KABILIN is Golden Prince Hotel and Suites’ Filipino merienda outlet. It occupies what was once the lobby of the hotel’s Tower 1. During the hotel’s 12th anniversary, Kabilin was relaunched, and its inspired makeover has transformed it from a lobby-looking outlet to what one expects of a turn-of-the-century “Ilustrado” home.
One enters Kabilin into its sala or living room. Here a mariposa chair is flanked by a long wooden table. On one side, the café offers its merienda buffet of Cebuano favorites like sikwate, puto maya with manga, maja blanca, pancit palabok and fried bananas. The atmosphere is cozy, intimate.
A small hallway from the sala leads, to its right, the comedor or dining room which has been made into a function room that can accommodate 20 persons. To the left of the hallway is the Veranda, also a function room for 18 people. A front porch and a washroom completes the setting of this first heritage home in a hotel setting.
This heritage home gives one a sense of what it was once like, living in an era that is past—with Chinese and Spanish influences—when life was less hectic and there was time for an afternoon siesta and to savor a filling merienda. The interiors have been set up to conjure that distant past and the merienda buffet is the hotel’s commitment to preserve the merienda tradition wit local culinary gems, cooked slow with passion and care. Nothing instant.
When one is looking for such an ambiance and for good old Filipino merienda, Kabilin Heritage Lounge is the place to go to.