Library Café: Cool Beans Café

Cafes  serve as a venue where you can  study or read a book with the luxury to sip a cup of coffee while munching your favorite pastries or a meeting place where  your friends  get together while imbibing  a frappe or a spot where you can conduct a  group meeting  while savoring a meal that can fill up your mind for a brainstorming- that is what a café is to me until I visited Cool Beans Café.

Cool Bean Café serves the famous Philippine Highland Arabica Coffee. The former are well known coffee  produced in Cordilleras. These coffee are known as Sagada (coffee with high Arabica and has a slightly bittersweet aftertaste), Benguet (coffee that has a bitter taste and very aromatic) and Kalinga (coffee that is made from Robusta beans with good aroma and blended perfectly).  It was said that the owner of the Café fell head over heels with this coffee that when she was planning to have her own café, serving this coffee would be her primary goal.

Aside from Highland Coffee the Café is also the first Library Café in the country. You can choose to read from their variety of books, magazine and comics. They have a stand of National Geograpgraphic , Life and Time Magazine  that can feed your wondrous mind. Marvel comics are readily available for youngsters and those who are child at heart. Variety of books from fiction to nonfiction and history are also available.

Cool Beans Café also offer a wide variety of dishes that you can munch on while reading your favorite book. They have panini, pasta, soups and salads, rice meal and all day breakfast meals. Aside from coffee, you can also indulge yourself with their brewed coffee, coffee based frappuccino and non coffee based, tea and soda.

The interior is homey and very relaxing that you will definitely enjoy having a perfect date with your book on this place and for those who want to escape the hustle and bustle world of internet, this is a great spot for you, for  the so-called WIFI is inaccessible in the four corners of this cafe.

Cool Beans Café is located in 67 Maginhawa Street, Quezon City, Philippines  and is open from Mon - Thu: 10:00 am - 11:00 pm  and Fri - Sat: 10:00 am - 12:00 am.

MA MON LUK

When it is raining and you want to savor a hot soup, there is one place that you can visit and definitely love.  Wonder what restaurant that is? The former is the famous MA MON LUK. 

Ma Mon Luk   is  the 4^th oldest Chinese restaurant in Metro Manila since 1886 and  known for their siopao or steamed pork dumplings and chicken noodle soup.  Ma Mon Luk was named after the founder of the restaurant itself, who is Ma Mon Luk.

Ma Mon Luk was born in China and was a grade school teacher at the former. It was said that he migrated to the Philippines to earn  a fortune. His famous chicken noodle soup started in the streets of Manila where he peddled it and soon became famous to students within the University belt.

The chicken noodle soup success led to the opening of his first restaurant in Binondo where he introduced his famous siopao. Even though he has his own restaurant Ma Mon Luk still peddle his chicken noodle soup, give samples of their goods and advertise his restaurant in the streets of Manila. His hard work paid off and his restaurant later on became a hit to Filipinos.

Siopao and chicken noodle soup is Ma Mon Luks specialty. The two complement each other and I definitely love them, especially during rainy season. Aside from the former and the latter I keep on coming back to this restaurant because of their  Chicken a la Ma Mon Luk, Sweet and Sour Pork and Ma Mon Luk Special Fried Rice but since this restaurant is very popular there are a lot of times that their dishes are easily sold out. So as a suggestion visits them 3 to 4 hours before their closing hour.

The Interior of the restaurant shows every visitor how popular it is. Pictures of celebrities that visited them as well as articles written about their wares  are posted on the walls. Cool stuffs like old landline phones serves as an ornament as well as a reminder that the restaurant was founded during the heydays of  Manila.

Currently Ma Mon Luk has two branches that you can visit. If you are near Quiapo you can go to their branch at 545 Quezon Boulevard Corner Raon Street, Quiapo, Manila but if you are near Quezon Avenue you can go at Quezon Avenue, Tatalon, Quezon City.

GAYUMA NI MARIA (Potion of Maria)

After a tiring day in School, all I want to do is eat, since I haven’t taken lunch yet and relax. On my way home I pass by a restaurant that absolutely took my attention because of its name.   Who would not  bother to stop and wonder what a restaurant named GAYUMA ni Maria (Love Potion of Maria) can offer and of course who will not be  curious  about the latters
 interior.

The restaurant is homey thou with a twist. It feels like home… but….. You are in your room and you are planning to seduce your hubby or wife, I guess I should blame that feeling of mine to the lighting of the restaurant, the curtains and the heart shaped paper lanterns that you can see everywhere. They also have a place where you can smoke or just enjoy the feeling of eating while you are on the veranda of your home.

Their Menu is cool!  The menu will take you back to the times when love is just about to kick off on two people.  And as Gayuma Ni Maria narrates it, the story begins with a simple Attraction (appetizer) then followed by Courtship (soup). When love is finally there, Between the Sheets (sandwiches) is hmmm… let me say a little bit expected and when the two love birds want to be with each others arms forever, Commitment (main course) will take place and Union (merienda) will happen. But not all love story can surpass the witches curse of the wicked Kabit (add ons).

The name of the dishes is also based accordingly  to the restaurant's name. Some of which are Kiss Sabay Hug,  Peek-a-boo, Me on Top, Secret Lovers  and Please be careful with my heart.

I had a little chat with one of their staff and she told me that their best sellers is Rock me Rock Baby, which is pork BBQ  that is slowly roasted in the oven,  Please be Careful with My Heart, twice baked chicken in garlic and olive oil and No Boyfriend Since Birth, pasta with shellfish and pesto and cheese blended on it.

 

Since I love pork I ordered Rock me Rock Baby. The pork BBQ comes  along with macaroni salad as a side dish. The macaroni salad has a lot of pepper that it almost tasted like creamy pepper. The pork BBQ also has a lot of pepper, but it blended perfectly with their BBQ sauce. The pork on the other hand is so tender. One of the staff told me that the pork is so tender because they put the pork first in the steamer before they place it in the oven.

The prices of their dishes is not that affordable.  It ranges from 200-600+ pesos. Rice and drinks are also on top of the dishes that you order.

Gayuma Ni Maria is located at 123 V. Luna Extension (near Maginhawa st.) Sikatuna Village, Quezon City, Philippines. They are open from  Mondays to Saturdays at10:00 am - 12:00 am and Sundays at 10:00 am - 10:00 pm. Though, according to the Father of the owner of Gayuma Ni Maria if you want to relax and enjoy your meal without a lot of the crowd, you can go to their place before lunch time. During weekend, especially at night the said restaurant in jam-packed.