a bite of brownie

At first I thought of this place as something like the typical food stops beside UP (Royal Cafe and Brown Gate to name a few) but I was proven wrong when we finally visited this place after watching The Hobbit at Ayala Cinemas. The place was small, somewhat dingy from the lack of windows, and a wee bit cramped for space. Even though that was the case, we were fortunate to come here at a good time when there were still a few patrons. In fact, we were the first to enter the diner in hope of sating our appetites.

Their menu is expansive, mostly composed of grilled meat and fried seafood and a few more vegetable dishes like chopsuey and pakbet. Among the restaurants here in Cebu, I believe this is one of the few that serves bagabay and bihod, or fish fat and fish roe respectively.

The ambiance was pleasant enough, with chalkboards hanging from the walls with fancy design drawn on them paired with some random quote about sharing meals with friends and family and the type shadows they added to the letters in their menu. We ordered several dishes here, minus the roe because they ran out of it when we visited. For appetisers, we had kinilaw, fried fish bagabay, and chicharong bulaklak. After that, for the main course, we had garlic chicken and pork sisig.

Once we had our fill, we sampled their famous desserts, two cups of creamy brazo and a serving of leche flan.

In short, the experience was worthwhile, and we'd like to come back one day to sample their fried bihod sometime in the future.


Orange Karenderia
Salinas drive, La Guardia



Verdict:
A: 3/5

The food is a bit pricey for the amount they served to us. The notable mentions here would be the soy garlic chicken, the chicharong bulaklak, and the fish bagabay. The sisig seems to be lackluster and too chunky to be called sisig. It does look like chopped up fat with sweet sauce with an optional fried egg, minus the usual liver in it. The fish kinilaw tasted like it was overcooked from the vinegar that was in the bowl. Their desserts are top notch, though, and I can easily say that these are part of the best sellers.

What bothers me is the lack of space in the restaurant, which, in my case isn't normally a problem. But when you place a garbage can almost level your wash basin, you'd take a trip to the washroom and puke your way too. Of course, if you haven't already from the stinky smell of the bathroom.