Noche Buena made easy by Bangus

MANILA, Philippines - One of the nicest events at Christmastime is the Noche Buena, the midnight feast in Filipino homes awaiting the return of hungry family members from the Misa de Gallo (Christmas Eve mass). The table is laden with all kinds of goodies: ham, cheeses, turkey or chicken, lechon, pancit, and pastries. Everyone has a jolly good time, food being a bringer of fun and closeness among the revelers.

But preparing the feast can be tiring for the cook (usually the mother or aunts), especially if they will be busy preparing another big feast a few hours later — the Christmas lunch.

So why not have Bangus Specialty Restaurant make the Noche Buena preparations for you? Just order a bilao of home-cooked Capampangan dishes for everyone’s delectation.

Bangus Specialty House puts together rellenong bangus, rellenong manok, kare-kareng buntot and maja blanca — for a party of 20 or more people — at affordable prices, and they’re really sumptuous dishes.

But you may order your own Noche Buena dishes from the Bangus Specialty Restaurant menu: grilled milkfish belly with sampalok candy sauce and crispy kangkong, adobong bangus sa dilaw na luya, pinalutong na bangus at ensaladang manga, bistek, sweet-and-sour bangus fillet, bangus longganisa, adobong sugpo sa aligi, kare-kareng bangus, ginataang hipon, lumpiang bangus, and for soup, bulalo, sinigang na hipon, baboy or baka sa bayabas (that you heat up before the barkada arrives).

Bangus Specialty Restaurant’s menu is the answer for Pinoys living abroad and coming home, and for locals looking for a restaurant that serves homemade-tasting viands cooked the way one’s nanay or tita cooked them. The dishes are cooked with the freshest of meats and vegetables and with that special touch associated with Capampangan cooking, which is perfection.

To make eating a happy experience, the restaurant offers a plateful of crisp vegetable lumpia for a group ordering P1,000 worth of dishes.

Concerned about the plight of survivors of super typhoon Yolanda, the restaurant — not the diner — donates P3 of the price of every dish to the typhoon fund.

Bangus Specialty Restaurant has two outlets: one at the Connecticut Car Park building at the Greenhills Shopping Center, and at the North Parking building at the SM Mall of Asia.

Managing the restaurants is a trio who majored in non-food fields, but whose common passion is eating. Erlinda de Mesa Yap is a music major (specializing in piano); her son, Joseph Martin Yap, is a European language specialist teaching French, Italian and Spanish at the Ateneo, the University of Asia and the Pacific, Dante Alighieri, and the Alliance Française de Manille; and niece Nina Rachelle de Mesa Santamaria is an architect.