Rediscovering fine Pinoy food
The place speaks to you with much familiarity. You enter it and it feels like a happy enclave, where Filipino food is always good, authentic, and aplenty.
Filipino classics take their place at the heart of Cafe Año’s menu, from breakfast to lunch and dinner and even to merienda. The key is to keep food the way Filipinos have always enjoyed it, with a lot of freshness, flavor, and simplicity.
For all this, you have two men to thank: Cafe Año owner Dionnie Guerrero with his delectable passion for good food and executive chef Manny Manansala, a seasoned cook who’s got 30 years of experience under his toque.
For starters, take this belly to satisfy your own: pork belly adobo, served dry, intense, and full of flavor. It is fried until its outside flesh turns to an addictive brown crisp and its inside stays juicy and tender. Taste the chunks of roasted garlic that accompany it. Douse every bite with some tangy vinegar sauce. Then have it with fried rice for a truly hearty meal.
For a more delicate starter, order the paper-thin slices of jamon serrano that are served with slightly toasted slices of warm pan de tomate or bread with tomato sauce. These slices of jamon bring out the best in the restaurant’s 2003 Torreon De Paredes Valle De Rengo cabernet sauvignon from
The chicharones make a delightful opening dish, too. These tiny pieces of tenderly-cooked squid are served in a hot dish with some garlic and oil. After that, ask for the bulanglang soup, made with crushed guava fruit, kangkong leaves, and slices of bangus belly. Every table in this cafe is also served with a small bowl of crisp pickled vegetables, including bittergourd and eggplant, which are sweet, spicy, and every bit addicting.
For your entree, Cafe Año recommends its many Filipino favorites. How about a nice, big and crispy fried pla-pla? This big, fleshy tilapia is butterflied open and deep-fried to a fine crisp. Served with some thick creamy balo-balo relish and plenty of mustasa leaves, the fish is so crunchy on the outside you can devour its head whole while you take your time to eat the rest of its moist, tender flesh.
Another seafood entree is the lagat hito, catfish stew simmered with yellow ginger and green mustard leaves. The catfish is tender and creamy and the sauce brings flavorful tang to the palate. There’s also sugpo sa gata, prawns gently simmered in coconut milk along with some green chillies, buko meat, and ginger. The prawns are kept tender and the sauce packs just enough creaminess to meld with the chilly heat.
But there’s also a whole lot for the meat eaters. How about some lengua estofada or kalderetang baka? Or good old Spanish callos with garlic bread, adobong kambing, pork binagoongan, pata bawang, crispy tadyang, and kare-kare.
For a fitting ending to all these glorious entrees, have some Bicol Express. Where it is mainly a meaty affair in most restaurants, Cafe Año’s Bicol Express features an assortment of local vegetables, gently simmered in spicy coconut cream.
As for dessert, Cafe Año keeps it simple but oh-so delightful. Chocolate Eh, a thick native chocolate drink served in a tiny espresso cup, is made even more special with some ground peanuts added to the mix. This warm chocolate drink is already good on its own. But served with a plate of the cafe’s light, crisp deep-fried churros, it becomes an irresistible sweet treat to have any time of the day.
There’s also maruya ala mode, a big fritter filled with chunks of sweet saba bananas served with a heaping scoop of macapuno ice cream and chocolate sauce. And then, there’s the cafe’s personal take on the Filipino classic turon. Turron mangga at suman is a sweet spring roll filled with sticky rice cake and slices of ripe mangoes before it is lovingly deep-fried. It is then served with some palm sugar and coconut cream sauce.
Cafe Año also serves generous breakfast platters. There’s the sacada breakfast that features pork tocino, Vigan longganisa, fried egg and garlic rice, served with wonsuy, tomato and onion salad on the side, along with turron saging langka for dessert.
There’s the marinero breakfast, featuring daing na bangus and spiced sardines with garlic rice, along with monggo na may sicharon and salted egg and tomato salad as well minatamis na saging for dessert.
Lastly, there’s the haciendero breakfast platter with beef tapa, spicy longganisa and scrambled egg with garlic rice, along with tomato-eggplant and onion salad and ripe mango for dessert.
But that’s not all, folks! There are the Filipino afternoon delights, too: pancit palabok, grilled ensaymada with queso de bola, arroz caldo with tokwa’t baboy, suman sa lihiya with salabat, dinuguan at puto, and adobo pan de sal.
Truly, there’s always something delicious brewing at Cafe Año.
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