At first we thought of having it somewhere in Magallanes. But there is nothing there that caught our fancy at the moment. We were clear on one thing though: with the current heat wave (temperature has been playing in the 35 to 37 degrees Celsius range in Metro Manila in the past few days) we didn’t want to do a lot of walking. Definitely not at close to 1:00 o’clock in the afternoon. At the last minute, with Magallanes right at the corner of our eyesight as we entered South Super Highway from the Sales Bridge in Villamor Airbase, we agreed on Greenbelt 5.
Our first choice in Greenbelt 5 was Damaso. My ex-girlfriend has tried it there a few weeks back with a friend and former colleague of ours in IBM. She said the food has been great and they have this Maria Clara Juice or something which is supposedly a very refreshing concoction. But the place was full when we got there, except for the tables outside where there is no air conditioning. No, we wouldn’t stand the heat, with or without Maria Clara’s wonder concoction. So we scouted for another place.
My ex-girlfriend has also tried Fely J before (I haven’t) and although she said the food is okay it is nothing spectacular. So we struck it out from our options.
There is a cosmo-Jap restaurant adjacent and to the left of Fely J. We would have settled for it except that there was no available table for us.
That’s when we saw Travel Cafe Philippines. From the outside we saw that there were several vacant tables. Not exactly a good sign, is it? But it seems to be the last shop in the row and it was almost 1:00 o’clock and we were already quite hungry as well as sweaty from the smoldering heat. In other words, we ran out of option.
As it turned out it was a blessing in disguise. The food turned out to be great, the service exceptional, the ambiance just right, and the price reasonable.
My ex-girlfriend left the ordering to me.
I ordered Okoy for appetizers and Linguine Aligue (crab paste) pasta with a touch of chili sauce for our main course. In keeping with the season my ex-girlfriend and I both ordered Green Mango (plus) Banana Shake for our drinks. For our dessert, my ex-girlfriend took over the ordering and asked for a Moist Banana Cake/Loaf (or something like that).
The Okoy’s presentation was quite innovative. Classy, definitely. But the best thing about it was that it tasted like… what else but Okoy, which is exactly what I hoped it would be. In the first place why would I order Okoy and hope that it will taste like something other than Okoy?
I was also quite right in estimating that a single order would be enough for our main course. Our attending waitress offered to serve the pasta already split which was just perfect.
The unusual Green Mango and Banana combination for a chilled ice shake has been surprisingly good. I had some doubts when I made the order but — me being me — I ordered it anyway for the sake of trying it out.
Just as we were ready for dessert (The Moist Banana Cake/Loaf turned out to be quite good as well) my ex-girlfriend got curious about the famed Alamid (Philippine Civet) Coffee. I tried to talk her out of it knowing too well what Alamid Coffee is made of. I’ve had an intimate encounter with its raw material when I joined a group that climbed Pico De Loro in Cavite and Batangas a few weeks ago (maybe I should write about this in my blog later). It’s not that I find the idea of drinking coffee made of animal dung repulsive. My very adventurous nature actually has been looking forward to it. But I was concerned for my ex-girlfriend who is not exactly as adventurous with food as I am.
But she insisted so what the heck. Might as well put the mystery of the thing behind us.
For P220 per cup it may well qualify as the most expensive cup of coffee I ordered in my entire life. I must admit that I was quite disappointed. It’s not that it tastes bad. It doesn’t taste bad. It’s quite good actually. But perhaps I expected too much for a cup of coffee worth P220. But I should expect a lot from a cup of coffee worth P220, shouldn’t I?!
My ex-girlfriend and I also learned quite a bit of very interesting info about Travel Cafe Philippines. It was a pleasant surprise for us to learn that it is a product of the collaboration between the private venture behind the Cafe and the Department of Tourism (DOT). In fact., the branding is the brainchild of the DOT. That explains the motif, and the ambiance, and the auto-looping video clips featuring some of the tourist attractions in the country. Very, very interesting indeed. Maybe I should also try to write about this in my blog sometime later.
I have to declare that date a great one. My ex-girlfriend readily concurred. #
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Nice site!
G’night