Three for Tagaytay

Even with the unseasonal spotty skies and occasional rain in what should be our best month weather-wise, it can’t detract much from pleasant idylls out of town, such as those occasioned by quick drives to Tagaytay for the main purpose of dining well in excellent settings.

One would wish for an eventual Skyway that connects SLEX to the end of Sta. Rosa Road, now that unabated real estate development has added more stoplight intersections, not to mention the constant aggravation from trucks and tricycles allowed to use a national road. But it’s still only an hour’s drive at worst from the Alabang-Filinvest area, so that dining options are always for the spontaneous pickings.

It so happened that two such recent dinners, plus breakfast, revived our interest in Tagaytay’s constant evolution. The first was on a Friday night at Cliffhouse, which provides a choice among several restos grouped around a terrace from where one gets a good ridge view of the destination’s prime attraction.

We had earlier decided on Buon Giorno, Mark and Linda Floro’s popular, value-for-money take on Italian cookery, reserving one of the two opium-bed settings for our planned extended dinner. We were lucky to get the one facing the patio, where unexpected sky lanterns and fireworks were let loose from a party somewhere below. And the moon’s passage in a suddenly clear sky added to the uncommon ambience, one nearly al fresco.

We learned that Mark and Linda, photographer and food stylist, respectively, had closed down the original Buon Giorno set-up at that surprising oasis of a cul de sac off Shaw Blvd., where we had first enjoyed their remarkable cuisine at such relatively modest prices. Or rather, transferred it to the Rockwell Business Center on Ortigas Avenue, beside Medical City. Closer to home, yehey!

Here too, in Tagaytay, Buon Giorno often enjoys a capacity crowd assured of consistent favorites, from pizza to pasta to hearty entrees. Since we managed to ensconce ourselves upon the opium bed in time for sundown, we calibrated our orders, starting with antipasti centered on parma ham. That alone, with the wine and eventual pumpkin soup, seemed to fill us up, so that only slow dinner could follow.

The chicken and mushroom risotto, a longtime favorite, was paired with seafood pizza. And there was still enough of both to brownbag when we called it a midnight. I must say, apart from its wonderful setting at Cliffhouse, where it evidently trumps the competition, Buon Giorno remains an excellent choice for daytime or evening meals, whether it’s for group outings, family dinners, or romantic ones. Inclusive of brownbagging.

Only a few days later, even as I sulked over having failed to go out of town for proper viewing of the last full moon of the lunar cycle — on Jan. 9 — an invite came from a dear friend for a special dinner at Antonio’s in Tagaytay, long renowned for having a most enviable setting for a gourmet meal.     

High-priced, yes, but the experience is always well worth it. Simply stepping into a Negrense-style plantation house that’s been done so grandly as to accommodate over 200 party people all over its various levels always starts the enchantment at Antonio’s. One has a choice of terrace setting, garden lookout, formal dining room, and capacious hall with hardwood tables — and whichever the selection, it will spell elegance.

We were a party of seven marking a despedida for Niki Garcia Kropp who was returning to London the next day. Her parents would also soon celebrate their nth wedding anniversary, and one of them had just turned forty, or a few years above that.

So there was fine bubbly, and a stream of wines that accompanied the appetizers. Again, most of those could be enough to address an appetite more than preliminarily, so that entrees had to be shared — the soups and salad going to the wasp-waisted who wanted to remain so. Despite fabulous desserts afterwards.

I didn’t count on having my final order of schwein — crispy pata with delectable sauerkraut and potatoes — all to myself, inclusive of the soup and excellent salad. A good thing that wizened instinct had told me to bring along an ideal digestif: Laphroaig Quarter Cask, 96-proof single malt whisky from fabled Islay.

Even with that salutary combination, I still couldn’t make it halfway through the entire knuckle. Not after I had already gorged on prawns in parmesan sauce, and also tasted of my tablemate’s undeniably sinful appetizer of oysters topped with foie gras.

To round off our Tagaytay Redux to start the new year right, there was Moon Garden off SVD Road — a wondrous haven of privacy, quietude and serenity for lovers of flora and moon-bathing

Eight quaint casitas are spread amidst a paradise of greenery, with lotus ponds surrounding rock-walled, thatch-roofed gazebos for parties of eight to a dozen. The main pavilion feaures long hardwood tables and smaller settings. An adobe rock fountain separates this from an extension, also under thatched roofs, with more dining tables.

Moon Garden has become popular for wedding receptions and birthday parties. Before sitting down for the meal, as many as 200 guests can walk around the gardens and marvel at the tropical profusion of flowers, bushes and hedges, vine-covered trellises and walkways, stone trails to the lotus ponds and gazebos, and terraced paths leading to the casitas.

The casitas are rustic one-room cottages decked out with king-sized beds and wooden furniture, with cable TV and a long heavy table that can serve as a capacious work desk right alongside a screened window with a panoramic view of wild greenery. The floors and walls are of adobe crazy-cut chunks, even those of the crescent-shaped bathroom that’s partitioned from the bedroom by a simple wall bookended by open doorways with gauzy curtains. 

Countryside living was never like this, of course. Or maybe some hacenderos had such hideaways. And now we can imagine ourselves to be thus privileged, at rather modest rates for overnight accommodation inclusive of excellent breakfast.

Wi-Fi isn’t available at the casitas; one can trod up the well-illuminated stone walks to the pavilion and gazebos for a strong connection with the outside world, however. And there, with moonlight suffusing the gardens, or sunrise preceding breakfast, one feels more intimate with company, with oneself, with the ideal, idealized environment.

Indeed, Food-Tripping & Nature-Tripping: More Fun in the Philippines, starting with cool Tagaytay.