One Cafe is Yum!

March 17, 2013. We're to bring Thirdy to Antipolo to spend time with my in-laws. We also planned to drop by One Cafe and Events Place to measure some of the tables for the customized table runners and overlays we plan to use.

Around 11am, +maria cessna galecio , thirdy, tita fe, rona (thirdy's yaya) and myself, headed out of the house. We dropped by the Divine Word Columbarium first, to visit my brother.

Turns out, my sister Maricel, and her kids, Figi and Citti, were there too as they had attended the morning mass. We spent a few minutes at my brother's niche, and then decided to have lunch as it was nearing midday.

We decided to eat at Pan De Amerikana in Katipunan Avenue since it's very near Ortigas. My sister was to go to Megamall later along with her kids to meet up with her hubby, Gerry, and we were heading ourselves to One Cafe in Ortigas Center.

I always liked eating at Pan De Amerikana since the food is inexpensive. I ordered the dinuguan, which was around 70 pesos.  We also ordered Everlasting, Bicol Express (i think), a platter of mostly seafood and some liempo and pork barbecue , and two (2) pitchers of iced tea.

All of that for just 1,100 pesos.

We ended up ordering way too much for just four (4) adults and two (2) kids. We barely touched the platter, so we asked the waiters to pack the rest, to go.

My sister and her kids stayed behind as Gerry was on his way to pick them up. Chea, Thirdy, Tita Fe, Rona and I, on the other hand, went ahead to One Cafe for a visit. We arrived by 2pm.

Function rooms A and B were vacant, so we had the place to ourselves. Wyn, one of the employees, was around helping us with the tables and answering some of our questions.

We measured the guest tables, the buffet tables, as well as the stage. I wrote it on a piece of paper which I don't have right now, but I'll update this post later with the measurements.

Some of One Cafe's table centerpieces were lying around, so we decided to try some layouts for centerpieces for the tables.

We ended up using two glass and one clay vases, all topped off with plastic flowers. We then placed the easel and our paper camera boxes along with the vases. We now have our semi finished centerpiece.

Our semi official center piece. 

I guess we won't be going back for the glass bottles and mini buckets in Divisoria after all. That's a good thing as it'll save us a few hundred pesos.

Aniel, the manager, was also there (but was busy in the kitchen) since there was an earlier event at the Lounge. He told us there was some food ready for the food tasting. We weren't planning on having our food tasting that day since we wanted to head to Antipolo quite early. But it was already past 2pm, so we won't be able to do much of anything at Antipolo except drop off Thirdy and Tita Fe.

The chef had already gone home, but as it turns out, Aniel was an HRM graduate from St. Benilde. He said that he was among the pioneer batch of HRM at St. Benilde and had worked at several hotels already. He managed to whip up nine (9) food selections from the time we left Pan De Amerikana and the time we finished measuring.

i like this plate.

As per our plan, we wanted to get the 395 pesos buffet option. It had an order of soup, chicken, fish, pork, noodles, vegetable, dessert and a single round of ice tea. We managed to swap out the soup to upgrade the noodles to pasta, and then we declined on the dessert and asked for bottomless ice tea instead. Aniel agreed to the request when we paid the reservation fee a month ago.

We were served the two pastas first: Linguinni Alfredo and Pasta Pomodoro.

Pasta pomodoro hands down.

The linguinni alfredo was your typical white sauce pasta. It wasn't swimming with cream which was a big plus. The cream clinged to the pasta and wasn't that salty even with some ham mixed in there. So it was pretty good. But the pasta pomodoro was heavenly. It was a bit spicy for our taste, but other than that, it was perfect.

We were then served the chicken dishes: Roasted chicken with Rosemary Jus and Honey Pepper chicken.

They're both so great, but what to choose?

Both dishes were great. We're torn on what to actually get. The roasted chicken tasted good with the rosemary. And the size was just perfect. If you get to the middle of parts you slice off, you'll still taste the herbs. But Chea loved the honey pepper chicken more. The flavor was there, but it wasn't too overpowering. We actually wanted to get both dishes, unfortunately, we didn't want to get two of anything as some guests might be allergic to some food. Which is why we wanted to make sure that we had pork, chicken, fish and vegetable dishes.

For the pork, we were given Hickory Pork and Porkloin in Soy sauce and Citrus, which was basically grilled meat.

Grilled pork at the top, hickory pork at the bottom.  Calories all around.

The hickory pork is just that. Pork slathered with hickory sauce. So it's pretty easy to imagine what it would taste like.

