Cafe Abuelita

Every time I go to Batangas on weekends, I would always want to try out a restaurant not only because I want to blog about it but because I want to be able to experience how much Batangueños have evolved when it comes to food. Last Saturday, dad ordered merienda to welcome us (that’s one thing I like about going home.. mum and dad always prepares something for us). He got pancit and chicken from Wa Nam. Those from Batangas would remember that Wa Nam was known for their pancit, lumpiang Shanghai and fried chicken. This is not to say that things are still the same but still, the pancit and chicken merienda brought back fun childhood memories

Anyhow, going back to the topic, I saw this Cafe Abuelita tarpaulin outside SM City Batangas and as always, we followed the signs. It led us to Fil Oil, a gasoline station in Gulod just after the Bridge of Promise if you’re coming from Alangilan, or before the bridge if you’re coming from SM City like us. It’s a mini-Spanish bistro that does not go heavy into the Spanish cuisine. The menu, I’d say, is a little confused because there’s just too many off-Spanish dishes going on. Nevertheless, we enjoyed lunch because everything was prepared spot on. The dishes were simple but since they were cooked on the spot, they were served hot and just in time.

sorry the menu is a bit glossy 😦

small cozy interior

more tables and chairs outside

This one is from Cafe Abuelita’s FaceBook page:

Cafe Abuelita is a Spanish-inspired café which offers a rustic yet homey ambience. It boasts of its one of a kind list of Spanish coffee, including its very own Cafe Cortado (Espresso with a little bit of cream), Cafe Negro (black coffee), Café Carajillo (spiked coffee) and Cappuccino. It also offers its very own recipe for Bocadillos (sandwiches), Batangas Adobo, Crepes, Hot Chocolate and home-made Gelatto.

Cafe Abuelita is a fusion of Filipino and Spanish influences of Batangas and presents its rich and diverse culture. The café offers its unique recipe of classic Batangueno culinary delight while showcasing a gallery of one of the city’s most influential personalities in the field of arts, Rosie Ilustre. The gallery depicts the life story of our abuelita, as well as her legacy insofar as the Batangueno culture is concerned.

My folks and hubby got the “silogs”:

tocino with egg

tapa with egg

boneless bangus with egg

I, on the other hand, ordered Batangas chicken caldereta with pasta

This is not to say that the chicken caldereta is bad. But… I like the beef caldereta pasta of A&M better. The chicken caldereta would have went well with rice. For pasta though, specifically spaghetti, beef works well. It’s worth a try though because the caldereta is really flavorful and I love the olives.

Aside from soda and bottled water, we also got the following drinks:

dalandan juice

iced cafe mocha

The drinks are refreshing although I was hoping they won’t be that sweet. The good thing though is that the cook was very willing to adjust everything for us She fixed the drinks to temper the sweetness

I just have to say that they have the sweetest cook/waitress. Yup, our lunch was a one-woman show. There’s five of us with different orders and she managed to handle everything gracefully I forgot to ask her name so you could look for her when you go there. Daymn

So there ya go. That’s another Batangas restaurant for you try. I know it’s impossible to try all the restaurants in Batangas in one go. There are just way too many good ones out there. However, I would really suggest that you try them all.

Cafe Abuelita is in FilOil Gas Station, Gulod, Batangas City. You can email them at cafeabuelita@yahoo.com for inquiries. And if you have a FaceBook account, learn more by joining Cafe Abuelita’s group

*originally posted in my Taga-Batangas blog.

Snippet #5: Washington Monument

I vividly remember that scene from the movie Wedding Crashers that shows the Washington Monument as viewed while while sitting on the steps over at Lincoln Memorial.

I did the same thing… sat on the steps, took a shot from my low tech IXUS 95IS.

I hope I did justice to this one helluvah magnificent view.

Enjoy!

Where We Ate In NYC

This is the second installment for my backlog entries and this is a nice supplement to the one I earlier posted about Ace Hotel New York.

If you remember, I posted here some time before that I wanted to go into a Food Tour of NYC. You see, the problem is that four days in NYC is not enough to see and try everything. Another setback for us was that NYC was like the 5th place in mainland USA that we went to and as you know, Filipinos love to eat with family. We realized that’s what we’ve been doing for most of the time and we can’t splurge on gastronomic journeys lest we go home with hypertension.

