Travel Cafe Philippines

Right in the heart of Greenbelt 5 is a concept cafe owned by the Department of Tourism called “Travel Cafe Philippines.” I guess the point of the entire cafe is to promote Philippine tourism by featuring its best dishes, desserts, and coffee. There’s also a concierge of sorts where you can get bookings for anywhere in the Philippines. It’s like a one-stop shop of traveling to the Philippines. BF and I dropped by for “merienda” but ended up trying some of the chef’s recommendations. (:)) I love the ambiance of the place, very quaint, clean, and attentive servers.

The Smoked Mackerel with Laguna Cheese Pandesal was delicious. We loved the way they were able to execute this dish. It’s also a very healthy option for people on a diet Light and tasty. Wash everything down with a carafe of Calamansi Juice!

Aligue Pasta is nothing special. Being a Kapampangan I’m very picky with my aligue. I think this dish needs more salt or more kalamansi. I didn’t think the aligue was fresh enough. They need to tweak this dish I think.

Filipino Triolet - A great idea because its basically a combination of the Philippines 3 traditional desserts (leche flan, suman, and turon). You get to taste a sample of Filipino culture! This is my favourite treat in Travel Cafe Philippines.

The leche flan was great! Hindi tinipid! Haha. Again, I’m serious about my desserts. This is real leche flan, all egg yolks I think. Very Rich and the Macapuno was good as well.

The suman was soft and easy to eat. It wasn’t too sweet too. Just right.

My family is a big fan of turon or any of the traditional Filipino merienda’s so I really enjoyed this turon. The wrapper wasn’t thick. There was enough banana and langka inside. Cute concept this dessert trio.

Our Travel Cafe Philippines experience was a good one. Don’t expect to get GREAT food though but it was good food. The prices are pretty steep if you really think about it but the service, presentation of the place makes up for it I guess. This place is good for an afternoon date, a meeting, or if you just want to unwind after hours of shopping at the mall.

Related Posts:

Travel Cafe Philippines by Spot.ph

I traveled to Travel Cafe Philippines by Blogalag

TRAVEL CAFE PHILIPPINES

2nd Floor, Greenbelt 5 Ayala Center

Legaspi St., Makati City

(632) 729-2233

www.travelcafephilippines.com

 

Pia y Damaso: A Noli me Tangere Experience

I’ve been checking out greenbelt 5 lately and one of the restaurants that I’ve tried when I was doing the Simbang Gabi last December is this small cozy restaurant called Pia y Damaso. Pia y Damaso specializes in Philippine Colonial Cuisine. The entire restaurant seems to be inspired by Jose Rizal’s famous novel Noli me Tangere. I decided to make a review on this to kick off my old manila series which I will be doing this weekend.

Apparently the restaurant is called Pia y Damaso because that’s the name of Maria Clara’s Parents Pia and Padre Damaso. Cool! Everything is really creative. Though, I don’t think the food is entirely exceptional I think the whole concept is unique and its worth at least a visit or two.

 

For this visit we only had dessert since we already ate dinner at the restaurant next door called Fely J’s which I also made a review of here. We ordered two cakes. The Ben Zayb and Wicked Simoun.

 

Fely J’s Kitchen: Filipino & Asian Cuisine

Fely J’s Restaurant in greenbelt 5 specializes in Filipino & Asian Home Cooking. Yet another restaurant from the LJC group. It’s amazing how these guys never run out of ideas for a restaurant. There’s a proliferation of LJC Group restaurants in Manila nowadays. ABE by far is my favourite (ok! I’m biased since its kapampangan cuisine) but I remember the days when I was younger that my mom and I would always eat lunch at BISTRO REMEDIOS in Malate.

 

Walking into the restaurant I immediately noticed the pink “ala lattice” walls. It wasn’t lattice of course but I had a feeling that was what they were going for. It was pink..goody! J I liked the look of the place: dark wood tables and chairs, family style tables, quite clean. The service was pretty good too.