I stayed with some friends at the Shangri-La last month, and we stopped at the Raging Bull for a…read morenightcap on our final night in town. It was a very nice place, as you might imagine, a restaurant and bar on the 30th floor of a luxury hotel in BGC. It had a sort of American whiskey cowboy theme, though with the golden grandeur of the Shangri-La.
The bar was pretty quiet at 10:00 on a Saturday night. Other than our table, the only guests I noticed were a very old white man and his very young Asian escort, who I do hope was being paid handsomely for her time. Service was polite and attentive, and we enjoyed a relaxing round to mark the end of our trip. My friend Nick L. was kind enough to buy.
We got snack buckets of spiced popcorn when we sat down, then ordered ourselves some cocktails from the book-sized leather-bound menu. I had the Last Runner, a complicated milk punch with black and white rum, jasmine green tea, pineapple juice, passionfruit, milk, and calamansi juice. It was quite boozy and delicious, garnished with a charred slice of pineapple. I also admired my friend Bong C.'s Cowboy Old Fashioned, with Raging Bull bourbon, sherry wine, and vanilla. It came in a giant glass bottle filled with smoke, and he poured it himself into the accompanying old fashioned glass.
We hung out for an hour then went to sleep, and I left for the airport the next morning. I had a great time in Manila thanks to my travel mates, and I was glad for this one last drink at Raging Bull.