Review: Le Bistro

-
One Saturday, my sister, Anna, and I opted to eat lunch at the Paseo Uno de Calamba, a commercial complex that features newly opened restaurants. Tucked within the commercial complex is a coffee shop called Le Bistro. We got curious about this restaurant because it's the most accessible coffee shop for us, at least currently (a mere five-minute drive on a good day); not to mention that the restaurant's subtitle is "Sustainable Coffees". According to the serving staff we asked, "sustainable coffees" mean that the coffee beans they use are sourced from local farmers.

This, to me, is an example of helping farmers lead better lives -- something that isn't far from what Jollibee Foods Corp. is doing with its local vegetable and rice farmer-suppliers. Both companies ensure that these farmers have income by providing a stable market for their produce.

Ironically, we veered away from the coffee selections because we went there for lunch and because I don't drink coffee. So instead, we ordered pasta, an Oreo cheesecake, and a calamansi smoothie. 

I got the creamy malunggay pesto with chicken herb. The pasta was al dente and the chicken herb was perfectly tasty. Anna even got some of the chicken and paired that off with the sun-dried tomato arrabbiata pasta of hers. The sauce, on the other hand, was light and refreshing; none of that heavy feeling I always get when I eat overly oily pesto sauce. Unlike the pesto sauces I've tasted before, the Le Bistro version features malunggay (Moringa oleifera), a nutritious leafy vegetable, instead of basil. The presence of such a local ingredient in its menu further reflects the restaurant's commitment to promoting sustainable agriculture by supporting local farmers.

The delicious pasta effectively raised my expectations about the dessert...
Le Bistro's version of the
Oreo cheesecake

Then came the cheesecake. The portion that we got was quite a letdown after eating the scrumptious pasta. Don't get me wrong: the cheesecake was okay; it just didn't make as big an impact on me as Dalcielo's creme brulee. Maybe it's because of the fatty aftertaste which I didn't like. I thought, at first, that the whipped cream was the culprit, although Anna figured that the problem was in the cheesecake itself. Anyway, it might just have been the specific cake we got and not the whole batch. I'm going to try this dessert again next time I drop by.

Yes, there will definitely be a next time. Aside from a second go at the Oreo cheesecake, there are other items on the menu that I'd like to try on later visits. It's such a good thing that the restaurant is really easy to get to from home. Now, if only I can convince my friends to travel all the way to this bright corner of Paseo Uno de Calamba so they could try out this restaurant too.

Comments

Post a Comment

Thank you for dropping by!

Before moving on, please share your thoughts or comments about the post. :)

Thanks again!

Popular posts from this blog

Skyflakes

-
One of the more famous Philippine exports is Skyflakes , a wheat-based, salty cracker. It is one of my emergency food items: I typically have some stocked at home and in my handbag in case I become hungry (like in traffic jams). When there's no electricity and it's impractical to cook rice (because the leftover would spoil), I'd open a pack of Skyflakes and generously coat each cracker with Cheez Whiz... if I had a bottle of it within reach. Anyway, each time I spent more than two weeks outside the Philippines, I'd be elated to see boxes of Skyflakes inside Asian stores (particularly when in I was Australia and in the USA). Back then, I took it as a sign of homesickness. When I moved to California, I didn't miss Skyflakes because Mommy made sure that there's a steady supply in the house. Skyflakes is embedded in Filipino gastronomy as a snack, a panawid-gutom , that anyone who reacts positively upon seeing Skyflakes outside the Philippines must have spe...
Read more

10 things I learned while driving on Marcos Highway to Baguio City

-
I went on a day trip to the City of Pines, which was around a 700-km drive from my house. I drove  going up there and then from the city to Victoria, Tarlac. After that, my dad took over the driving duties. It was day trip with Tita Ising and Tito Sibing with us. Anyway, this trip was my first time to go to Baguio City with me behind the wheel. As everyone who drives up knows, there are three main routes to Baguio from the lowlands: Kennon Road, which ascends from Rosario, La Union. It was out of my options because it's too dangerous to use that road in the rainy season. The second route is via Naguilian Road, which makes my trip a lot longer because the beginning of the ascent is in Bauang, La Union (further north). The last route, and the one I took, was the Marcos Highway, now known as the Aspiras-Palispis Highway. This 47-km road starts from Agoo, La Union and is touted as the safest route among the three.  As I drove up and then down (on the same day; we were in...
Read more

Surat Mangyan

-
Image
In high school, part of the Filipino curriculum was learning about one of the country's ancient native scripts called Baybayin . I learned back then that this script was eventually abandoned because the Spanish, and eventually the Americans, encouraged the use of the Latin script for written communications. But that's in the lowlands; the rules were different up in the mountains. In the lush mountains of Mindoro, groups of indigenous people called Mangyans  live largely in isolation away from the Christianised Filipinos. This isolation has led to the continuous development of the Mangyans' old script, Surat Mangyan . As I walked inside the Ayala Museum , I saw this bamboo tube (I'm not sure if it's an instrument) with Mangyan script written all over it. I suppose that this was equivalent to a book or a song. But I haven't figured out what's written yet, despite the translation guide provided. What I can do, however, is write my name in Ma...
Read more