Bag of Beans Tagaytay

For some strange reason I keep referring to this place as “bag of bones”, it seems easier on the tongue somehow. We finally visited this café, bakery AND restaurant after much anticipation (on the part of my mother, that is). I want to note first that if we had known on the on-set that we had to go down to their garden to get to their restaurant we would have abandoned the whole scheme (anticipation not withstanding). The mildly steep steps were no joke to my elderly Aunt who is over ninety! Note to self: must investigate every place that I plan to bring my Aunt to.




I was worried about my Aunt and as we were descending all I could think of was the ascent after our lunch. Poor Auntie. It’s a good thing we never venture out for dinner with her, if not we would really be in trouble. I will stop groaning and griping to myself about the two Italian restaurants that we passed… I will stop it…. Plus I felt bad that our annual birthday hers) would be spoiled because of those steps. The garden was beautiful though and filled with exotic hanging flowers and plants.

After the harrowing climb down we were ushered into one of their quaint “bungalows”. It was the middle of the day and I don’t think my Aunt would fancy having lunch under the trees after that adventure but there were quaint tables (some under large umbrellas) and chairs here and there that invited the visitor to stop and sit, and maybe nurse a cup of coffee (or two). The one we entered was bright, the walls painted a garish green and blue with a Moorish décor. The restaurant menu was very limited, much of the items came from their bakery upstairs. Being a baker, this was not necessarily a bad thing, but their bread were almost all on the sweet dough side. I quickly lost interest (but made a mental note to check out the cinnamon rolls after lunch). The breakfast items perked my interest for a few seconds until I saw the prices. Meat pies are another matter. I do so wanted to bring one of each kind home, until I remembered that we are hours away from home with no cooler on the trunk to keep the pies from spoiling. Rats. Steak and kidney, Shepherd’s pie, chicken and mushroom… a good variety but a tad on the expensive side at a little over a hundred pesos for one pie and several hundreds for a family sized one. I bet I can make a similar-sized pie for much less than that, but… until I actually taste one of theirs I will stop talking about it.

Leaving the meat pies and going over our actual lunch all I could think of having was the chicken breast with pasta (I chose the “red” pasta of course). My mother had the mahi mahi with veggies and rice and my Aunt chose the bangers and mash. Meat pie… Banger’s and mash? English chef or English husband-of owner? Turns out their late chef was English hence the specialties of the house.

Below are pictures of our lunch. The portion size was good, not spectacular but good enough to be labeled value for money. They have a right to boast about their cheesecake. It was different than the cheesecake I am used to, but it was light, creamy and rich without making you feel guilty. If you like the unbaked kind of cheesecake then this is for you. My Auntie, Mom and I shared one slice topped with the usual tasteless blueberry Comstock and we left the table satisfied. So much so that I forgot to take a picture of it *groan*. The real revelation for me though was the excellent cinnamon roll that I decided to bring back to eat in Imus. It was great. The roll was perfectly coiled around a generous amount of raisins and walnuts. You could taste the faint buttery taste from the tender dough, plus it was just the right size too for only P45. And more importantly it was freshly baked.




It was a long drive, I was tired and thirsty and hot. I will give Bag of Beans one more shot one of these days (hopefully soon) to try their meat pie. Bag of Beans is located just after the junction of Mendes, Tagaytay City.