To Bulalo, Casoy, and Coffee — Tagaytay it is!

Hello Kreativ People of the World!

It’s another story time. Before anything else, I’d like to thank all the readers and friends for welcoming me, interacting through replies and reposting my blogs here in Hive. It was really a long overdue task — and yet, here I am now! If you haven’t yet, you may check my intro post and get to know me.

June 3. The Plan.

June, a good friend from Cebu, Philippines came to Manila to work for a week in his company’s office located at Ortigas. It was his first time to visit the office and meet his colleagues — but not his first time in Manila.

He was supposed to be in a La Union (El Yu) excursion with his officemates but a lot of people has backed out due to personal reasons. El Yu is known to surfers and beach goers. So, here's a “Good Friend” to the rescue!

He stayed overnight in our place. Since tomorrow is a Saturday, we made plans on what to do. Tagaytay! My best friend suggested. Then, June agreed. He hasn’t been there before. He was traveling around within the past months, as it his goal to scratch all provinces and cities in the country.

What shall we do in Tagaytay? June asked. Bulalo! I shouted in reply. HAHAHA! Most of the time, people go to Tagaytay to get a glimpse of Taal Volcano, that erupted last January 2020, before the pandemic lockdown in the country.

Coming from a drinking session, we slept at around 3:30 AM.

June 4. Bulalo Day.

We had a fun last night at Rue Bourbon Eastwood in Quezon City. Thus, we woke up at around 9:00 AM. First line of business — shop at Uniqlo. June has to buy additional clothing since majority of his packed clothes are beach outwear. So, he bought a shirt at Uniqlo.

Going back to our place, we prepped and left Eastwood at around 10:30 AM. Together with us JB who generously will drive for us. We took C5 road going SLEX (South Luzon Expressway). We fetched JB's friend, Limwell who was waiting for us for about 40 minutes (sorry, friend) due to unprecedented road repairs.

We took a quick bite at Jollibee — Burger yum! Yummy!

Then, continue to our long road trip — 2 hours more. Hehehe!

From SLEX, we took CALAX (Cavite-Laguna Expressway), since Tagaytay is in the province of Cavite. Elevation while on the road is already 300m.

2:20 PM. Arrived at Tagaytay Mahogany Beef Market & Bulalohan.

Top priority business of this trip — BULALO! If you want to try the most authentic bulalo in Tagaytay, the market should be on top of your list.

The bulalohan is located behind the pasalubong and fruit stands. As you see the bulalohan signage, climb up the stairs leading up to the bulalohan stalls.

The whole floor is filled with bulalohan eateries. Each of which are competing with the best-seller bulalo, selling at the same price. I don’t how they agreed on that, but one thing’s for sure, the bulalo here is the best. Each store tried to beautify their stalls to make it more attractive to the customers. Before pandemic, they offer free unlimited banana (tundan) but they didn’t now.

At last, after checking each stall, we were able to settle and eat at Sumiyayu Foods Special Bulalo House. We ordered, well, BULALO good for 2-3 person at Php 250. The soup is refillable. We also added deep fried tawilis and mini shrimps. It was so crunchy and you didn’t need to debone them. And, yes, 4 cups of rice for the 4 of us. Hahaha!

As soon as our orders arrived, it was like God coming down from heaven with steam goes along with breeze of the wind. By the way, since Tagaytay is in the highlands, the wind is cold.

We took a good bite with our much awaited orders. We had a 2nd round of our bulalo soup. I really loved it and so everyone does. We finished our dishes at around 3:10 PM and only spent a total of Php 1,130 for the 4 of us already. It was indeed a cheap lunch.

3:10 PM. Around the market.

After having a good and sumptuous lunch at the bulalohan, we took a quick tour at the market — and these kakanins welcome us. Casoy, my all-time favorite nut was there! Without further hesitation, I bought one and started eating it. While Ate packed my order, she also gave some samplers. 😅 They also sell suman, moron, kalamay (Tagaytay version), and more. There are also fruit stands sold at a lower price compared to Metro Manila.

