Cubao's Biggest Secret

Despite this blog sounding more and more like a food review page, I promise this will be the last time I'm going to mention any food related entries to my recent trip back to the Philippines.

On the last day of my vacation, I found a jewel of a restaurant that finally statisfies my fickle taste bud. I've been around spending a lot of money trying to find the best restaurants that will satisfy me, but most places only make me sufficiently full, but never satisfied. Particularly Italian. I've been to Italy once and had a chance to have one of the best spaghettis there is. But I've ever had that satisfaction again whenever I drop by an Italian place. Most of them seemed to have evolved to become that hang out place where you have huge portions of pastas and pizzas. As I've said, although they're great for hanging out, but they're not really satisfying. The conversations between make them satisfying, but the food by far is just.. adequate. And now, after having dinner to this Italian place, I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if I dont share this piece of important news to the people (most of whom are my friends from the Philippines) who are reading this blog.

It was an Italian restaurant, by the name of Bellinni's. I was told by my significant other that they have previously (a few years ago) set up a branch at one of the more upscale areas of Manila called Makati, where most of the big corporations reside and yuppies flock to spend their salaries, but they eventually closed down. The reasons are totally unknown to me, because I could never imagine a place this good closing one of their branches.

Honestly speaking though, I did stuff myself. But only because I wanted to try it out. My boyfriend's recommended me this place several times, but I didn't have the chance because the location is a bit off from where most restos are located. Its in a long died down mall center in Manila called Cubao. I heard that this was the place to be during the early 80s, but right now its just more like a big congregation of malls and tiange's that are not very well polished enough to attract the younger generations. (Most of them go to Makati and Ortigas).

But convince me my boyfriend did. When we came in, there were already a lot of families enjoying their dinner there, and the place looked as cozy as a family run resto should be. You dont expect posh furnishings like those 300-400 peso per dish places, but cozy is the best word I can say to describe it. The lighting is good, the ambience is great, and you also get to talk to the actual owner of the resto while he juggles between tables. He's an extremely funny guy, and my boyfriend made the comment that as well as the owner of the place, he's also the entertainer and the mascot your children would like to play with. :)

For appetizer we had bruchettas and warm bread with parma ham as recommended by Bellinni himself. My boyfriend recommended the 4 type Pizza which comes in small and large thin crusts. As the pizza name imples, it'll be having 4 types of pizza flavors. We also ordered 2 pastas to go along with it - one tomato based ground beef (Bolognese) and, one cream based seafood pasta.

I believe the nice man who took our orders was shocked to hear we were getting so many dishes, but then, I'd like to think I was rating the place and have to get a bit of everything. It WAS my last day in the Philippines. (Of course I'm not rationalizing!) I suppose I was also confident because my boyfriend and I are big eaters.. I mean, have big appetites. Although there were a lot of people, we didn't have to wait long for our orders to arrive. The funny cane shaped bread stick did help to pass the time away. :)

First off, the parma ham appetizer. The warm soft bread together with the parma ham was definitely made for each other - the parma ham just complimented the slightly sweet taste of the bread. The softness and the just-out-of-the-oven soft bread definitely accentuated the dish, as it felt like a mix of varying textures. The very first dish, and I was already impressed.

Second came the bruschetta. It had a pesto-and-tomato topping similar to salsa, on hard bread. Normally in most restos, since the bread is more bland, the topping would have a strong taste to make the dish distinctive, sometimes with a bit more salt or more spices, but in this case, it was perfectly right. You had the raw fresh taste from the mixture of different herbs and oil, a slightly nutty taste from the pine nuts (and whatever other legumes they probably mixed into it), but the best part is the burst of succulent tomato that its blended into this fantastic repertoire. As simple and as available these ingredients they may be, they've made it in such a way that you dont get the feeling that you're having pesto-nuts-tomato combination. Everything smoothly compliments each other, and its a taster's delight. A definite play on texture, consistency and taste, as with the parma ham dish.

On with the main course. The pastas were very good. Normally I distrust any pasta that contains cream sauce (I was unfortunate enough to experience consuming large amounts of cream during my younger years and avoided cream sauce ever since) and get very adverse effects when I consume them, so I was surprised that the seafood pasta has made a convert out of me. The bolognese was also pretty good. The most satisfying part of the pasta was the noodles. They were unlike most pasta - neither overcooked to the point where most are too soft and pliant, nor under cooked, but had a good, firm and springy texture to them.I was informed that noodles are made by to resto themselves. Perfectly al dente, and everything well blended together.

Although the pizza wasnt particularly exceptional, the topping combination had some very interesting twists into it. One was a a cheese based pizza, and I could hint a touch of blue cheese that gave it an exceptional twang. The others were seafood based, similar to the seafood pasta we just had, which was also good. Another was topped with a combination of fresh vegetables and the last had a ham based topping. Suffice to say, they were all good, and despite finishing off a half of the pizza, I neither felt compelled to jet out everything that I've just taken in, nor feel saturated like I usually do when I eat half a pizza from other regular or fine dining establishments.

All in all a perfectly satisfying meal. And the bill came in at 850 pesos, which is to say far better than heading off to a hotel buffet (which we were intially planning to do) or spending your time hanging out at the other Makati based restos.

I would have tipped them off with 20% of the bill, but my boyfriend might think it was a little too much. To compensate, I'm definitely going to recommend the place to all of my friends. They deserve to get more customers with the quality of food they serve. Its the best Italian cuisine I've ever had, not just in the Philippines, but also in Hong Kong. This place is on the topof my list, and this will be one of the things I'll now be anticipating whenever I get to go back to the Philippines.

There you have it folks, Cubao's biggest secret is out (at least to those who read this blog). Go grab and take a bite!