So what happened was we didn’t push through with Buddakan (*sorry Burns, I promise I’ll go there next time*) and Le Cirque (*for delicadeza’s sake, hubby and I decided not to go especially that he worked for the country’s President*) and we also didn’t bother searching for the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory and Cafe Lalo (*thanks Pao for recommending this but maybe next time when we have more time to splurge on that You’ve Got Mail resto*). We never even got any chance to try the Halal guys in 53rd and 6th.

I know most people would say that hey, you should have tried this and that. We know. Too bad, we didn’t have enough time, really. But for sure, our next trip to NYC will involve more culinary experiences for us. This is not to say we didn’t enjoy what we ate in NYC. It’s more on the safer side of things but heck, we enjoyed every crumb of it. Each experience is unique and for us, we had a great time with family and we happily went to where they led us 🙂

NEW PIZZA TOWN II

Yah, sounds like a FaceBook game but nope, Pizza Town is the very first restaurant in NYC that we ate at.

Our route to NYC was from Washington DC via MegaBus. When we got off at our NYC destination around lunchtime, we heard our tummies rumbling as we walked towards Ace Hotel. There are lots of things to see and as excited as I was with the buzzing New York City, I accidentally laid eyes on this pizza joint. I actually heard it call my name.

Without knowing where to go and having no plans where to eat, sure thing, we gave it a go. It’s at W 30th St./7th Ave. Yes, very near Penn Station, Madison Square Garden, and our hotel of course.

To be honest, the pizza tasted good although I felt that it was a bit pricey. I remember paying around $4 for a slice. The bad thing though was I cried while eating because I experienced a terrible nightmare while in San Francisco and I badly brought that with me to DC and then to NYC. Hubby was just really quick at fixing things and made me back to my usual excited self again. I ordered Penne pasta too and that’s something that I liked.

Overall, it’s not a pizza joint I’d crave about. It’s basically just like Sbarro. If I were to choose between Pizza Town II of NYC and Brooklyn Pizza over at Ortigas Home Depot, I’d say Brooklyn’s better 🙂 At any rate, there’s always an on-going pizza war in NYC anyways. You wouldn’t miss anything if you don’t eat here.

ANGELO & MAXIE’S STEAKHOUSE

photo not mine

We met up our hosts for dinner at Angelo & Maxie’s Steakhouse in FlatIron district. It’s a casual/semi-formal restaurant that is not so much on the high-end but still pricey for us because we have this tendency to always convert US$ into Philippine Pesos 😛 But of course, steaks are always pricey  wherever you eat them (*wonders when will I eat at Fire Lake Grill again*).

We ordered some appetizers, I think we had Clams Oreganato (US$19.95). They’re good but I didn’t eat too much. I was saving space for the steak *har har* 🙂

And then we were told that the portions are really huge so I was kinda thinking if I could finish up one whole steak. Besides, two nights before that, we had Brazilian steak in Baltimore so I’m not sure how many more steaks I can handle. I ended up gulping down half of their Rib Eye Steak and sharing the other half. Of course, steaks are best eaten with wine. We had red wine but since I am not a sommelier, any red wine tasted good for me 😛

It’s a little jam-packed that night but we had good seats, nice dinner, and wonderful company. I would probably go back there again.

BAGEL MAVEN CAFE

If there’s an on-going pizza war in NYC, let me tell you that there’s also a bagel war 😛 Some say that H&H have the best bagels in town. But heck, food is food and bagels are bagels, I’ll eat them wherever they’re from as long as they’re clean 🙂

Bagel Maven Cafe is a place that New Yorkers would most probably just pass by. It looks like they go there for a fast order or something. I also heard it’s a little expensive being in the Midwest. Hubby and I expected, and we were right, that an order wouldn’t be less than $5.

For breakfast, I had scrambled eggs, french toast, and 3 slices of bacon and a juice for $5. Hubby had sausages instead of bacon for the same price. We know we could have gone to another place but we didn’t have the time to hunt for a budget-friendly resto especially that at that time, we were already running late for our meet up at the Subway near Penn Station.

