Quiet in the trees

Semester break just started and I’m back home, up in Baguio. Man, its great to get out of the city. While I’m up here, as always, I intend to do some major chilling out. Besides, I officially switched my brain off last Wednesday after my only remaining final exam, and I don’t intend to switch it back on anytime soon.

Up here, I get back to cable TV (yes!), non-stop jamming with my brother and other friends (woo-hoo!), sleeping in until late in the afternoon (all right!), and just being a vegetable most of the day (doing absolutely nothing is one of my greatest passions). I have already begun all of the aforementioned, and it feels great.

Another thing I enjoy doing up here is just driving around with the windows down, letting the cold air flow in. A lot of the time, these drives bring me to places I wouldn’t normally check out on a normal day. So last Sunday, when my Kuya Raul and I were out cruising, we stumbled upon a place that was just begging to be checked out.

Kuya Raul had been telling me about The Woods Café a lot and how he had wanted to check it out before but never had the chance to. So last Sunday afternoon, when we were done with all of the things we had to do in town, we decided to go to this little café on Outlook Drive and have a beer as the day winded down. Well, what started out as one beer turned into a few more as my brother and I started to enjoy the place even more.

Outlook Drive, where The Woods Café is located, is one of my favorite driving spots up in Baguio. It’s a nice winding road that’s away from town, so there aren’t very many cars on the road, and you can just cruise and enjoy the drive. The road is still lined with lots of Baguio’s trademark pine trees, and the area hasn’t really been affected much by the big business boom the rest of the city is experiencing. I guess that’s what first attracted me to The Woods Café – it’s out of town, away from the business center of Baguio, and it’s quiet. There’s enough space out there to hear your thoughts. And all the trees that surround the place just make the experience even more relaxing.

The Woods Café has been open for about three months and it is owned and run by Allan Tenedero, a resident of Baguio City and a mountain man himself. Previously, he owned a bar and billiard hall in the middle of town, but all the stress of having a "happening" place caught up with him, so he decided to open up his little café at the outskirts of town. "It was too noisy over there," is Allan’s reply when I asked him about why he decided to open The Woods Café. "I fell in love with the place – it’s quiet, away from the noise of town, and now, it has more potential to mature, compared to just owning a bar," he continues.

For Allan, this is a more fulfilling venture, too, because he is able to apply himself to all the aspects of running his café. "When we started this thing, I built the structure, did the plumbing, did the painting, and everything else. I also made all the tables and chairs, which are made of pinewood." Allan is a cook as well, and makes sure that he is in the kitchen whipping up one of the specialties of the house. "Aside from being just a coffee shop, special dishes are also available," he says. Among these dishes are spicy mutton, which is goat meat cooked Indian-style, pinikpikan, which is chicken soup cooked the Cordillera way, and octopus salad.

Aside from being just a restaurant, part of Allan’s long-term plan is to air a cooking show series from his café. "If you notice, the kitchen is open, so the preparation process can be really observed," he adds. His plan is to invite chefs not only from Baguio but from other provinces as well so that they can showcase their talents in the kitchen and share native recipes with viewers.

I asked Allan about the location of his café because it really isn’t near the business center of town. Obviously, this would affect the number of people that would come and check it out, but this wasn’t a concern. "People come here just out of curiosity, like you, and if they like it they come back. At least they have an association of the place already," he says.

Discovering this café in the woods was a really good thing. It has all the elements someone like me looks for in a hangout – it’s subdued, it’s off the beaten track, and it’s cozy. Not many other places in the center of town really remind me that I’m home. Which sucks, but I guess that’s just the price of progress.

A quiet, cozy place away from everything else is where I can enjoy a cup of coffee (or a bottle of beer) the most. The Woods Café is just that sort of place. There, I know that the Baguio I love still exists, and that makes it all better.

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The Woods Café is at 43-A Outlook Drive, Baguio City.

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E-mail me at enricomiguelsubido@yahoo.com. Come up to Baguio this sem break, let’s drink.