Here is another coupon for discounts on food when you dine at the wonderful Tower Lounge.

If you’re looking for a good place to relax with friends, family and associates, I highly recommend One Tagaytay Place Hotel and Suites. It is nothing like most hotels in Tagaytay where they capitalize on the view alone. This hotel is an eye-opener for those wanting to rediscover the wonders of Tagaytay.

As most of the beautiful places in Tagaytay are ridiculously overpriced, here’s a hotel that has all the five-star amenities but not the five-star rates. As a result, OTP is the hotel favored by multinationals such as Lawson Software and international organizations like the UNICEF.

Weekends are abuzz with travelers and seminar participants coming in from Manila and other parts of the country, so make your reservations early. Their one-bedroom suites are fantastic! Windows stretching from the ceiling to the floor fill both walls of the corner rooms and each room comes with its own balcony, if you want to soak in the coolness of the weather and sweetness of the fresh air.

In-room amenities are of the same standard as five-star hotels in Makati; in-room safe, LCD TVs, phones, a complete line of toiletries replenished everyday, turn-down service, in-room coffee and tea facilities and a refrigerator. What surprised me is that they have a bidet in every en suite bathroom. I particularly find that to be a big plus.  Every time I travel I always bring a dipper or a tabo. Most hotel bathrooms don’t have the tabo, but OTP realized the need for one and has installed a bidet. Very clever and very ingenious indeed. Kudos to the hotel owners for thinking this one up!

At the top of the 3rd floor is a bridge that leads to their biggest function room and gym. They have packages for every budget. You may contact them through their website.

There is so much to see in Tagaytay after all. It’s more than just eating Bulalo and buying Buco tarts. There are places in Baguio City that have their counterparts in Tagaytay. The weather is just as cool, if not cooler, and the view is breathtaking. Everything in One Tagaytay Place is picturesque and will truly be the best place for a family weekend getaway. Oh, did I mention all rooms have Wi-fi? Yup, and there’s no charge and no passwords needed.

Top 5 pasalubong food from Tagaytay

1. Buco tarts/pies. Who doesn’t love it? This is only evidenced by the mushroom of countless buko pie in and around Tagaytay. So which one to buy? I only go for two brands. Lou-Mar’s and Rowena’s, which happens to have an outlet right smack in front of OTP, so no need to take your car out of the shaded parking just so you can enjoy the delicious buco tarts. By the way, Buco Tarts are little pastry tarts made from coconut and coconut cream, as the word Buco means coconut in Filipino.
2. Pineapple. They’re the sweetest you can find in all the land, land of Cavite that is. It’s cheap and easy to handle. Just put some of them in the trunk of your car and slice them up when you get home.
3. Espasol. Yes I am do guilty of this. I so love espasol, which is a small roll of sticky rice cooked in coconut milk and rolled in rice flour. Yummy!
4. Fresh mushrooms. Yes, you can find this in the markets of Tagaytay, as well as in the mushroom farms along the highway. Stop by for some mushroom burgers and some good-tasting and healthy mushrooms.
5. Fresh honey. Near Tagaytay there is a bee farm called Ilog Maria, that’s famous for selling all kinds of products that contain honey. The owner is more than happy to tell you all about how honey can help you ease your aches and pains.

Bulalo is a dish of boiled beef leg, with the marrow included. Boiling usually takes many hours, but the job is faster with a pressure cooker, though I think it still takes more than an hour to get that fall-off-the-bone goodness. Compared to Nilagang Baka (literally translated also means boiled beef), Bulalo hardly has any vegetable accompaniments. Mostly just the leg and the soup, which when done right gives a “milky” taste mostly because some bone marrow mixes with the soup. Nilagang Baka uses mostly the upper beef shank and is usually very lean with small amounts of fat and collagen for flavor. Vegetables are added to nilagang baka for better sustenance. But the bulalo is just plain food hedonism. All the goodness of the beef and fat mixed with marrow in a delicious steaming bouillon. And I drove 45 kilometers to Tagaytay City in Cavite to sample this wonderful dish.

