Is an upscale gourmet food chain worth the 40-kilometer drive from Manila? For an 11-year-old boy learning photography and yearning to bond with his dad, it is.
The day almost starts with an end. Araw locks himself in his room and threatens not to come out unless I promise to leave my laptop and work at home.
This long ride to Tanay, Rizal—an emerging destination for unplugged travels, weekend riders, and eager foodies—is already 14 months delayed due to my back-to-back work. We have been planning a break-in ride for our scooter, which so far has only seen the predictable, mundane routine of home-school-work commutes.
How do you explain to a child that the work taking you away from him is the very thing that fuels life at home and school? You don’t. You just close the laptop, pray that your small gesture becomes a big memory for him to treasure when it matters, and ride.
One hour and 20 minutes, says Waze, for a sunrise ride from Quezon City to Tanay, where a nine-month-old Dean & DeLuca is perched on a cliff overlooking the Sierra Madre.
This is a definite high road for us. There were months when I was jobless that I took a seven-year-old Araw to all the gotohans and paresans on a culinary budget trip disguised as “immersion.” Life has a way of flipping your luck over again and back.
Meals cement core memories to permanence.
The most vivid memories I have with my dad were the times we ate ispaketchup in Pandacan, Chinese lumpia in Raon, sundo’t kulangot in Baguio, mami in Banawe, and goto in Pasong Tamo. I wish there were more, but Tatay left us when I was six to start another family. I want to be the same with Araw, but very different. Really different.
Glass, steel, and organic
As the crisp mountain air begins to replace the smog of Manila, the landscape shifts. In a row of rustic country inns, rugged campsites, and open-air bulalohans, Dean & DeLuca emerges on the left, just before the sharp right where the road banks.
Where Tanay is raw and earth-toned, this New York-born café is a structure of glass, clean steel, and white marble. Yet, it manages to pay homage to its coordinates. Hanging from the high ceilings is a showcase of organic lamps, their woven textures casting a warm, tropical glow over the otherwise minimalist space. Shelves are lined with eye-catching goods: jars of baked treats, cakes, croissants, and ice cream.
On any given weekend, the parking lot is crowded with premium big bikes and mud-splattered SUVs. Online reviews noted that the parking space could be better, and they were right. But we were just happy our scooter could fit into a small, graveled corner.
The view from the table
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We arrive a little after seven and find a spot near the edge. Araw immediately unslings his camera and shoots the dew-soaked landscape with a quiet excitement that mirrors my own.
I order two Big Breakfasts. It is a choice I regret a minute later; I should have ordered the more expensive Angus Beef Tapa with parsley-pesto rice for me and simply forgotten about my recent retrenchment.
The food arrives. It is a mountain of a meal: artisanal house fennel sausage, smoky bacon, wild mushrooms, fried tomatoes, roasted potatoes, house-made pork and beans, and thick slabs of sourdough. It is a sprawling version of the morning plates we used to share—humongous, beautiful, and costing significantly more than the handful of pares or goto bowls we used to favor.
While I appreciate the herb-forward house fennel sausage, Araw trades it for my bacon, but wishing it were thick-cut like the one we recently had at a hotel café in Pasig.
We eat quietly, finding a rhythm. The crunchy potatoes are perfect with a dip of ketchup and a dash of Tabasco. I thought the sauteed wild mushrooms would overwhelm him, but he eats them without complaint. He even takes a cautious sip of my iced Vietnamese coffee after finishing his peach and mango milkshake.
There is no service water and you have to pay 70 pesos for a bottled one–Araw knows how I can be real stingy on this, especially during bad days. He exclaims it twice, unbelievingly, until I agree and tuck the expense in our shared bag of world complaints.
There is no aircon in this branch but we are not complaining; there is no WiFi too–by design, to spark real conversations and organic connections.
Beyond the difficult start of the morning and the uncertainty of tomorrow, we came here to share a meal. Across the table, against the backdrop of the silent, unjudging mountains, the camera shutter clicks, freezing a moment where a father stays.
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