At Large
Another ‘culinary tour’
By Rina Jimenez-David
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:56:00 06/10/2008
Ever in search of places to visit in the immediate area of Tagaytay City, and taking advantage of the last three-day weekend, we decided (well, actually I made up their minds for my husband and daughter) to turn the break into a “culinary tour.”
Thanks to an article that appeared in this paper’s Lifestyle section last Thursday, as well as to food blogger Anton Diaz, who includes maps and numbers to call for the places he writes about.
We were just in time for lunch Saturday at Kanin Club, a restaurant at the Paseo de Sta. Rosa that our friend, Beng Prado of Ogilvy PR, had told me about recently. “You must try the crispy dinuguan!” Beng exclaimed, and right then I decided that we must drop by this place that had so captured Beng’s fervor.
We found Kanin Club at the rear of the Paseo arcade, with a simple façade and dark Filipiniana inspired interiors. It looked just like your typical grandma’s ancestral home, but the dishes served up were grandma’s cooking with an exciting twist. Of course, we ordered the crispy “dinuguan,” but because my children have an aversion to eating what they call “black food,” we ordered lemon chicken for our daughter Miya. I was skeptical because the lemon chicken served in most Chinese places is nothing but chicken cutlets dredged in flour, fried and accompanied by a dreadful too-sweet vaguely lemony sauce. But the lemon chicken at Kanin Club was different: crisp chicken bits, with a sauce that had a hint of lemon but did not overpower the meat.
There’s a surprise when you take your first bite of the crispy “dinuguan,” but I’m not about to tell you what it is. Suffice it to say that the dish was excellent paired with the green mango salad, which had refreshing bits of wansuy thrown in. To accompany these dishes, we ordered “tinapa rice” and “sinigang” of salmon belly. And to round off the meal, we had a single serving of “turon ala mode,” again another delightful surprise.
Just to show you how good the food is at Kanin Club, my husband, who can be rather picky about restaurant fare, declared that “everything was good” in the place. So full were we that we had to take a stroll around the mini-mall just to let the food settle.
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For dinner, we dropped by La Cucinella, an Italian bistro run by our friends Max and Cynthia. So many customers had expressed disappointment that the place did not serve pizza, so for the last several months Max had been preoccupied building his own wood-fired oven. The hubby had even dropped by several times to check on its progress. But when the oven was completed, we were too busy to drive up to Tagaytay, so we promised that on our first free weekend, we would try their pizzas.
We were not disappointed. I practically swooned at the “four-cheese” pizza, savoring the contrasting flavors of mozzarella and gorgonzola. Likewise entrancing was the pizza with “spec,” a kind of Italian bacon but less fatty than pancetta. I also ordered the “pasta delo chef” and finished it to the last bit of shrimp and clam meat. Truly, excellent if simple artisanal cooking!
I also encountered, upon entering the place, a group of ladies who recognized me and said they decided to try La Cucinella after reading about it in this space. (For those looking for La Cucinella, it’s along Aguinaldo Highway, on your right going to Batangas, just before the Total gas station.)
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For lunch the next day, off we went to Bawai’s Vietnamese Kusina, a place we’d been looking for for months ever since I read an article about it. Thanks to Anton’s blog, I finally found directions to get there and a number to call. Mindful that patrons were accommodated by reservation only, I had called up Paul, who manages the place, to make a reservation. But when we got there, it seemed there had been a mix-up (I was to discover that Paul was expecting us the next day), though they hastened to accommodate us after a brief wait.
“Bawai” is the Vietnamese term for “mother” and is in honor of Paul’s Vietnamese mother, who had settled here some 30 years ago. Open only on weekends, Bawai’s serves “lutong bahay” Vietnamese cuisine, dishes that are at once familiar and comforting. We had the “Goi cuon” or fresh “lumpia,” the “Pho bo,” the familiar soup with rice noodles and thinly sliced beef with its accompaniment of crisp bean sprouts, mint and strange curly vegetable tendrils, “Nem nuong,” which are absolutely delicious grilled pork and shrimp rolls again served with fresh veggies and a sticky rice dessert topped with coconut cream that came free of charge!
We overheard Paul say that they plan to change their menu next month and that in fact his “bawai” was in Vietnam to stock up on their supplies. Finding Bawai’s can be quite a trek: Turn right from the Sta. Rosa road, and turn right at the road marked by the “Dominican House of Prayer” sign. Drive quite a ways down until you find a sign for “Doña Leoncia Country Homes Estate” and turn right. You can call +63920 9722924 for reservations.
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We decided to explore another destination after Bawai’s, which was Chateau Hestia Garden Restaurant, literally just around the corner from the Vietnamese place. Chateau Hestia is managed by Austrian Johannes Zehethofer and his Filipina wife Maria Flora Falcon, a lawyer. The place is a sprawling wood-and-stucco structure with a great view of the garden provided by huge screened walls. It serves Continental cuisine (“the menu is in three languages!” exclaimed our daughter), but because we just had lunch, we settled for a sampling of their desserts. The hubby said he could take or leave the crepe and panacotta, but the chocolate mousse was to die for.
Chateau Hestia is open from Thursday to Sunday, and you can call +63929 7113289 for reservations.
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