Brookside Baby
Showing posts with label Cafe by the Ruins Dua. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cafe by the Ruins Dua. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 7, 2015
Sunday, December 28, 2014
Lara, Elnora and the ladies who lunched
How did Lara Halili come into my life and I into hers? Total strangers, we shared a room for one afternoon that ended in a musical evening in Nueva Ecija. We don't mind confessing to being ardent fans of pianist Cecile Licad who we joined in a van with writer Pablo Tariman for an outreach concert in an auditorium that had seen better days at Central Luzon State University.
I had earlier pitched the outreach story to my Philippine Daily Inquirer editor Chato Garcellano and she gave me the go ahead. Problem was I had no camera to record the event. But Lara did, a state of the art contraption that she had mastered after a workshop in Batanes with Mandy Navasero.
Like a pro, she accepted the on-spot assignment, took lots of photos (two were used, one on Inquirer's front page) although she was in tears at one point, moved by Cecile's and the Manila Symphony Orchestra's music. Since then, Lara and I have stayed in touch even when she moved to the US. There she has lived her music aficionado fantasy, following Cecile at her different Stateside engagements, becoming friends with soprano Debbie Voight, attending season upon opera season of the Metropolitan Opera, even campaigning that it not be closed, etc.
Her stories of post-concert meetings with the greats backstage need a separate blog.
Over late lunch yesterday at the new cafe, we played catch-up. I met her gracious mother, her sister Eloisa and her daughters (Eloisa did the ordering--she knows her food well, being a restaurateur in Sta. Rita, Bulacan). The other sister, Elnora the pianist, is another huggable friend. I've been thinking of putting together another book of poems or essays perhaps just so I can launch it and have Elnora play at the book party (she has done this for another media pal, Jullie Yap Daza).
Before we parted, we brought out our respective cameras and asked a waiter to do the honors. This time I came prepare. I never leave home without my ever reliable Canon PowerShot.
Thursday, November 6, 2014
From the ruins something grows
Its official name is Cafe by the Ruins Dua ("dua" to mean "two" in Iluko). And it opens Nov. 29 on upper Session Road.
The Baguio institution on Chuntug street is, at long last, branching out. It is 26 years old, after all, outlasting flash-in-the-pan cafes, luncheonettes and similar eating spots. It has made a name for fully using what's in season, what's available in the nearby public market and what can be sourced from neighboring provinces, including children's clay palayok with which to serve the new lamb kebabs with yogurt and peanut sauce. (The lambs are raised in a farm in Tarlac.)
It is not out of whimsy that the menu changes three times a year--it adapts to what the market has in abundance. The slow movers are removed from the line-up, some favorites that had been deleted make a comeback, and if you don't find something that you liked from a past visit in the current menu, the cook can accommodate your craving.
Tall glass of Jamaica soda on the left, its mouth crusty with sparkly salt. It'll be in the new menu of the main cafe and Dua. The bloody red juice is extracted from the hibiscus. The flowers' original seeds were brought to Baguio by Filipino ICM nuns once stationed in Jamaica. Beside the refreshing soda is a bowl of cucumber soup with a chicken patty inserted in the hollowed-out part.
To hear two of the cafe partners, Adelaida Lim and Baboo Mondoñedo, and the second-generation managers, Tann Arvisu and Feliz "Fifi" Perez, tell it, Dua doesn't mean more of the same. Laida says the expansion is overdue what with the saucepans, pots and kitchen staff bumping into one another at peak hours.
Even the idea of a peak season (summer, specifically Holy Week, and December) no longer holds, if climate change should even be thanked for it at all. During its early years the cafe would be closed for renovations and repairs in August. This year, however, August was not too full of gusts of wind and rain. Baguio experienced a deluge of long weekenders who came up for just two good reasons: to eat and to sleep.
