Restaurante Pia Y Damaso
Padre Damaso is the controversial friar in Jose Rizal's Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. In these novels, Pia, the childless wife of Kapitan Tikong (or was it Kapitan Tiago, I forget), makes a confession to Padre Damaso, and after a supposed secret romantic tryst, suddenly gives birth to the beautiful Maria Clara. While a bit scandalous, historically this tale of lust and seduction was a commonplace happening in nineteenth century Philippines, and Rizal cleverly uses this as a background story to showcase his brand of nationalism. Now, a Filipino restaurant in Greenbelt 5 has taken on the name Pia y Damaso, and the owners have created a fair combination of local favorites named after characters in Rizal's famous novels. Vicky & I found ourselves losing steam after a long day of shopping around the mall, and so we stopped at the restaurant to have dinner. We had a good time browsing through the names of the food, and had to dig hard into our memory banks to remember Rizal's plot (this was a must read in school) to make sense of the names. Ultimately, I decided on the tapang usa (dried venison) and Vicky tried the marinated beef strips (which she disappointingly found a trifle difficult to chew). I like venison very much, and I thought that their tapa version had that delicious gamey scent without going overboard or rough on the palate. Just served right with a little garlic-vinegar dip on the side. For some reason, we were given a special dessert, tocino del cielo, on the house! All in all, we spent some P550 per head.
Padre Damaso is the controversial friar in Jose Rizal's Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. In these novels, Pia, the childless wife of Kapitan Tikong (or was it Kapitan Tiago, I forget), makes a confession to Padre Damaso, and after a supposed secret romantic tryst, suddenly gives birth to the beautiful Maria Clara. While a bit scandalous, historically this tale of lust and seduction was a commonplace happening in nineteenth century Philippines, and Rizal cleverly uses this as a background story to showcase his brand of nationalism. Now, a Filipino restaurant in Greenbelt 5 has taken on the name Pia y Damaso, and the owners have created a fair combination of local favorites named after characters in Rizal's famous novels. Vicky & I found ourselves losing steam after a long day of shopping around the mall, and so we stopped at the restaurant to have dinner. We had a good time browsing through the names of the food, and had to dig hard into our memory banks to remember Rizal's plot (this was a must read in school) to make sense of the names. Ultimately, I decided on the tapang usa (dried venison) and Vicky tried the marinated beef strips (which she disappointingly found a trifle difficult to chew). I like venison very much, and I thought that their tapa version had that delicious gamey scent without going overboard or rough on the palate. Just served right with a little garlic-vinegar dip on the side. For some reason, we were given a special dessert, tocino del cielo, on the house! All in all, we spent some P550 per head.
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