At the Old Spaghetti House, comfort food comes at a comfortable price

MANILA, Philippines - T here’s a new trend in dining. Choosing a restaurant, often a game of selecting some much-buzzed-about hotspot and discovering if there’s a table available for reservation on a Friday night, no longer revolves around those food directories handed out by the dozen.

Thanks to local food blogs and city-centric sites, finding your next meal is often a click away.

With Citibank’s Dining Privileges program, deciding on dinner is as easy as visiting the Citibank website and finding a restaurant with an easy-on-the-pocket promo.

“It’s not about chasing the craving,” says Citibank retail marketing program manager Mellany Montemayor. “It’s about patterning the craving after the best deal.”

Since beginning the program last July, feedback has been favorable: restaurants that join the Dining Privileges program experience an upsurge in numbers while diners keep coming back for more extras.

“We find restaurants that meet our standards,” says Citibank retail marketing AVP Arlene Magtira. “It has to be in a good neighborhood, offer a good deal to Citibank credit cardholders, and of course serve really good food.”

At The Old Spaghetti House, diners using their Citibank card get a free pitcher of iced tea for any order of the restaurant’s Trio meal, a hearty selection of best-selling dishes that consist of salad, pasta and pizza. On weekends, a free chicken piccata (P145) is yours for a minimum order of any item of the same or higher value.

Citibank is so confident of their promo that if diners find a better offer, they’re willing to make up the difference.

Old regulars at the old spaghetti house

“We wanted to thank diners who keep coming back,” says The Old Spaghetti House general manager Lizzie Guerrero on why they partnered with Citibank.

Since its inception, the restaurant has been a haven for carb lovers.

“I personally love spaghetti,” says Guerrero, who wanted to create a restaurant devoted to the food with out limiting themselves to Italian cuisine. ”We didn’t want to exclude other cuisines,” she says. ”And some people are intimidated by Italian food. They think it’s expensive or requires a certain taste level.”

”But everyone loves spaghetti,” she adds. ”It’s everyone’s comfort food.” While the menu isn’t limited to pasta, in fact it has a limitless number of pizzas, rice dishes and appetizers (like nachos), its spaghetti dishes range in influences, from Asian fusion to Mexican. There’s Wasabi Alfredo pasta and Thai bagoong pasta to choose from, tongue and palate twisters that seem to find favor with the institution’s regular demographic.

”We wanted to specialize in spaghetti that’s more affordable to students and working people,” she says. In The Old Spaghetti House’s Libis branch, which is home to the Eastwood business district and a magnet for Katipunan university students, the lunch and dinner crowd is that rare mix of well-to-do business people, budget-conscious employees and allowance-constricted students.

But,” she adds, “We don’t scrimp on ingredients. You get best value for the price.”

Bestseller practically free during weekends

For their Citibank Dining Privileges promo, Guerrero wanted to give diners the chicken piccata, a bestseller, because it’s a house favorite. “Most restaurants push the least-favorite dish for their promo because they want it to move,” she says, “but we want to reward diners with food they love.”

Guerrero has a special hankering for piccata because of her family’s history with the dish. ”I grew up with this dish. My grandmother used to make it and during parties guests would always come up and ask for her piccata,” she says.

Pinoy faves at Grilla

At Grilla, also managed by Guerrero, diners can enjoy house favorites when using their Citibank credit cards. On weekends, diners get free pork barbecue when they order a meal of the same or higher value. For a minimum purchase of P500, free pork sisig is offered during weekdays. The dish is so popular, it comes in six iterations: pork, tuna, squid, tofu, bangus and chicken.

Comfort food for everyone

Guerrero currently helms over 30 of The Old Spaghetti House and Grilla branches. Since opening the first Grilla, they’ve found success in serving classic comfort food, be it Filipino or Italian-inspired. Their secret? “People keep coming back to comfort food,“ she says. “They’ll try all these trendy restaurants, but, in the end, they keep coming back to us.”