K and I joined N for a day trip out to Angeles and San Fernando. Our mission: eat at VFW, C' Italian Dining, Cottage Kitchen, and whatever else we could stuff in our ambitious stomachs. Sigh. We are not 14 anymore. By lunch, we were incapable of putting anything else in our constitutions. But instead of quantity, we chose quality. The risotto and ostrich steak at C was superb, we'll be dreaming of that risotto for months to come. Chef C was amiable and generous with his time so we had a good chat with him about food, music, and how he came up his panizzas (people drive at midnight from Manila just for a bite).
We also took time to delve further into the food shopping of Angeles. We had a short preview of Susie's and Rosing's when we were here two months ago, but this time, we got there before lunch, and spent more time tasting and choosing. Between the three of us, we had sufficient sweets to go around for weeks (well, maybe one weekend for K); carabao milk caramels, nougats, pastillas, empanaditas, pandan cupcakes, mochi. The ladies at Susie's were great salesladies! They gave us portions of the mochi to taste, showed us their carabao milk pastillas de leche custard, and answered all our pesky tourist questions. What we realized was missing was a cooler: we could have put more of the milk based and gata (coconut milk) products in there to bring back to Manila.
Another synergistic outcome that day was finding Nathaniel's. K had brought it up by email, then voiced her plan to look for it in San Fernando. While reading the paper, we came across a mention of it in an article that came with the phone number. And eventually we braved traffic to track it down. Their buko pandan (a pudding made of young coconut meat and pandan flavored gelatin with coconut milk) is their best seller, and while we were at the store, we also saw that they had other items we would love to try on our next foray (for merienda their pancit luglug and siomai look tempting). Again, that missing cooler would have come in handy.
Should we brave another warm humid day out in Angeles, we will also compare the halo-halos of Razons and Corazons, get our morcon from Everybody's Cafe, and another cafe called Aurely's has a brazo de mercedes we must taste. And we'll bring a cooler.
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Pike Market Peonies
10 comments:
Hi1 My family frequents pampanga and are always on the lookout for places to try. Could you please post the address or directions to the places you mentioned esp C Italian dining? Thanks1 I really enjoy your blog
Brought all the goodies (save for the masa podrida and dilis) to my family today. Unfortunately, the mochi didn't have the reaction I expected -- partly because it had to be reheated, therefore came out last when they were already on the 2nd box of the caramel squares, and partly because the gata was a bit sour. :-( A cooler would've prevented that. The macapuno pie didn't taste at all like macapuno; more like caramel, or custard. I liked the taste, but it was quite dry. The polvoron was pretty good.
My sister has eaten at Everybody's Cafe and vouches for the morcon. She couldn't remember what made it so different, just that she loved it.
Oh, just wanted to point out a couple of typos: You meant *Cottage* Kitchen, right? And the Brazo place is called Aurely's. :-)
Thanks Katrina! I'll make the changes. Coffee House!!! hehehe
Hi Pinky, I'll send you the directions to C. The others I can direct you to a blog with more details than I can provide.
Oops, Pinky, do send me an email or post your email on blogger. Otherwise, you can go to Our Awesome Planet written up by fellow blogger Anton who has written up several posts about eating trips in Pampanga. He was the one who pointed us towards VFW in Angeles. Otherwise, C', Cottage Kitchen (not Coffee Kitchen), and a couple of other eating destinations are all on Don Juico Avenue (which becomes Fields Avenue), near the boundary of Clark Airbase.
Mila, to think we were talking about bringing a cooler just the day before. I should have prepared it that night, because that early in the morning my mind is still dormant. hehe
My family and my friends' families all love C! We can subsist on the Panizza alone! Another favorite is Zapata's. Nathaniel's is a major stop - and we do that BEFORE we get to Angeles. Otherwise, the good stuff will all be gone by nightfall. Thus, a cooler is absolutely necessary. Other must-tries at Nathaniel's are the Puto Pao, the Siomai and the Cassava Cake.
How were the pandan cupcakes, by the way?
Sounds like an absolute blast! You must go again to check out all those things you didn't get to do...this time with a pork-loving, cooler-touting, kulot head :)
Nena, yeah, we both forgot the all important cooler. It'll be branded in our head the next time around.
Carol, we had thought of going to Zapata's for margaritas, but after C's we just couldn't stuff another bite. Hopefully the expansion of C' won't affect their quality.
Katrina, the pandan cupcakes weren't as frosted as I remember, but the overall cake part was still good even though I've had to zap them in the microwave for 15 secs (am on my 4th cupcake). Flavor's not bad. And way cheaper than those other cupcakes in Serendra!
Joey, we'll kidnap you next time! Definitely missed having you for the roadtrip.
Isa po ako sa mga tumatangkilik ng Nathaniel's :-)
I have their contact number for everyone, sa mga gustong mag-order at bumili: (045)9614008
Look for Francis.
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