Dining in Baguio

What can we say about dining in Baguio City? Most of the restaurants and cafe we've visited were along Session Road (Baguio City's most popular road) except for O' Mai Khan. Here is a summary and assesment of our dining experience in Baguio City. (Over-all Rating for food, ambience, price and service: **** Excellent and Definitely worth visitng again, *** Good, ** Satisfactory, * Poor and forget about it)



Pizza Volante



Sizzling Plate



Zola Cafe

Solibao

Jack's ****: We ordered chicken and chopsuey. The servings were big - a half chicken was more than enough for us. The vegetables of the chop suey were fresh. The taste was good and the price reasonable.

Pizza Volante **: We ordered Minestrone, Pasta and Pizza. The pasta was soggy and we didn't like it at all (although the sauce is ok, but the pasta was really ... bleeh). The minestrone and pizza taste ok too, although not to die for. The price is a little high considering the quality and taste of food.

Zola Cafe **: The taal rice was new to us so we ordered it - it was basically adobo rice with tinapa and salty egg. The serving was generous and tastes actually nice. The porkchop with gravy was delicious, but the chicken cordon bleu was disappointing. The breading was toooooo thick that you hardly taste the chicken (actually, we couldn't find the chicken!!) We also had pancake - it was cheap, really (P50 for 2 big, round pancakes), but taste exactly that - cheap. It taste like flour mixed with egg, sugar, and water. There's no creaminess that one gets only when butter or milk is added. The run-by-the-mill pancakes of McDo or even Jollibee are way better.

Zola is also a wifi zone. But the big let-down is the overpowering smell of cigarette smoke. The whole resto is actually a smoking zone so one will really feast with second-hand smoke while inside. For those looking for lung cancer, this is the place to go. I had a terrible head ache after eating there. Hence, despite the tastiness of its food and reasonableness of their price, I'm not setting foot there again unless they do something with the smoke!

Mandarin *: This is the biggest dissapointment. Andy was actually feeling nostalgic, saying that he remembers eating good food at Mandarin. So we scheduled a visit there. The place looks way too old-fashioned, but we were there for the food so it doesn't matter. The wanton noodles came first - it taste good and the service was generous. So we were anticipating to be awed some more. And then our food came ... First was the camaron - the shrimps were too small and too few, they look pitiful to eat. Then the mixed veggies. My goodness, eating them made me feel I'm back in ... the college cafeteria! The veggies were old, over-cooked, and the taste matches the looks of the place - depressingly bad. And the bigger catch? The price is not commensurate with the taste of the food we had (well, maybe except for the noodles).

Sizzling Plate ***: I told Andy that Sizzling Plate is among my favorites in Baguio. It's a good thing that the resto didn't dissappoint. The beef slices they used for their steaks were juicy and were marinated just right. Geof who was then craving for arrozcaldo and siomai ordered just that. And that's one major lesson he learned that day - if you're in a steak house, never, never order siomai or arrozcaldo or anything that the cooks are not experts on. The arrozcaldo was waayyy too yellow, it looks like it contracted hepatitis. And the siomai? Let's put it this way - Geof is gaga over siomai, but this is the first time he didn't finish an order. The dumpling was falling all over the place when you bite them. But that notwithstanding, the steaks were more than enough to compensate for the arrozcaldo-siomai debacle and we look forward eating there again.

O'Mai Khan ***: We had a mongolian plate, hot pot, shrimp tempura, and ice cream. The veggies were fresh! Yes!! It was our last night and we were still craving for more fresh veggies. O'Mai Khan offered just that. The taste of the soup was good and the ingredients were abundant. The shrimp tempura, on the other hand taste more like a camaron rebusado (it even looks like a stick shaped camaron) . It's nowhere near the Japanese tempura. But then again, maybe this is the Mongolian version of tempura....?

For the mongolian grill - well, mongolian meal is known to be a do-it-yourself mixing of ingredients and sauces, and the resto will just do the cooking. In other words, depending on how savvy you are with this style, you'll end up with either a bowlful of yummy treat, or a bowlful of something that even a streetdog would pass. It was a good thing I am familiar with this style, but it would have been better for the resto if they post a 'recipe' as regards the right amount of sauces to mix (e.g. for szechuan style, mix 1 scoop of chili water, 1 scoop of soy sauce ... etc; for sweet and spicy, mix 1 scoop of sugar, 1 scoop of garlic water .... etc)

We also had meals/ snacks and/or coffee in other restos but they are not memorable to even occupy a space here -- except the resto where we had halo-halo with crushed ice as hard as a rock. I called the waiter to show him how impossible it was to eat the halo-halo with Mt Everest blocking the spoon. He was good natured enough to crush the ice for us (and realized how hard it really was when he tried to pick the ice). If only restos offering halo-halo would get a shaving device that would produce shaved ice like that in Razon's.... For myself, I ordered coffee, thinking that maybe it would redeem the resto if they offer good coffee. Alas, the brewed coffee was too mild (malabnaw) that a 3-in-1 instant coffee actually taste better. Not going back in that resto again.

Solibao ****: For brunch on our last day, we ordered crispy hito fillet, adobo, and fried egg. While Solibao looks unassuming outside, their food really taste good. The hito was crispy and the adobo was really delicious. And the fresh tomatoes - wow - they were wonderfully big, fresh, and plump, my mouth waters just thinking about them. The price was good, too.

Since Baguio is abound with fresh vegetables and fruits, we were expecting the restaurants to emphasize their greens - salads, vegetable dishes and soups, etc. Thus far, however, in almost all eating places we've visited (except Jack's) , the fresh vegetables seem to be a luxury. Most restos offer sizzlings or grilled meat. This is a pity considering that Baguio is awashed with veggies coming from the farmlands of Benguet. Local and foreign tourists, I'm sure, will patronize "green" or vegetarian dishes. In Tagaytay (e.g. Sonia's Garden), they promote vegetarian food.

By the way, we also had breakfast at Camp John Hay's Choco-late de Batirol. It's one of the saving grace of our Baguio trip - but Batirol deserves a separate blog entry all to itself.