We were also served roast beef. It wasn't part of the menu, but it was included in the food tasting just so we can have an idea of what other options are available.

roast beef with some potato strings and mushrooms. 

The potato strings are a nice touch. It gives the beef extra texture as they're a bit crunchy. But my tendency is to go straight for the beef and ignore everything else. The beef tasted exactly like beef. But as i mentioned to Chea, it was refreshing to see another beef menu rather than the ubiquitous beef stroganoff.


We were also served fish fillet. It's basically pan fried dory with a heap of parmesan cheese.

red is fresca salsa. white is plum and pesto cream dip. both are awesome.

What makes the dish stand out is of course the dip. The salsa tasted great. But the plum and pesto dip was splendid. I had to resist dipping my fingers in them. I'm accustomed to having cream based dip to have some salt in them, so imagine my surprise when this didn't taste salty at all. Mind you, i like salty food, and this wasn't, but i loved it all the same.

The last dish was chop suey with a smattering of fried garlic. The vegetable was soft, but it wasn't soggy. I'm not a big fan of chop suey, but this didn't turn me off at all. I could eat this, but I don't think I'd rave about it. Not to mention, come back for seconds.

chop suey with garlic

Although we didn't get a chance to taste the other option which was stir fried vegetables in butter, we chose that instead. I think most of our guests would prefer the after taste of butter over garlic.

Now, Chea didn't like any of the options for the pork dish. So Aniel told us that they have new dishes that will come out this March, and we can have another food taste by then. But he also gave us an option of getting a pork dish that was only available in the higher price range, such as pork ragu, without additional cost. I'm not familiar with pork ragu (or it's variant), especially at catered parties i've attended, so I thought it would be a new experience for everyone. Some may like it, some may not, but I'm sure the overall consensus is that was something new for most of them, so that's a plus in my book.

Overall, it was among the best food tasting experiences I've had, topping most of the ones we've had when we were preparing for our wedding.

After the food taste, we headed off to Antipolo. Along the way, i mused to Chea about how fortuitous that the chef had left, and Aniel was made to cook dishes that weren't normally in the menu for the package we chose. For one, Honey Pepper chicken wasn't available at that price range. The fish fillet also was ordinarily served with Salsa Fresca or Plum Tomato sauce, not Plum Pesto sauce, which I imagine tastes better as I love pesto. When we asked if we can have both dips (salsa and plum pesto), Aniel obliged.

Also, we were given the option of getting Pork Ragu which was from a higher package in place of the Hickory pork and the grilled pork loin.

I went on some more to Chea about how booking One Cafe was a great decision of ours. For 395 a head, you had Pasta Pomodoro, Honey Pepper chicken, Fish Fillet with Salsa Fresca and Plum Pesto dips, Pork Ragu, Stir Fried vegetables and unlimited drinks. I don't think you can walk into any restaurant and order these dishes and expect to pay only that amount.

At that price, you mostly get the typical dishes like beef stroganoff, cordon bleu, etc. With One Cafe, you get better food options,  you get to rent the entire place and their equipment for free as well.

My only concern is if the actual catered food is as good as the ones we tasted last Sunday. Here's hoping they will be.

On our way to Antipolo, we dropped by a Shoppersville branch along Marcos Highway and bought Thirdy a cake. There was a shop there selling pastries but I forgot the name. Chea asked for the contact info so we can inquire about a fondant cake some other time.

After arriving at my in-laws house in Maia Alta, we rested for a while and celebrated Thirdy's 11th month. We also looked up some bakeshops online. We were hoping to check on some in Marikina.

We only managed to drop by Cafe Feliz where Chea buys me some great tasting cookies. We inquired about a fondant cake for Thirdy's 1st year birthday party. It was nice that they priced their items separately, so you'll know how much it'll cost you for every cake tier you add. I can't remember the exact prices, but a 10" cake layer would cost you roughly 1,500 pesos. A 6" inch layer cake would cost around 600, and so on. So you can put in as much cake layers as you like, and you'll get a rough idea of how much it will actually cost you. Of course, any other customization like decorations will add to the base price, but it's nice to have an actual figure attached to every feature you want added instead of the typical practice of some bakers of giving you on the spot made up numbers just by looking at your design.

After that, we dropped by another bakeshop and placed orders for 70 mini eclairs, 70 mini cream puffs and around 100 mini cupcakes that will be part of the dessert buffet we plan on setting up for Thirdy's party. We will still need to go to another bakeshop for the brownies and another one for the mini donuts. But that is for another day.