Food Coma Adventures

This blog has been MIA from the blogosphere for the longest time! So, my sincerest apologies to the readers (if any) of this blog for my absence. It's not that I haven't been eating out (I always do) or cooking (I sometimes do); it's just that there wasn't anything blog-worthy — at least food-wise — as of late.

But fret not: I have been scouring the metro (and other cities) for food finds, and I've been working on my culinary skills; particularly, baking. In fact, one of these days, I will try and blog about the different kinds of cheesecakes I've already made and perfected.

Anyway, moving on to today's post!

Recently, my family and I went back to our happy place, which we frequent one to two times a year: Baguio. People usually tell me that they're surprised that we go up as often as we do, and even wonder what's there to do in Baguio. To be perfectly honest, we go there without any particular goal in mind except to relax and to get away from the day to day hassle of Manila living (although Baguio is quickly becoming congested and citified).

Still, there's something charming about returning to our childhood happy place and living simply: enjoying the cool air, being surrounded by lots of trees and flowers, getting to walk around... you get the picture.

However, since more and more people seem to be visiting Baguio as well, the city is rapidly playing catch-up in terms of activities, nightlife, and — you guessed it — restaurants.

One such restaurant we checked out on our last visit two weeks ago was something my mom chanced upon in an online article. When she mentioned they served brick oven pizza, I knew we had to try it out. After all, carbs (pasta and pizza) are my favorite things to eat!

(Apologies in advance for the quality of these photos; unfortunately, I wasn't able to bring my SLR on this trip, and the lighting where I was seated wasn't the most ideal for iPhone food photography.)

Amare La Cucina is a small restaurant tucked away in Albergo Hotel. When you enter the hotel, you are greeted with an almost mall-like ambiance that makes it hard to believe that you're actually in a hotel. Aside from restaurants outside the hotel itself, and a Christian church occupying one of the units, there are other units within the ground floor that have yet to be open for business (interestingly, there's a real estate office also located on the ground floor).

And several skips and hops away from the hotel's entrance, you will see a line of people waiting to be seated inside a particular restaurant.

Which happens to be Amare.

When we were there, it happened to be a payday weekend, so the line of people waiting to be seated was pretty long. We settled for a table outside the restaurant, and I didn't bother taking photos of how it looked since there wasn't anything snap-worthy. Just imagine a bunch of wooden tables outside a restaurant, lined with Monobloc chairs. (Note for Amare: you might want to invest in wooden chairs, even for the tables outside, to add to the overall "brick oven" ambiance.)

We were happy to note that the prices of the menu items were very reasonable, and considering how packed the place was (the lines were even longer after we had left), they served our food in good time.

Here are what our family of 7.5 (the 0.5 being my toddler nephew) ordered:

Ala Carbonara (PhP 255)

Carbonara will always be a favorite of the family's, so we just had to try it out. It was rich, but not overwhelmingly so, and the noodles had a nice al dente texture.

(It may be worth noting that each pasta dish is good for one to two people, so it's a good strategy to order more than one dish and try everything out!)

Ala Gamberi (PhP 315)

This one, I liked a lot. The sauce had a nice balance between sweetness, acidity, and spice. And the prawns were cooked all the way through. If you're not into spicy food, however, I suggest you skip this (case in point: my sister, who does not like spicy food, stopped eating this after her second bite). However, the rest of us who like really spicy food (I'm a huge fan of Thai, Indian, and Cajun cuisine) finished this plate within minutes.

Moving on to their specialty: pizza. Each pizza comes in only one standard size, so if you're a big group, I'd suggest that you definitely order more than one pizza.

White Pizza (PhP 395)

Amare's White Pizza will appeal to cheese lovers, especially those whose palates are more inclined towards salty flavors. If you're not a fan of salty food, you might not want to go on after one slice. I wish they had used a sweeter kind of bacon to offset the overall saltiness of the pizza; perhaps if it were honeycured, it would be perfect.

Pizza con Prosciutto (PhP 430)

My sister, the non-spice lover, happens to be a salt lover. And her favorite kind of ham is prosciutto, which is inherently salty, so she ordered this. You can never go wrong with mozzarella and prosciutto, really.

Foie Gras Pizza (PhP 570)

Last, but certainly not the least, is something that everyone assumed I would order, because this one had truffle oil. At the very moment it was served, we could immediately smell the truffle aroma and I was excited to tuck in.

It was an interesting dish, needless to say. In every bite, I would get the mildest hint of truffle (if you want to taste more of it, you might have to tell the server about it), with a complex foie gras salty flavor and creamy texture, with a kick of mozzarella and basil. Basically, it tasted like a margherita-truffle-foie gras fusion.

Overall, we were pretty happy with our Amare experience. It was nice to try a new restaurant (for the most part, whenever we go to Baguio, we usually settle for our tried-and-tested ones and don't bother exploring because we never feel the need to), and the food tasted just as good as many of those we get to eat in Manila.

The quality of the ingredients and the cook on the dishes were better than expected, and with each dish priced reasonably (given also their serving size), it's a winner!

I would definitely recommend this restaurant to family and friends who happen to be in Baguio, but I don't think you'll get a cozy ambiance if you're a couple looking to enjoy a good meal together (I speak for the outer dining area, at least; I wasn't able to really check on the seating arrangements inside the restaurant since it was packed when we were there).

I also didn't get to check if they accept reservations, but supposing you decide to drop by randomly especially on a weekend, head over early because the place gets filled with diners pretty quickly.

Buon appetito!

Amare La Cucina
Albergo Hotel,
Villamor Drive,
Baguio City
(+63916) 332 1522