Serial Tripper

The Morning After… After

New Year’s Eve celebrations had me and my family up until very early the following morning, and while the first of the year proved very unproductive (I slept through it, what the hell), I was up before five the following morning. Wondering where January 1st went, I fired up my laptop and surveyed maps of Metro Manila for a new place to discover, hoping to start 2011 right with a rocking new food experience.

I ended up with nothing. Nothing exceptional on the search results, nothing special on any of the food blogs I normally follow. Nothing, at least, that was conceivably open this early: in the morning of the second of January.

But why let that stop me? I picked up my camera bag, got in my car, and called up Jen.

“Gumising ka na, papunta ako diyan sa Paranaque! (Wake up, I’m on my way there to Paranaque!)” It was one of those spur of the moment feelings that you just can’t suppress.

An Unassuming Little Place

Asked where it would be great to have breakfast in Paranaque, Jen couldn’t give one easy suggestion from the top of her mind. There was, however, one place she remembered for great tapa (thin slices of cured beef): a small restaurant along Aguirre Street in B.F. Homes called Little Quiapo.

In summary, she described the place as having good food, but was easy to miss. No matter, I was from Antipolo City to B.F. Homes within forty minutes looking for the restaurant.

The space inside the restaurant was a modest one: the cashier had her counter lined up with delicacies from Laguna and other nearby districts, and aside from small wooden decorations, the only other design pieces were their pet birds visible from inside the restaurant.

The food wasn’t overly decorated, if at all, and made lasting impressions on me solely from their taste. I haven’t had a plate of Pancit Palabok as good as theirs and at the affordable price of only 85 pesos, it truly deserved to return for. The plate size, I must add, wasn’t just good enough for one: you could perhaps order this alone and be content with the size of your meal.

Jen went for her favorite (of sorts) Tapsilog meal: an order of tapa complete with fried rice and scrambled eggs on the side. The meat was tender, the flavor was a bit sweet, and it’s a nice variation of the usual, less flavorful tapa.

We couldn’t leave the restaurant without trying what Little Quiapo was best known for: their Fiesta Halo-Halo. The number of varying halo-halo preparations I have tried have kind of twisted my idea of what a generic one should be, but I’m guessing this is a good specimen of what you should try for the first time.

The dessert is made from a ball of ice streaked with chocolate and strawberry syrup (and the obligatory evaporated milk) sitting on various toppings (banana, nata de coco, beans, among others), topped with a small slice of leche flan and ube ice cream, with a couple of wafer sticks sticking out on one side of the bowl. Halo-halo comes from the Filipino word halo, meaning “mixed,” and thus this hodgepodge of dessert ingredients into a bowl of fun-loving sweetness.

“Gumising ka na, papunta ako diyan sa Paranaque! (Wake up, I’m on my way there to Paranaque!)” It was one of those spur of the moment feelings that you just can’t suppress.

In a nutshell, Little Quiapo offered so much more than what it looked it had, and definitely a place to come home to over and over again, may it be for a cheap palabok or halo-halo fix, or a real primer for Filipino food.

Little Quiapo Soda Fountain and Restaurant
42 Aguirre Street cor. Lirag Street, Phase 1, BF Homes
Paranaque City, Philippines