Galli Village Cafe: A Spa for the hungry tummy

Galli Village Cafe is a delightful contrast to the wonderfully busy city that is Makati. Take your zen spas for example, they are right in the middle of the city, but you go in feeling like you’re in a completely different place. Well this cafe is like that, a spa- for the hungry tummy.

Unlike many other restaurants in the metro, Galli is inspired by several village cafes from Asia, Europe and America. Manned and owned by a couple brought together by their passion for food and travel, this village cafe offers a fusion of different culture and flavor.

Galli boasts its Paella Valenciana at P255 and did not disappoint at all. It’s pretty cheap compared to Alba’s and Casa Armas, but all three taste authentic altogether. I suggest you order this in advance since they prepare and serve it fresh. I wouldn’t argue with that.

Galli's paella valenciana at P255 (2-3 persons) P495 (4-5 persons)

I highly recommend you get their beef salpicao together with your paella. There’s this amazing flavor or smell to it that I still couldn’t distinguish until now- like a faint smell of corn and pepper. It’s amazing, really. Maybe it’s peppercorn? LOL. But yeah, this one’s a keeper.

Beef Salpicao with rice P195

Their shrimp gambas is also good, I’ve had three pieces even though I am allergic to seafood. Worth the risk. Haha

Shrimp gambas with rice P195

That night, Galli served two dishes outside of their menu. One was cordon bleu served in their special gravy sauce, and the other was roasted pork in raisin sauce. Yeah, the word “raisin” threw me off too, but the dish was really good- you can taste and feel the raisin but it complements the pork really well. I really like it.

roasted pork with raisin sauce

cordon bleu

They also serve Pinoy food, from tinola to bistek to lechon kawali to kare-kare and of course, their famous Angus beef tapa. They are thinly sliced compared to your regular beef tapa, and seasoned well. I think this dish would really go well with coffee. 

Angus Beef Tapa P170

Other unique dishes on the menu are lengua con seta, chicken asparagus sandwich, almondigras, beef adobado (which I will try the next time I visit), fish tofu in taosi among many others, and everything is affordable.

Location, location, location. Galli Village cafe is right across the Shrine of the Sacred Heart Church, a few steps away from Ayala Avenue. They have an al fresco dining area, which can be a good place to read your newspaper in the morning, small chats with friends in the afternoon, and romantic dinner dates at night.

The walls inside the cafe are covered with the owners’ travel photos, hand paintings done by close friends, memorabilia from the places they’ve been to, all adding up to the warm, rustic vibe of the place, everywhere you look has a good story to tell. They also have a collection of travel books you can read while eating.

You simply can’t eat at Galli’s and not feel a personal connection with the place. From the sophisticated food they serve, to the simple wall accents, everything is an experience in itself.

Food :                       

Experience:             *****

Ambiance:               *****

Service:                    ****

Cleanliness:            ****

Value for money :  *****

Serving:                   ****

Galli Village cafe is open daily from 7:00am-8:30pm, located at the ground floor of YMCA Hotel, #7 Sacred Heart Street, San Antonio Village, Makati City. You may call 0927 391 4655 for reservations and advance orders.

*They have a nice parking space beside their al fresco dining area.

*They serve wine too!

Visit their Facebook fanpage at http://www.facebook.com/GalliVillageCafe

Wadough's: a baker-wannabe's revenge

HISTORY

I received an oven and a complete set of baking utensils from my best friends last Christmas and I never got to use them until August this year. I saw them collecting dust under our kitchen table, so I took them out for a spin and came up with my first batch of red velvet cupcakes. 

And they came out fine. Some people thought they were good, good thing I didn't. So I kept on looking for the perfect red velvet cupcake recipe. Five recipes after, I took what I thought was each recipe's strength and came up with my own version.

They are moist, dense, and packed with a killer cream cheese frosting. I made them bigger too, coz the regular cupcakes don't seem enough. haha! 

***

Then I wanted to make another discovery. I created dark chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting. 

They came out nice too, but I had to do something about the very sweet peanut butter frosting. I wanted something different from the frosting. I know it has to taste like peanut butter, but I wanted it to taste like a frosting too, and not just peanut butter on top of a cupcake. So I tweaked it a little bit and came up with this amazing and a personal favorite, Peanut Butter Cups. I added Chocnut on top for novelty. 

***

But  just like Einstein, I didn't stop there. I wanted something with booze since I love drinking. I found my soulmate in Kahlua cupcakes. I love the fact that the cakes are drizzled with booze, and the cream cheese frosting has Kahlua too. It was amazing. 20%vol in every bite! Gah!

But the booze made the cupcake too dry, so I had to throw in a few sour cream scoops to make the bread more dense and moist. Now it's perfect! 

***

Finally completing my final four is the black-bottom cupcake. I wanted to do a complicated-sounding cupcake, one that looks difficult to do. Well, here it is. I wasn't expecting the custard texture on top since they looked like chocolate marble cupcakes from the photos. But yeah, they're like egg tarts on top of a chocolate cupcake. I tried cooling them in the fridge and they were amazing! 

Though instead of using chopped dark chocolates, I used chocolate chips for the cream cheese filling. They aren't too sweet, but perfectly moist and just plain wonderful. I am proud of my black-bottom cupcakes. 

So there's my cupcake kitchen story. 

Wanna hear more? 

As a kid, I've always wanted to become a chef, not a pastry chef, but a chef that cooks mealtime food. But I wasn't allowed to play with fire back then. And so I thought I wanted to bake because it involves no open fire, and the concept of having a liquid batter turn into something solid like bread is amazing to us kids back then. Magic, ganun. 

Mom got me an Oven Toaster ready banana cake mix from the grocery one day. It contains what looked like plain flour to me. I just mix it with water, an egg and a banana. Easy diba? It came out fine I guess. But I didn't eat it, I didn't think banana cake tasted like what cakes ought to be. Where's the icing? The colorful happy birthday fonts on top? Shame. My yaya had to eat it. I thought I wasn't good at baking at all. Tried the instant chocolate crinkles instead, burnt them. 

I told this horrible and traumatic story to my friends, and one ended up teaching me how to work around the oven. I made alien green velvet cupcakes. 

Now I think I can bake. =D 

***

Wadough's is for all the kids out there who stopped trying because they think it's too darn hard to bake, or you'll overcook it and you have to eat it by yourself coz you made your mom pay for it, or your dough simply won't rise. 

But here's what I learned. Back then, I didn't understand what fahrenheit or celsius meant. I didn't know that baking soda and vinegar react violently when mixed together. I didn't know you can still divide half a cup and call it 1/4 cup. I didn't know a lot of things, so I failed. But hey, I know them now, and finally I can make doughs rise. I can make them moist or dry if I want them to. 

All because I studied math and science. Biology is different. You don't learn that in school. It's crap.

So there. I'm trying to be funny and smart, I hope it worked. 

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