We left Mahogany Market and went straight ahead to Bag of Beans.

3:20 PM. Arrived at Bag of Beans (Athena)

Good thing that when we arrived in Bag of Beans, there are still enough parking spaces. This place is known to Tagaytay-goers because of its close-to-nature ambiance and scenic view of Taal Volcano. They serve foods, desserts and coffee. They do have good pasalubong treats like biscocho, ground coffee, coffee beans, cake, etc.

As we went down the stairs, the area is spacious, perfect for private events. There’s an alfresco seating where you can view the sceneries of nature and Taal Volcano. When we’re there, Taal is covered with fog.

We ordered a slice of their best-seller blueberry cheesecake and drinks individually. I ordered caramel macchiato but, before having the guts to order this milk-based drink, I checked their toilet first — Approve! Bidet, check. Aircon, check. Cleanliness, check. Privacy, check! Perfect! 😂 😂 😂

We spent the rest of our afternoon in the cafe. I took a lot of pictures because of the its scenic view. We went down further to get a clearer view of Taal Lake.

More photos…

It was a well-spent afternoon in an alfresco with the cold breeze of the wind while sipping a good caramel macchiato and taking a bite of blueberry cheesecake. We left the place for dinner and decided to eat at Balai Mario, along Silang Street.

7:20 PM. Balai Mario for Dinner.

Upon arriving at the place, we have to be listed first and wait for 10 minutes for us to be seated at our assigned hut. Why hut? You’ll know why, later. While waiting, a table with sungka is there for us to be entertained — and we did enjoyed it.

Our hut is ready!

A staff escorted us to our assigned hut. Balai Mario is designed as a Filipino traditional restaurant wherein regular table is turned into a Filipino Hut. Since it is a traditional house, there are no high chairs. We sit on the floor with a support foam. There were pillows too. So after eating, sleep. HAHAHA!

The staff handed us the menu and upon checking, guess what, bulalo is there. Hahaha! Since we had one already, we tried their other best-selling foods. There are a lot good Filipino dish options. There are also shakes, beers and even cocktails that you can choose from. At the end, we ordered Chicken Bicol Express, Buttered Chicken, Chopsuey and 4 cups of rice.

Serving time is 20 minutes. While waiting, there’s another sungka in our hut. While playing, I tried to recall what the rules of the game are. Then, we got bored. Some slept on the pillow, while I roamed around the place to take pictures.

Then our food came!

It was so delightful to see such dishes. The food serving is well enough for us 4 persons. I am not fond of spicy food most especially if the area is not well-ventilated or not air-conditioned. But, I tried the Chicken Bicol Express, that is known to be spicy. I loved it. I could identify that there's a coconut milk mixed in it due to its distinctive taste. Thus, making the food not that spicy. Then, here’s the Buttered Chicken. I didn’t expect anything from it but when I tasted it, I could tell that this food is very well-prepared. Finally, the Chopsuey, one of the vegetable foods I love to eat. It was perfect. Without any waiting, we dug in and enjoyed the dinner ourselves.

We spent a total of Php 1,419, including a 10% service fee. We are full and sleepy but someone has to be alert for us to drive back home.

P.S. My other go-to place in Tagaytay is Good Shepherd because of their merienda foods i.e. Halo-Halo, Turon, but couldn’t go to because it was out of our way. And you know, Tagaytay traffic is no joke!!

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Back to the City.

We left Tagaytay around 10:00 PM but there were still a lot of people in Balai Mario. The road was dark because there are some areas that don’t have working lampposts.

I tried to keep myself awake but I am weak. I felt asleep and woke up in Alabang area. We have to drop off Limwell in Taguig. We arrived at Eastwood, Quezon City past 12:00 Midnight.

That was a good excursion and a busog-lusog one.

Hope that you'll consider those places that we've been to when you plan to go Tagaytay.

[//]:# (!pinmapple 14.104129 lat 120.931243 long To Bulalo, Casoy, and Coffee — Tagaytay it is (June 4) d3scr)