Good day, with a view or without

Friends who frequent Tagaytay have long been telling us of the Cliffhouse complex of dining establishments with a splendid ridge view of Taal Lake and volcano, right off Aguinaldo Highway.

Photos of the place I’ve seen feature a stately plaza, a pretty garden with water features, a wide terrace that overlooks the panorama, and white wooden benches lined up farther back, for idling with a view.

Among the restaurants often touted as a fine experience is Buon Giorno! Caffe e Bistro — which is said to be Italian-inspired, and not exactly an all-Italian dining place. Maybe it’s because it also serves Pinoy breakfast favorites like adobo flakes, apart from the reportedly good pancakes, waffles and Benedict Buon Giorno that’s prepared with julienned ham, spinach and artichoke bottoms. See, I take notes when friends talk of hearty comfort food.

But I haven’t gone that way south for some time, so that it was a pleasant surprise to discover that the a new branch had been opened in Metro Manila, in fact quite close to our neck of the urban woods.

One evening, we Bedans of High School Class 1960 honored an invite from more youthful alumni, specifically our counterpart upcoming silver jubilarians of Class 1985, to a drag-down alcohol and pulutan binge at a place called Teodoro’s.

We were told to go down Shaw Blvd. in Mandaluyong from the EDSA Crossing, and once we got past that old landmark of Cherry’s Supermarket, to start looking left for a driveway that would lead us to Liberty Center, just before Pure Gold.

Indeed, the driveway led to blissful freedom from metropolitan chokepoints and all their attendant miseries. A vast parking area suddenly loomed in welcome, and we found ourselves at a pleasant enclave comfortably ensconced away from the stressful sight of jeepneys and the din of traffic combat. 

Teodoro’s was just one of about half-a-dozen eateries and/or bars that lie along a crescent bordering a mini-plaza lined with trees and manicured bushes, all facing a small bandstand where live music was being performed. It can be quite loud when one dines or drinks al fresco, but we could imagine how a lunch treat would be different anywhere in that oasis.

Again, serendipity came knocking one fine day when we said good morning to ourselves. A long-time friend, Stella Villegas, among whose claims to historic fate would be that of having sat for a portrait by the master Victorio Edades, invited us to lunch at Buon Giorno! at Liberty Center.

It turned out to be owned and ran by her close relations, Mark and Linda Floro, a food styling and photography team that services corporate clients engaged in the food chain business.

Linda had been the GM of La Primavera for 20 years, and had also worked with La Piccola before she took up the general manager’s duties at Club Solviento. For his part, Mark takes excellent photographs, a talent that is in full display on the restaurant’s wide walls, where Italian scenery is juxtaposed with large pictures of the menu items. 

And what a menu it is. As I told a son who had tagged along, I’ve always liked full-blown Italian meals, which seem to go on forever, even as we feel increasingly fattened up and sated from the word antipasti.

At Buon Giorno, these start with trio of crostini, lightly toasted bread slices served with pesto, chicken liver paté and mushroom dip. Then there’s the bruschetta — tomatoes, mozzarella and basil on garlic-olive toast. Fritto misto de mare means fried mixed seafood. Smoked Salmon with Mango Dill Sauce betrays the fusion tendency in most restos these days, which is always welcome; in this case, a traditional Mediterranean appetizer comes with a fruity Asian, or Philippine, twist. Parma ham with seasonal fruit is similarly Filipinized. Rounding up the antipasti are the popular croquettes with Mozzarella and the antipasto platter of marinated olives, pearl onions, roasted peppers, cheese and Italian meats.

Moving on to insalata, the choices are still a wide array, but we content ourselves with a taste of green goddess salad with feta cheese and the special green goddess dressing. Our companions ask for the higher-end foie gras insalata, so we try that, too: fresh greens with caramelized pecan nuts and raspberry serving as a counterfoil for the rich and delicate goose liver and its slightly bitter aftertaste.

Other salads available are insalata di tonno (with tuna), insalata caprese, insalata Caesar, al frutti de mare, and Buon Giorno’s special.

Again, the zuppe choices are tongue-toggling: Crema de broccoli, zuppa di zucca arrosto or roasted pumpkin soup, minestra di spinaci, crema de funghi with the earthy richness of fresh wild mushrooms, pomodoro con olio verde, shrimp bisque, and minestrone. No, we don’t try them all, but almost.

The son had to have pizza; we were served sample quadrants of Prosciutto a funghi, mare pesto, con salsicca or sausage with basil, and the house’s finest, quattro formaggi with mozzarella, fontina, parmesan and gorgonzola cheeses. We just had to turn down offers of pizzas al margherita, pepperoni, New York and Hawaiian, especially since an order of calzone, or pizza dough turnover with mozzarella, prosciutto and mushroom, came to underscore the redundancy of a good day in Italy. 

At this point we were ready to acknowledge that we had already gorged. And that it was enough. But our hosts insisted on the kind of extended hospitality that merits a grazie mille whispered infinitely alla Don Corleone.

A good thing no one on the table was vegetarian, so that we could skip all the vegetariano items like spinaci e funghi ravioli. But all that pasta still had to weigh down the freshly cleared table, beginning with canneloni spinaci (bits of chicken and mortadella ham rolled in spinach pasta sheets and smothered with tomato sauce and cheese). In quick succession came spaghetti vongole e gamberetti (clams and shrimps, again!),

Fettucini alla carbonara, and pescatore alla puttanesca. And these only represented half of the pasta offerings.

After a couple of hours, all we could do was to hark back through memory lane to all those infinity meals while basking in crisp sunlight on a terrace and reveling in the breezes from Lago di Como. Ah, Bellagio.

True, in this cul-de-sac in Mandaluyong we didn’t even have a view of Taal Lake, but the wall murals of the Italian countryside made up for it, while the homey ambience had us nearly nodding off but for good espresso.

Did anyone say piato principale? Oh, no! Okay, we can only try the osso buco con risotto alla Mmilanes, for which we’ve always been a sucker. And we dare not even take a sidelong glance at the pollo parmigiana or the San Pietro con basilico John Dory. How can our small party eat so much? Maybe because everyone skipped the panini variants.

We hear of five other risotto items, and we swear to return for each one: Con salsicce e cippole arrostite; crimoso con salmone affumicto e asparagi; con verdure del Mediterraneo; pollo e funghi; and alla pescatora.

For the nonce, the chocolate pistachio sans rival on our son’s plate beckons. Ah, layers of thin, buttery wafers sprinkled with pistachio nuts — chewy and crunchy at the same time. And we just had to reach out with a teaspoon for a sample of another guest’s molten chocolate cake topped with vanilla gelato.

A UP Home Economics graduate, Linda Floro came up with all the recipes for Buon Giorno’s two branches. She trained the chefs, who don’t confine themselves to strictly Italian cuisine, but also render Western standards such as lamb chops, prime rib, rib eye, baby back ribs, and braised lamb shank.

These entries are all under P500, and come as hefty servings. The panini are at a little over P100, as are the soups, salads and appetizers. In both the Liberty Plaza and Cliffhouse branches, diners can average anywhere from 400 to 600 a sitting, without wine of course. Affordable, and blessed with ambience!

An opium bed is said to be a curious feature in the Tagaytay branch. At Liberty Center, it’s an antique four-poster, swathed in white gauzy cloth that stands at one end of the al fresco tables. It makes the ultimate call for burping reverie — maybe with a tall glass of Mudslide Freeze or a Grapes Shake. The rest of the dolci — tiramisu, chocolate pecan pie, panna cotta, sans rival, apple strudel — can wait for another Buon Giorno!