Aside from weddings (and countless other stuff), another thing Marbee & I have in common is our love of, tadah! EATING. AND trying out new restaurants — the further away from the malls, the more exciting actually. I’m sure a lot of you feel the same way, what with all these new restos popping up in every nook & cranny of the metro. And now, I am about to show you one of my (not-so)-recent “discoveries” in the QC area.

Despite living roughly 7 minutes away from it, I only came to know about Adarna Food & Culture in August of 2008 via my friend Earnest Zabala. She told me that they served Filipino Heirloom food… heirloom food? Oooh. I was intrigued. But before we get into the, ahem, meat of this blog entry, let’s talk about the setting first.

You can find Adarna along Kalayaan Avenue in Quezon City, just a stone’s throw from the Quezon Memorial Circle. Enter the courtyard garden and you get the feeling that you’ve just been invited inside a warm & cozy Filipino ancestral home somewhere in a far-off province. Once you set foot inside the restaurant, you are greeted with a vast, and I mean vast, collection of assorted knick-knacks and memorabilia including an antique, pre-war piano that will make your mind wander and wonder about those days when life was less complicated.

The first time I was in Adarna, the first thing I asked was if the place can serve as a venue for wedding parties, be they engagement dinners or wedding receptions. Good news dear readers, the answer is yes. Chef Giney Villar was kind enough to show us around and I saw that the main dining area along with the adjacent lanai and courtyard can house a party of around 75 to maybe 100 people. They also have a smaller, private function room that can house a group of 25 or so. I think the nice thing about having your wedding here is that the experience will definitely be more homey & intimate than, say, holding it in a hotel ballroom.

But even without a big party to plan, you can always go to Adarna for the food (which is what my husband & I have been doing for the past year). In fact almost all our project meetings, small gatherings, and catch-up sessions with friends are held there and don’t think we go just for the ambience (and free wi-fi!), oh no no no.

Clockwise from top left (All photos except that of the Kesong Puti & Langka Fry and Banana Peanut Rolls are c/o Adarna’s Multiply site):
1) Adobo Batangas (P176), slow-cooked pork in flavorful adobo sauce. (I don’t eat pork at all… until I met this dish.)
2) Rich and chunky beef Kare-Kare (P370) & Adarna’s take on the Bicol Express
3) Roasted Pepper Soup (P163) (A smoky global Pinoy soup made from grilled bell peppers topped with crisp grieben and parsley) and Sigarillas Salad (P140) (Light and refreshing winged beans, onion and tomato dressed in a citrus vinaigrette and sprinkled with Ilocano bagnet bits)
4) Kesong Puti & Langka Fry (P86) (Malolos, Bulacan carabao cheese and home-sweetened langka in a crisp wrapper with mango cream sauce) and Banana Peanut Rolls (P63) (Ripe saba banana with roasted peanut cream in a crisp wrapper drizzled with old fashioned caramelo sauce)

*You have to forgive me for not having enough photos of the glorious food, my camera takes a back seat automatically once they’re served. The following are lifted from the feature by ClicktheCity.

Food you cannot NOT order (or try at least once):
1) Piassok (P304) (An Exotic Sulu dish of beef chunks cooked slowly in smoked coconut cream and ten spices – buttered, grilled and sliced just before serving.) My favorite thing to eat here, the beef is slow cooked until tender – so tender in fact that the meat just falls off when you pierce it with a fork.
2) Ang Morena (P67.20) (Subtly-flavored chilled coffee flan with coffee syrup and cashew nuts served in a Carnival coupe). My husband’s favorite, imagine a silky coffee-laced leche flan that melts in your mouth. The chopped cashews on top provide just the right amount of texture and balance to the flan’s sweetness.
3) Felicidad (P120) (A special cold luxurious drink made from eggs, cream and milk with a splash of rhum and vanilla) — just like a native eggnog, lip-smackingly sweet and milky.

Adarna Food and Culture
119 Kalayaan Avenue Diliman, Quezon City
See the MENU

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1. The Chinese wedding banquet