And nope, I’m not going back there not because the food wasn’t good but because I will try something else next time.

NEW WONTON GARDEN

This is where we had late lunch/merienda when we went to Chinatown. I may be exaggerating and I’m good at it but really, they have the best wonton noodle soup I have ever tasted. And their char sui, oh my goodness! Little tender pieces of barbecued meat in light fluffy and soft mantao bread. Argh, perfect combination!

Surprisingly, this is like the least presentable of all the restaurants we went to but they served memorable dishes and definitely, I’ll go back there again.

You SHOULD go. You won’t regret the trip 🙂

FAMOUS DAVE’S

We spent one of our dinners at Famous Dave’s in Times Square. This is the only place where I actually took photos of the food!

I ordered their Memphis-style baby back ribs paired with rice pilaf (US$27.99). Of course, I miss rice! I’m a proud rice-eater! 😛

And if steaks are best with wine, ribs are best with beer… Stella Artois from Belgium.

I haven’t had ribs since we came back and I have no plans of having one any time soon. Not to say that Famous Dave’s is bad. Just that if you had too much ribs, regardless of how much you were craving for it before, your palettes will really get tired of it and the smell alone will make you wanna puke. We had ribs in all of the places we went to and it’s not something that I’d like to eat again before the year is out.

JUNIOR’S CHEESECAKE

Okay. I have proven all the hype about it to be true. This is definitely the best cheesecake out there! I remember our Cheesecake Wednesday at the office where I believe, with strong conviction, that the best cheesecake is the one submitted by my friend CherieL from Miss Desserts or the one I got from Chelsea. Unfortunately, they’re no match when compared with Junior’s Cheesecake.

I got a slice of their strawberry cheese pie, and while it was ouch on the pocket (US$6.75 a slice!) it was all worth it.  While hubby seldom afirms what I consider to be good, he gave me his wholehearted affirmation on this one.

Junior’s cheesecake bears our stamp of approval and now bears our seal as the best cheesecake we’ve ever had 😛

WHITE CASTLE

We were hunting White Castle down, not because of Harold & Kumar’s movie, but because we’ve seen it in a food network way way before. We saw that they put five holes on their burger patties and cook them over a pan filled with onions. I copied that at home and that was the very first epic failure I had in cooking 😦

Anyways, we went to try White Castle and while we weren’t very happy with it, we weren’t disappointed either.

GRAY’S PAPAYA

When you see it in the movies, and it gets featured by Anthony Bourdain, and your friends talk to you about it, wouldn’t you be curious enough to try it?

We tried Gray’s Papaya and we got mixed emotions.

I wasn’t that ecstatic about it although it wasn’t that bad. Hubby though loved it. I guess they’re really good it’s just that I wasn’t hungry at that moment.

We ordered the recession special, of course 🙂

Juicy hotdogs served by Filipinos 🙂 yup, Filipinos run this place. And aside from the hotdogs, they serve really good juices. Hubby loved the papaya juice.

Before I move to the next place, let me tell you that Gray’s Papaya endorsed Pres. Obama during the last elections. Ergo…

SERENDIPITY 3

So sorry, I had to cut the picture down to 20% of it’s actual size. This is the only picture I have of Serendipity 3 and hubby and I are in front of it 😛

If you’ve seen Serendipity, you probably will be one of those who line up at Serendipity 3 in the hope of finding your own John Cusack 🙂

Unfortunately, I don’t get all the hype about it.

Btw, there’s also Serendipity 3 in Las Vegas. So if you want a fast seat, just fly to the Sin City 🙂

HARU SUSHI

We spent our last dinner in NYC at Haru Sushi. It is a modern Japanese restaurant that serves delish Japanese food in elegant styles and big portions. I don’t remember what we exactly ordered but I enjoyed their Endamame (lightly salted steamed soybeans) 🙂

If you’re looking for a nice sushi place, then Haru Sushi is meant for you. But if you’re not into Japanese food like myself, one try in this resto is enough 🙂

Sorry about my lousy blog post. It’s just hard to describe food from memory alone. I wish I could have taken more food pictures to show you. Then again, there’s always a next time 🙂