I will not recommend a particular restaurant for great bulalo in Tagaytay City because I know most of us have our own favorite bulalo houses in Tagaytay. I ate at the Bulalo House beside the old cinema near the former location of the Tagaytay meat market, before they moved to their present location, by the slaughterhouse. At P350.00 (US$8.00) per serving, three people went home happy that day, including yours truly. Of course, I just couldn’t resist ordering another favorite, inihaw na liempo, or grilled pork belly.

This one cost P180.00 (US$4.10) per serving. It was soft and tender to the bite.

This part is the same as used in making bacon, only the cut is different and rather thick. In the Philippines, the pork belly is one of the most well-loved and prized part. It is not healthy because there are fat deposits in between the lean meat, but this only makes it taste good.

As in bulalo, the marrow is always the prized part, though the most difficult to retrieve because you will really have to get your hands dirty and go the extra mile to make it pop out in one delicious glob. In some fine dining restaurants, there are tools and implements that allow a diner to get the marrow out without having to use their hands. However, I think it’s always good to use your hands when eating. The lesser the pretension, the greater the pleasure.

After the marrow, deal with the meat.

Yes indeed, bulalo is truly the ultimate Pinoy comfort food.

From there, we proceeded to Ilog Maria, a honeybee farm that also produced toiletries and beauty products, all infused with honey. Noreen complained after using the facial scrub that she bought. She will have to travel to Tagaytay to buy more of it, because it works so well on her face. She has decided to stop using Aveeno, and switch to the Ilog Maria Honey Facial Scrub. I actually loved using the Spearmint Oatmeal soap they gave us as part of the freebies pack. With these alone, I will definitely go back to Tagaytay before I run out of the soap.

But because I’m a foodie, this post will talk about the wonderful lunch that we had. We had lunch at Bawai Vietnamese Kusina. It’s a very hidden restaurant and because of its location, not all are aware of this foodie gem.

The place was never meant to be a restaurant. Upon entering the place, I knew instantly that it was meant to be a cozy home for a closely-knit family. The decor is non-commercial, and this can be observed from the cutlery and tableware they used to serve the food; they only used the best as if they were serving house guests and not customers, which was exactly how we were treated. The name means “grandmother” in Vietnamese and the lady of the house is Vietnamese. She married a Filipino, which is why she is now a member of the Tatlonghari clan (yes, the name is so Pinoy).

For starters, we had Vietnamese spring rolls or Goi Cuon containing fresh noodles, shrimp, pork and veggies wrapped in Vietnamese rice paper (only P145.00 or US$3.50),

And a choice of either shrimp in sugar cane…

Or Vietnamese pork sausage (homemade!). This is what I got.

And I was so happy with what I got!

Then, we were served a noodle soup dish called Pho Bo. Pho means soup and Bo means beef. It’s flat noodles with thinly sliced beef cooked in hot beef broth topped with cilantro, spring onions, saw leaves and scallions. This is the best I have had thus far. The best. According to the menu, this big bowl only costs P195.00 (US$4.70).

The beef was so tender. So very, very tender. Of course, all of this goodness wouldn’t go down without some refreshing Pandan iced tea (P50.00 or US$1.20 per serving).

Yes, the bottom is kinda green so you have to mix it well before gulping it down. Lastly, dessert. Sadly, I don’t know what it’s called. All I know is that it’s not on the menu but you can order it. It tastes like our local kutchinta with some bean custard in the middle, and smothered with coconut cream and peanuts!

Like what you see? This is definitely better than dining at usual tourist traps (how many mushroom burgers can you eat in a lifetime?). So when you troop to Tagaytay, you may want to have lunch here. Or better yet, impress your date by bringing her here. The place is open for lunch and dinner, on weekends only and by reservation. You may call Bawai’s at 0920-9722924. It may be a bit of a hassle but believe me when I say, it’s all worth it.