group of friends who would appreciate a face stuffing type of activity the most: the ICU team. Considering our shared penchant for stress eating, I knew that the Secret Foodies Tour would be a good activity for our annual Christmas get together.

Tickets were sold at 1000PHP apiece and since Tuscany, McKinley Hill was just a stone’s throw away from my work place, securing tickets were a cinch. Leaves were filed, schedules were cleared, and one even squeezed in a trip to Manila all the way from Baguio; we were that excited.

The tour only ran for all the Saturdays of December and we were lucky enough to get slots for the last one, in perhaps forever, December 21st. Let it not be said that the ICU team does not prepare: most of the people in our party of six (Nelva, Kely, Cza, Czy, Emi and I) didn’t eat anything for breakfast that day – one even skipped dinner from the previous night even though she was on shift.

We started out at L.E.S. Bagels, which actually stands for Lower East Side Bagels, where we got our ‘bread’ part of the giant meal we were to sample that day – “Jewish” chewy bagels paired with your choice of 14 cream cheese fillings. They even threw in bite sized chunks of their fudge brownies. Anton and RJ prepped us beforehand to pace ourselves because yeah, if you’re feeling ravenous it is ridiculously easy to stuff yourself full of bread, which would be a shame because this was only the first stop.

After the bread we started on the seemingly never ending journey of appetizers: authentic Italian fare from Trattoria Poggio Antico, Mexican food from B&T Mexican Kitchen and legit artisan cooking from Sauceria. Please take note that they offered us a plate full of at least three different appetizers at each stop. The portions are termed to be “bite-sized” but I had a hard time going through the servings.

We moved onto the main courses – pasta, T-bone steak, potato wedges and Wagyu burger – courtesy of Marciano’s and Main Street. It was a nice experience because the tour organizers got the chefs and proprietors to speak about the food they were serving. It’s always nice to see and hear people who are so passionate about what they do for a living. Again, servings are “bite-sized” because they took into consideration the fact that we were on a food tour, but here’s a shot of me and the “bite sized” Wagyu beef burger, so judge for yourself:

The dessert part of the meal started at Main Street – organic maple and candied bacon artisan ice cream – and ended at Sophie’s Mom – Oreo cheesecake cookie and flourless chocolate cupcake. It was the ultimate testament as to how full we were that we weren’t even able to finish the cookie and the cupcake. And believe me; we did try to finish them because they were so good.

Our tour ended at Planet Grapes, were we were to choose one glass of white wine and one glass of red wine from their vast selection. It’s a cool place to hang out in; wines are served out of vending machines so they’re not that threatening financially (because you don’t have to shell out for a full bottle) and intellectually (because everything is labeled accordingly and you can choose what you like).

The tour was only supposed to last for 3 hours (2PM to 5PM) but it was almost six when we walked out of our last stop. Not that I mind of course; drinking good wine at dusk after an excellent (humongous) meal shared with even better friends is a good way to celebrate the holidays. Cheers.