Fifi remembers a customer making a reservation for 20 people. No problem there. But when the next request came, it became complicated: "Can we all be sitting together?" Those familiar with the main cafe know that one of its distinctive qualities is its heterogeneous floor layout; last year a mezzanine was even added. Customers are never turned away; some willingly wait for as long as two hours to be seated. Thanks to SMS, too, they can go elsewhere, then return when a text reminds them that their table is available.
Dua will remedy the situation further. It will have space for big groups or for functions (meetings, seminars and workshops), a larger kitchen area to meet the demand for the cafe's baked products and for a deli-pasalubong corner that also includes take-out food ideal for condo residents or working couples who just need to reheat it. A proper gallery, too, now that the main cafe, through constant renovations, has lost many walls that used to have changeable exhibitions.
What to watch out for in that deli: the bottled beetroot atchara that packs a wallop. During a tastings session, Baboo suggested that the smoked lamb sausages be paired with something pickled instead of a sawsawan of vinegar. Laida called forth the beetroot atchara from the kitchen. Fifi and Tann opined that the sausages were a bit dry and have to be juicier for kids to relish them. Laida's solution: add beef fat.
Trial, error, perfection: a recipe for something that lasts. A heartfelt welcome indeed to what promises to be Dua's feast for the senses.
Camote chips served hot, then sprinkled with coco sugar on top. They do look healthier than when served as caramelized fries. Nevertheless, you can still hear the "M's" resound in "yum" ten chips later. Photos by Babeth Lolarga
The Baguio institution on Chuntug street is, at long last, branching out. It is 26 years old, after all, outlasting flash-in-the-pan cafes, luncheonettes and similar eating spots. It has made a name for fully using what's in season, what's available in the nearby public market and what can be sourced from neighboring provinces, including children's clay palayok with which to serve the new lamb kebabs with yogurt and peanut sauce. (The lambs are raised in a farm in Tarlac.)
It is not out of whimsy that the menu changes three times a year--it adapts to what the market has in abundance. The slow movers are removed from the line-up, some favorites that had been deleted make a comeback, and if you don't find something that you liked from a past visit in the current menu, the cook can accommodate your craving.
To hear two of the cafe partners, Adelaida Lim and Baboo Mondoñedo, and the second-generation managers, Tann Arvisu and Feliz "Fifi" Perez, tell it, Dua doesn't mean more of the same. Laida says the expansion is overdue what with the saucepans, pots and kitchen staff bumping into one another at peak hours.
Even the idea of a peak season (summer, specifically Holy Week, and December) no longer holds, if climate change should even be thanked for it at all. During its early years the cafe would be closed for renovations and repairs in August. This year, however, August was not too full of gusts of wind and rain. Baguio experienced a deluge of long weekenders who came up for just two good reasons: to eat and to sleep.
Fifi remembers a customer making a reservation for 20 people. No problem there. But when the next request came, it became complicated: "Can we all be sitting together?" Those familiar with the main cafe know that one of its distinctive qualities is its heterogeneous floor layout; last year a mezzanine was even added. Customers are never turned away; some willingly wait for as long as two hours to be seated. Thanks to SMS, too, they can go elsewhere, then return when a text reminds them that their table is available.
Dua will remedy the situation further. It will have space for big groups or for functions (meetings, seminars and workshops), a larger kitchen area to meet the demand for the cafe's baked products and for a deli-pasalubong corner that also includes take-out food ideal for condo residents or working couples who just need to reheat it. A proper gallery, too, now that the main cafe, through constant renovations, has lost many walls that used to have changeable exhibitions.
What to watch out for in that deli: the bottled beetroot atchara that packs a wallop. During a tastings session, Baboo suggested that the smoked lamb sausages be paired with something pickled instead of a sawsawan of vinegar. Laida called forth the beetroot atchara from the kitchen. Fifi and Tann opined that the sausages were a bit dry and have to be juicier for kids to relish them. Laida's solution: add beef fat.
Trial, error, perfection: a recipe for something that lasts. A heartfelt welcome indeed to what promises to be Dua's feast for the senses.
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