During our recent “staycation” at the Hyatt City of Dreams Manila, we were looking for a nice place to have dinner. From the long list of restaurants at the City of Dreams, we picked the Prego Italian restaurant – read my review to find out if it is worth it!
The Prego is located on the upper ground level above the casino in the mall area. It has a bar & bistro area up front and two more formal dining rooms to the side. We picked a both in the back of the room, my favorite style of restaurant seating and great for a couple on a date!
The staff was very attentive, even by high Manila standards and had menus in front of us quickly. They were well trained, knew their menu and did a great job pacing the food. They even asked if we were ready for our main courses and delivered both at the same time – rare in South East Asia, were even expensive restaurants often bring all courses at random. They also stayed on top of our drinks and refilled wine and water regularly, without prompting.
And what they brought out was very tasty: We had a beef carpaccio as appetizer. It was fresh and well prepared, topped with some green salad. although the beef was a little too fatty for my taste. As the main course, I had the duck ravioli with a truffle sauce and it was excellent, in fact one of the best pasta dishes I’ve had in Manila, and I eat a lot of pasta! Everything is better with truffle oil and that made the sauce delicious! My partner had the spaghetti with wild boar ragu, which was also excellent. The wild boar made for a nice alternative to regular meat sauce and tasted great. After those main courses, the dessert was a little bit of a let down. I love chocolate and the Tartufo Cioccolato was supposed to be chocolate ice cream with a cherry core and surrounded with crunch chocolate chips – it ended up being a ball of (good) chocolate ice cream with a cocktail cherry in the center, but no crunch to be found…. The portion size was medium for the spaghetti and small for the ravioli, I’m glad we had the appetizer and dessert to round out the meal.
Prego has a very long wine list, but unfortunately, similar to many other restaurants in Manila, they struggle to actually have the wine on the list. We struck out with our choice and ended up with a mediocre wine – you should be able to find something to your liking though, if at a price.
Overall, the Prego was a great choice at the City of Dreams and we really enjoyed our meal. The great food and great service do come at a steep price – it was the most expensive Italian meal we’ve had in Manila and more costly than similar places in Makati or Fort Bonifacio. It is still reasonable compared to some of the other, even more expensive choices at the City of Dreams though. Check out their full menu to see what the menu has to offer, and what you’ll have to pay for it!