I’m starting this week right. And what could be more right than talk about food? Good food, at that. Great food, even. I’m talking about the group date my co-workers and I had at Amare La Cucina, one of the top restaurants in Baguio City.
I was like, FINALLY, I am going there. Haha! I know, I know. Amare La Cucina has been there forever, and it has topped so many lists I’ve seen of the “places-to-eat” in Baguio, but I just never got around to trying it out. Mainly because it’s a bit far from the City center, and I’m really not the type to purposefully go out of my way to go eat, you know, when there are perfectly good places to eat close by.
Then as my colleagues and I were thinking that we should go eat somewhere to celebrate our closing (of 2015 accounts), the group became bigger, and we just decided to make a group lunch date out of it.
And what a day~
Amare La Cucina is known for its woodfire brick oven pizzas. It’s the only pizza place in Baguio that cooks its pizzas on a brick oven that makes use of wood.
The Location
Amare La Cucina is located on the first floor of Albergo Hotel at Villamor Drive. For convenience, my companion and I took a cab from Burnham Park and just told the driver to take us to Albergo Hotel. Depending on the traffic, the trip could last from 20 minutes to an hour. Yep.
The Place
I was surprised when I saw that it was quite small. Well, not small SMALL, but it just wasn’t as big or as wide as I thought it was. I think there were at least 10 tables for medium to large groups there.
But an upside to its small size: it’s cozy. The dim lighting also worked, so no jarring or distracting lights there. Seats are comfy, too.
When you enter, immediately to your left is the woodbrick oven, where some of the staff are at work. You can actually see them preparing your pizza order right there.
And if you are interested enough, you can try your hand at making your own pizza.
We didn’t. We were there to do just one thing, after all. To eat. (and didn’t you notice how you often lose appetite when you’re the one preparing the food? *justify, justify*)
The Food
Now we’ve come to the most important part: the food.
There were 9 of us, so we wanted to try as much as we could. Pasta and pizza were the specialties of the place, although they also had fresh greens and salads. But we were there to try the pizza, not the salads.
We each tried out their house blend Iced Tea, which had a hint of mint in it. That was one tall glass of refreshing goodness!
And the parade began.
Pesto alla Genovese (Php 255) – with homemade sauce of basil pesto with freshly grated parmigiano reggiano. I say this single order will be enough for 2 to 4 people.
This was just all right for me. I thought the penne was too al dente, I think it’s not cooked enough. But the pesto wasn’t too overpowering, which I preferred.
Ragu Bolognese (Php 330) – with slow-cooked ground beef, Italian sausage bacon with fresh parmigiano reggiano.
I like this one, too. But it paled in comparison because it was served at the same time as the next pasta.
Ala Gamberi (Php 325) – contains shrimps, spicy tomato sauce, garlic, olive oil, peppers and parsley.
Hands down, my favorite among the four pasta dishes we tried. I liked the spiciness. 🙂
And now the pizzas.
Pizza con Prosciutto (Php 450) which has plum tomatoes, mozzarella, prosciutto, arugula, olives and a dash of oregano. I think this was a very good starter, and I loved how the arugula tasted, plus it had that crunch that added texture to the pizza.
In case you’re wondering, the pizza serving platter (do you call this wooden tray a platter?) was cleared out and put into our plates in just 3 minutes.
White Pizza (Php 405) with mozzarella, bacon, garlic, extra virgin olive oil and a dash of oregano.
I really liked this! I thought it was surprisingly light and not too rich, unlike what you’d expect from a cheese-filled pizza.
And it was cleared out in 90 seconds.
Time for a double whammy dessert!
Nutella Pizza (Php 260) which is a pizza with a spread of Nutella chocolate, topped with vanilla ice cream and caramelized walnuts.
It was gone in 60 seconds. Well, we had to make quick work of it or else, you know, the ice cream will melt. Tee-hee~
And we saved the best for last.
Roasted Mallow Speculoos Pizza (I wasn’t able to see how much the price was, but I am guessing it’s around Php300). It has roasted mallows, and Speculoos cookie butter, and vanilla ice cream! Love love love! We also cleaned it up in less than 60 seconds!
Now I normally do not have a sweet tooth, but these had just the right amount of sweetness – yes, even the Nutella, which I usually find too saccharine-sweet. The roasted mallows clinched it for me.
I don’t know if there is something different and special with using woodfire brick, but I loved the dough of their pizza. In fact, even the crust was all gone. Nothing left on our plates.
There were still a lot of pizzas on the menu that we wanted to try, but we were already quite full. When I go back next time, I’ll try the others. The Foie Gras Pizza is of particular interest to me. 🙂
The Prices
I think the prices were reasonable, especially when you consider how other pizza places price their products. It’s roughly around the same range, but you get to enjoy yummier treats!
Their fresh greens and salads are priced from Php 215 to Php 295. They also have Beef Carpaccio antipasti (Php 265) and Chicken Skewers (Php 275) and Pork Tenderloin Skewers (Php 285) as well as Wood Fired Ribs with Veggies (Php 345) for hardcore meat lovers.
Their selection of pizzas is mind-boggling. The most expensive one is the Foie Gras Pizza I mentioned earlier, and it costs Php 580. The cheapest is Php 325 for the Margherita. As for their pastas, the price range is Php 220 to Php 340. We wanted to try the most expensive pasta, the Frutti di Mare (Php 340) but we were already full. It has mixed seafoods with plum tomato sauce, garlic, olive oil and a splash of white wine.
Extras:
Yes, we were literally extras.
You see, when we arrived, we saw some staff setting up a couple of long tables right outside the resto, right on the wide hallway. Then we saw a camera crew come in, shooting the oven area. And then the owner of the place was being made up.
In the middle of our meal, one of the camera crew members approached us and asked for our permission to be filmed while eating.It was for an episode of something – I didn’t catch which show it was. We agreed.
And then in came another posse, with Solen Heusaff in the group. So we realized it was for an episode of a show called Taste Buddies. Which I didn’t know about coz I really don’t watch a lot of local TV. 🙂 (yeah, yeah,, I watch too many kdramas, haha!)
So we continued eating while she shot with the pizza crew, had a tasting session and interview with the owner right behind our table… and then had lunch with the crew. We originally planned to take a photo with her, but she was eating, so we decided to do it later. Then, afterwards, we left without remembering to get a photo with her, haha!
It was, all in all, a great day. And a very filling one, too. Already we are talking about which place we’d hit next. It’s quite tricky trying to schedule things because some of us are going to school at night and on the weekends, and the others lead very busy lives. Haha! Let’s do this again soon!
And I won’t even mind if its to go to Amare la Cucina once again.
Check out their official Facebook page here.
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