Hotel Review | Hotel Centro, Puerto Princesa, Palawan

Hotel Centro
National Highway, Brgy. San Pedro
Puerto Princesa City, Palawan
Telephone Number: (048) 434.1110 




Most traveler, when they stay in a city hotel, they either pay a fortune for a decent one but end up with unnecessary facilities they are never going to use or stay in a budget hotel and find themselves in some musty building that doesn't look like it has been cleaned since 1950. That is a fact.

In Puerto Princesa City however, such is life in this brand new hotel, Hotel Centro.

From outside, Hotel Centro's exterior remains integral to its appeal.  Complementing the natural beauty and vastness of Puerto Princesa, a fashionable modern-classic building fleeced in bright white with green vegetation around it. Its location in the ‘wide open’ square, at the very heart of the Philippines' city in the forest gives its guest an easy striking distance to everything in the city and gives an instant head-start over rival hotels.




Rome was welcomed warmly on arrival and a friendly young man escorted him to his second-floor billet. The top-notch hotel offers 111 highly stylish guest rooms that provides quality and comfortable accommodation (check my room review here). Both businessman and holidaymaker guests will definitely have maximum comfort for that much deserved goodnight’s rest in Hotel Centro's newly built rooms. 




The main dining area, Expressions Cafe, is spacious and yet remains cozy with a magnificent view of swimming pool, Verde Garden and manicured garden on the other side. The food tastes remarkably good and the prices won’t give you indigestion (check out my complimentary breakfast post here). And if you are in the mood for romantic, resort-feel dinner, Hotel Centro's Verde Garden is a perfect setting. 




If you are a business traveler, you will definitely enjoy the convenience of working in Hotel Centro's fully functional Business Center equipped with 2 desktop computers with high-speed internet access and Wi-Fi connectivity. A holidaymaker will surely love dipping into hotel's very nice swimming pool and admire the Palawan sun while sipping cocktails from the nearby Soul Pool Bar. No dull moments here, guests can shop "pasalubongs" at the souvenir shop, or have a blissful escape at Whizza Spa. There's an Atletico Fitness Center fronting the garden for fitness conscious visitor available to use, free of charge.




Hotel Centro really offers an all-round package, there's no excuse to be bored. The hotel itself is an attraction, it's a destination - and one well worth going the extra mile to discover.


Foodiscovery | Beef Stewed Chaolong



Rediscovering food from my hometown brought a lot of funny memories to me. In Puerto Princesa City, where I spent my college days, we usually hang out in a "Chaolongan" after school. Chaolongan is a Vietnamese restaurant that serves this noodle dish - chaolong. If  "Lugawans", "Pares" or "Gotohans" are the popular after-drinking-session hang out in Metro Manila,  Chaolongans, scattered around my favorite city are the most popular among locals and foreigners alike. 

Chaolong is a Vietnamese noodle dish brought to Palawan by Vietnamese refugees who escaped Vietnam during Vietnam war and found home in the island in the 70s. Contrary to Vietnam's "Chaolong" which is a congee or rice porridge with pork innards, Palawan's Chaolong is made of rice noodles top with stewed beef, pork, or chicken meat. Appropriately, this Vietnamese noodle dish is called Pho (phở) in Vietnamese cuisine. 

Raw toge (Monggo or bean sprouts) and mint leaves are added on top of the steaming stew before eating. Vietnamese baguette or bánh mì with choice of fillings from chicken, pork, beef, butter and garlic spread or longganisa is chaolong's best partner. 




Note: Rene Saigon in Pardeco, Niche at Manalo corner Burgos Streets, Bona's in Manalo Extension, and Pho Saigon located in San Manuel are the most popular Chaolongans.