Christel took me to Tagaytay City today for a little day trip to see a the Taal Volcano (from the Starbucks Parking Lot) and to eat (of course) at Pamana Restaurant, a fine dining restaurant that serves traditional filipino dishes passed down from one generation to the next. I’ve been having an amazing time in the Philippines and luckily since I’ve gone to Vietnam and grown up with that food, Filipino dishes have been a pretty close jump for me to make. I’m not terribly picky so everything has been worth trying and I’ve been pleasantly surprised by a couple things.
LOCATION: Aguinaldo Hi-way, Crossing Silang East, Tagaytay, 4120 Cavite, Philippines
Apparently, I’ve gotten a little too excited for lunch today and forgotten to take pictures but Christel said her favorite dish from this place is the Ube Halo Halo which we each saved enough room for after eating all these incredible dishes. Everything goes by its traditional name which comes part Tagalog and the descriptions are less descriptions and more personal family anecdotes (also partly in Tagalog) so reading the menu is basically impossible for me and I have no idea whats going on. Thankfully, I have Christel to order for us and she know’s what I like.
We ate family style as a table of three and we ordered (I think) Sizzling Balot Ala Probresite - a creamy duck egg dish with tons of flavor and one of my favorite Filipino dishes, Crispy Adobong Pusit Calamares - an amazing creamy squid in an adobo squid ink batter thats fried, Bulalong Sisig - a sizzling meat dish served with calamansi and onions and peppers, and Tinanglarang Manok - a very familiar, warm chicken lemongrass soup. I’m not a huge fan of lemongrass but this was very good. It turns out these four dishes, with rice, were just perfect for the three of us because we didn’t have any leftovers and were just full enough to each have our own Ube Halo Halo orders.
We also brought back a little souvenir. I guess one of the things Tagaytay is known for is their Buko Pie so we stopped by a little bakery called “The Original Buko Pie Bakeshop” for me to buy some traditional candies and pastries to take back home for people and Christel bought the pie.
LOCATION: LMMO Bldg Caltex, Sta Rosa Tagaytay Road, Lumil, Silang, 4118 Cavite, Philippines
I brought back a bunch of small sharable desserts and treats from this bakery but Buko Pie was just for us. Buko is Tagalog for Coconut so this is just a coconut pie but make sure you think about that correctly. I didn’t say coconut CREAM pie, just coconut pie. Buko Pie is slices of coconut meat layered into a pie crust and baked like our Apple Pies here. It was great. I’ve never had a pie like this before and honestly it’s got to be a new favorite. The best parts of asian desserts are that they aren’t overly sweet and sugary. Buko Pie has that sugar sprinkle on top but it has a natural mellow coconut flavor to it. The layers of actual coconut are tender and meld so well together and make something that’s not too dense but filling in a more mild way. I’m so sad that I’ll only get to eat this one slice but it’ll be a slice to dream about some day that’ll bring me back to the Philippines.