Lawyers who lunch

My friends, Chariz and Misty, and I had just come from a meeting. It was nearing lunch but we were not that hungry yet. We were in the Lahug area so I suggested that we try Café Mir? and order something light.

It had been months since I read about Café Mir? but it was only on that day when I finally found it. The place is easy to miss as it is tucked away in a very busy-looking building in Gorordo Avenue. It is in the same building where the Metrobank branch near JY Square is found.

Moroccan lamps made of colored glass adorned the café's ceiling. The abstract paintings of Sio Montera provided a striking contrast to the Moorish theme, as did the Alpiler sculpture of Raymund Fernandez. Café Mir? is the kind of place where one could have long conversations with friends and lose track of the time. That was what happened to us. It was close to three in the afternoon when we finally left.

The menu is simple and straightforward - sandwiches, coffee, tea and dessert. I initially thought that the sandwiches were pricey at P120 to 150 each. They came in huge servings though. All of us ended up eating only half of our sandwiches and taking the rest home.

I tried the Panini California and was very glad I did. The grilled ciabatta bread was stuffed with smoked turkey breast, avocado, roma tomato and roasted garlic aioli. I happily noted that the lettuce used was not the iceberg variety. The pasta salad that came with the sandwiches was even served on a bed of arugula.

Several times, I had been disappointed when I ordered salad at fancy restaurants with lots of ambiance. The dressings were fairly okay but they used soggy iceberg lettuce. Even KFC's salads have crisp romaine and red corral lettuce. Costing less than half the price of those salads, KFC's salads provided much better value for money.

Marleen O. Torres, the owner of Café Mir?, joined us. We learned that she was a Fine Arts graduate and that she took baking and pastry classes at the Culinary Institute of America in Napa Valley. She named her café after one of her favorite artists, Joan Mir?.

We had paid our bill and were about to leave when we saw the cake that a group of women at the table beside ours ordered. It was the Julia, a pistachio roulade cake with white choco pistachio chantilly and pistachio ice cream. It had a candle inside what looked like a giant barquillo. We were hypnotized. We had to get our own dessert.

We picked Opera in the Park. It had a miniature chair made of Ghirardelli chocolate standing on top of the Opera cake. An arch made of melted sugar connected the cake to the chili chocolate sorbet covered with chocolate syrup. We just stared at it because it was too beautiful to eat. Marleen had to admonish us that the sorbet was melting before we started digging in. It was perfect.

I wish that I could say that lawyers have long, leisurely lunches in cozy cafés everyday. In reality, there are days when we are so busy that we have no time to eat lunch at all. When we do have the time to linger for lunch, we intend to go to Café Mir? again. After all, there are ten more desserts that we still have to try.

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