One big bite : Cubao’s best postgame places
by Paolo L. Kalagayan
Who says the UAAP season is all about basketball?
Though the fierce physical competition and interscholastic rivalries of the season are sure to take center stage, the postgame hang-out can be just as fun as the games themselves—if you choose the right place.
Spend a short time at the various restaurants around Araneta, and you may discover that the edge-of-your-seat excitement and anticipation is not just found inside the basketball court.
Volare
The red, white, and green stripes of the Italian flag are nowhere to be seen. Neither are bottles of wine, checkered tablecloths, stuffy waiters, or any of a trattoria’s traditional trappings. Indeed, Volare’s unassuming blue and yellow sign doesn’t look like it leads to an Italian restaurant.
Yet this is exactly what Volare is—a small Italian restaurant located inside Araneta Coliseum, offering reasonably priced Italian food in a comfortable, casual dining setting.
Unlike commercial pizza chains, which overload pizzas with fat, cheese, and processed meats, Volare’s pizzas are made with fresh, imported ingredients sourced from Italian suppliers. Here, executive chef Giorgio Buccarelli (formerly of Amici di Don Bosco) highlights the best of Italian cuisine.
Their Pizza Rustica (P380; P499 with two bottomless iced teas) is a house favorite. Spread evenly on a thin, tasty crust is a combination of salty Italian ham, earthy mushrooms, tangy tomato sauce, and gooey cheese.
If you don’t want pizza, the Spaghetti Vongole and Pasta Montanara (both P270) are also worth trying. The former features seafood in a red-wine-and-tomato sauce, while the latter has sausage and bell peppers in a tomato sauce mixed with mascarpone and cream cheese. Everything is blended in perfect proportion, properly bringing out all of the ingredients’ individual flavors.
Café Bola
Located inside the Araneta Coliseum Arcade is Café Bola, a casual-dining restaurant that specializes in Pinoy comfort food served with a twist.
Start your meal with their crunchy homemade shoestring potatoes (P75 for regular, P150 for large) and Café Bola Iced Tea (P55), made from freshly brewed tea and flavored with calamansi and sugar syrup. Its iced tea is sweet and tangy–a far cry from the watery Nestea served in other restaurants.
The Adobo Flakes with Kesong Puti (P180) is comfort food at its finest—a bowl of steaming white rice with finely shredded bits of chicken adobo, topped with kesong puti and tomatoes. The texture of the crispy flakes, combined with the fluffy white rice, is a mouthwatering combination.
Also worth trying are the bolas or meatballs (P200-P210). They are served either with rice or with pasta, and come with a sauce of your choice: pungent spicy green curry, or creamy parmesan sauce.
Oyster Boy
Just across Araneta Coliseum is Oyster Boy, a restaurant most famous for its fresh oysters flown all the way from Iloilo. No meal at Oyster Boy would be complete without ordering their famous oyster dishes.
Oysters Rockefeller (P175 for six, P325 for a dozen), which pairs the oyster’s briny flavor with sharp, smoky, salty bacon, and creamy spinach and cheese, is a house favorite and a definite must-try.
Aside from its famous oysters, the restaurant serves typical Filipino food. The Crispy Palad (P85), which is a slightly fried, paper-thin dried and salted fish, is so good that it is addicting. It goes perfectly with the garlic rice (P38).
Another specialty is the Crispy Tadyang ng Baka (P185). It is essentially beef-in-bone, boiled in a combination of bay leaf, pepper, and other spices, then deep-fried for crispness. It’s akin to Crispy Pata, only with more meat and less fat.
Cubao Expo
If you’re more into shopping, you can also sift through the various shops in Cubao Expo. Its shops are full of unique items you won’t find in malls such as Gateway– or anywhere else, for that matter.
Owned by an interior designer, Heima’s stylish modern interior features lifestyle and home designs. Ranging from artistically designed journals, paintings, lomography cameras and film, to couches, it offers customers a variety of household effects.
Junkie Shop is another store with an interesting mix of products. With bright multi-colored chalk graffiti on the black walls of its staircase, its striking entrance leads to its second floor shop, where old guitars and amps are sold alongside stacks of old comic books, magazines, and fashionable shirts.
Thrift shops such as Remy’s also have quite a few treasures hidden amongst its musty piles. Old copies of Choose Your Own Adventure books, shelves of old vinyl records, vintage eyeglasses, and other assorted knickknacks abound. If you ask the owner nicely, she’ll even dust off her player’s needle, and let you experience the warm, crackly sounds of a vinyl record.
Mogwai
If you find yourself wanting to dine in a homey yet hip atmosphere, head to Mogwai, a restaurant owned by directors Erik Matti and Lyle Sacris.
Dedicated to screening all sorts of foreign films and cult classics, Mogwai shows at least five films each week in the beanbag-filled screening room on their second floor.
Aside from films, the restaurant offers a variety of meals, snacks, and booze. Pair their reasonably priced local beers (P30-P35) and cocktails (P70 for a rum coke, mojito, and other cocktails) with an order of Sole Fillet (P160) or tasty Bacon and Liver Rolls (P140).
If you’re craving for something sweet, try their Dark Molten Lava Cake (P95). Each time you cut into it, a wave of thick hot chocolate filling oozes out. It’s absolutely sinful.
Alan’s Grill
Alan’s Grill serves down-to-earth Pinoy favorites.
On Tuesdays, the restaurant features painters, and all of the works on the walls are for sale. Thursdays to Saturdays bring in R&B, jazz, band jams, and even videoke nights in its second floor. The entertainment is accompanied by unpretentious, yet surprisingly delicious Pinoy grillhouse fare.
The crispy sisig (P189) is highly recommended with its slightly spicy and smoky flavor. The Bulalo Steak with Mushroom Gravy (P230) is buttery soft and drenched in a creamy and delicious gravy.
Photos by Ean Dacay
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