High on a hill, there's a resto with a diff

In the city that is home to many a Filipino's heart, there stands a building wearing Baguio's old colonial colors of olive green with a touch of white. Casa Vallejo, the chartered city's oldest building at more than 100 years, houses ghosts of eras past on its upper Session Road location.

Apart from these harmless other-worldly presences that go bump in the night, there is also inside Casa Vallejo 24 rooms, the year-old Hill Station restaurant-bar of Mitos Benitez Yñiguez, Mt. Cloud Bookshop of the Perez sisters (Padmapani and Feliz) and North Haven, a spa that offers, among others, scrubs and massage using indigenous techniques and materials (e.g., coffee beans and strawberries).

Coming soon: a cinematheque with limited seating for Baguio-based or visiting cineastes who wish to watch and appreciate Filipino and international film classics.

Yñiguez says, "Both the restaurant and Casa Vallejo have been doing well since we opened. In the beginning, it took some time for us to get known but at least in our graphs, we have been going steadily up since the day our doors opened."

For Hill Station's first anniversary in March this year, it invited jazz singer Jacqui Magno, whose last visit to the city was in 2007 for the Baguio Writers Group's fund-raising concert "Jazz for Tonight" at the Baguio Country Club (one of the beneficiaries then was the group's founding member Napoleon Javier, a broadcast media journalist who was then confined at a local hospital's intensive care unit after a major stroke; the rest of the proceeds from the fund-raiser underwrote the group's community outreach writing workshops for the youth, for mid-lifers and for senior citizens).

Ms. Magno was backed up by local musicians Jason Sta. Maria on the acoustic guitar and Ira Publico on the keyboard. The response to Ms. Magno's hour and a half performance was so electric that Yñiguez, overjoyed by the sellout crowd and the ovations for the performer, was overheard as saying to her hard-working crew and marketing staff, "What the fuck do we do in year two?"

She told this writer, "About six to a dozen friends from Manila came up for this anniversary. The rest are all honest-to-goodness Baguio residents."

Before the concert, she and her staff prepared a buffet of Cajun-Creole food inspired by the hot cuisine of Louisiana in the US. Yñiguez explains, "Hot and jazz, bagay!"

So there was a spread of Mediterranean roasted vegetables with evoo and balsamico, Creole friend catfish with hush puppies, squid in saffron-champagne sauce, croquetas de bacalao with aioli, smoked sausages with potatoes, Cajun spare riblets, double dark chocolates, chocolate chunk cookies and lemon meringue bars.

Yñiguez, whose paternal side of the family is responsible for Mario's, another eating landmark in the city, ventured on her own with her immediate family's blessings.

She says, "In Hill Station, we have made it a point to hold an interesting event with music, entertainment and all new tapas buffets at least every quarter at reasonable prices. It's our way of saying 'Thank you' to loyal patrons and followers of our restaurant."

In September last year, the restaurant had a Chilean wine and tapas festival with acoustic guitar music by Aya Yuson and Gou de Jesus doing the vocals. The one-night event cost the patron under P1,000. What was surprising was the house was packed yet it happened in the middle of the rainy season.

In November 2010, Hill Station had a Sangria and tapas night, this time with music from local artists Sta. Maria on the guitar, Publico on the piano and Mabel Tolentino, vocals. For New Year’s Eve, the place featured a Baguio rock and roll band, The Edralins, and tapas again. Yñiguez feared then that the wooden floor would not be able to withstand the all-night dancing. But it did.

She rues, "With events like these, I hope to make this a place to go to and remember. Every month, we put out new specials; the best-sellers go into our menu and out with the old. Constant renovation in our menu has become a standard, and many guests come back because of this. This summer I am trying to make the specials as fresh and refreshing as possible. We have lots of salads, fresh organic greens as sidings of our main courses, new desserts and savories for our chiller as we have a good coffee crowd that lingers in the afternoons, reading books from Mt. Cloud or just browsing on their laptops as free WiFi is available to all."

Yñiguez has her own favorite among the restaurant's summer specials: Cha Ca, a Vietnamese salad made of turmeric-flavored catfish fillets on a bed of greens and boiled sotanghon noodles flavored with patis, lemon juice, honey, fresh mint, dill, Thai basil and chilies. She guarantees that "it is soooooo refreshing!"

During the Lenten season, she made seafood specials like Bacalao ala Vizcaina, based on an old family favorite since her grandmother's time, bangus flakes and malunggay on top of spaghetti with olive oil and garlic and a Thai red curry with shrimp and halibut (locally known as dapa), fresh basil and tamarind.

Like that other Baguio classic, Café by the Ruins on Chuntug street, across from the Baguio City Hall, Hill Station follows the wisdom of slow cooking and buying what's in season at the public market.

Hill Station's new, seasonal desserts are crème brulee with fresh strawberries, and lemon meringue bars. Also available are Malva Pudding, a South African recipe, and Kahlua panna cotta.

Asked what personal and professional fulfillment she derives from running a space like Hill Station, Yñiguez whoops it up, declaring, "I love love love Hill Station and what I’m doing today! I have always liked entertaining at home, and Hill Station has just provided me with a space I can call home. I love the oldness of it, the feel of the wood, the French windows with trees outside jumping right at you. Not just a few have said the place reminds them of my house which looks similar as it’s all pinewood, wood floors and French windows, too. One day I have to add on a verandah like mine, and it’ll be perfect."

She continues, "Professionally, I have grown so much, having my own place to run, then cooking and creating dishes that I feel like making. My staff is highly motivated as many of the things we do are a first for them. I am so happy and so are they. I think it shows."

Visit www.casavallejobaguio.com, tel. no. (074)442-3397 or book through www.agoda.com. Also visit www.hillstationbaguio.com or call tel. nos. (074)424-2737 or (074)423-9100. Email at info@hillstationbaguio.com for reservations and events.

Published in the summer 2011 issue of Prime magazine. Photos, except for the dish cha ca (from Hill Station's Facebook page), by LAARNI ILAGAN