Birthday Surprise at Icho Japanese Restaurant, Greenhills San Juan, Philippines

This is a throwback post (pre-pandemic days) wherein Hubby surprised me with a birthday lunch at Icho Japanese Restaurant.

Back then, eating out was fairly easy; all we had to take note of was whether the restaurant had available high chairs and if there was space for our stroller. Al fresco dining was way low on our list of seating preferences and “the more people in the restaurant the better” mentality was still very much alive.

Hubby was in charge of the ordering that day.

To start off my birthday feast, he got 3 kinds of sushi (makis & aburi ones);

Father-In-Law's 60th at Blackbird, The Nielson Tower, Ayala Triangle Gardens, Philippines

This isn't our first rodeo; we have been planning surprise parties/ events for countless of times already but I have to be honest, this surprise party for my father-in-law (FIL) by far was the most stressful of all. Because aside from the fact that we had to keep it a secret from the celebrant, we also had to keep it from his wife (aka my mother-in-law). Yup, instead of having her on our side & helping with the planning, she was kept in the dark as well. We chose to do this to prevent "leaks" of any kind.

It took a few number of late night talks; planning before we finally settled on the venue. There were a number of choices such as Gloria Maris, Umu & Mendokoro Ramenba (who unfortunately didn't allow rental of the whole place) but we felt for his 60th, we wanted it to be a unique experience; some where he hasn't step his foot in while still still keeping it intimate & classy. With that prerequisite plus good food, we knew we wouldn't go wrong with Blackbird at the Nielson Tower Ayala Triangle Gardens. 

We were able to try out some of their dishes during Hubby's birthday (click here for the link). Although there were a few hiccups in the service, the food was simply good enough to compensate for it all.

We decided to reserve The Cabin, their 2nd-floor 20-seater private room accessible through the spiral staircase.

Privacy such as this does not come cheap. There is a standing 30k consumable rate for lunch (an amount we were sure to be going well over); that's already hotel buffet dining rates right there (for those with hotel membership cards at least). So you can just imagine how much we wanted this event to go as smoothly as possible.

Blackbird offers a selection of a pre-selected tasting menus but we wanted to be sure that no guest of ours would leave hungry therefore we arranged our own 4-course ala carte menu.

After several emails with Jeffrey, it was finally The Day. Hubby was stressing over the latecomers (you know who you are); coordinating with the appointed contact person (Hi Carol) to prep the other guests and making sure that FIL & MIL would have no excuse but to come with us for lunch. Finally, the stage was set.