Dinner at Via Mare

We had an impromptu girls night out the other day. The venue was Rockwell and the only choice to eat at was Via Mare. Well Pat requested it since she still craved for Filipino food. I didn’t mind since I always crave for Via Mare’s bibingka.

Their pancit luglog was a big disappointment. It didn’t have any taste. I had to drown it with patis (fish sauce) and calamansi unlike the uber yummy pancit malabon I had at Deb’s house.
By the way, these are the first pictures taken with my new camera the Panasonic G1. Any improvement? I noticed the pictures came out brighter even though the lighting in the restaurant was a bit muted.

arroz caldo goto P130/ chicken 160

crispy binagoongan P275

pasta with walnuts

The following are a showcase of the best Filipino desserts. Via Mare does it best. Bibingka is a rice cake cooked over charcoal and topped with either salted eggs or in this case cheese. It’s also served with freshly grated coconut. This is a dense, slightly chewy, sweet cake. Think pancake with the density of a bagel and you have bibingka.

bibingka w/ queso de bola P120

Puto bumbong is made from ground rice and steamed in special tubes. It is then topped with butter and served with a special kind of brown sugar and cheese. You may have noticed we like mixing sweet and salty elements in our desserts.

puto bumbong w/ cheddar cheese P77

The white mound in the middle is glutinous rice cooked with coconut milk and sweetened with some sugar. Add some mangoes and you have another rice based dessert. Hmm did we just eat an entire carb based meal???

puto maya P126

Palitaw definitely tastes better than it looks. It’s another dessert made from sweet rice flour and topped with grated coconut, sugar and sesame seeds.

palitaw P38

A note to the readers. We’ve tried several Via Mare outlets around town and have come to a conclusion that the franchise stores like the ones in Mall of Asia and Serendra don’t serve the same quality of food specially the bibingka. It was really yucky compared to the ones served in Rockwell and Greenhills which are consistently good. So I suggest if you need to get your bibingka fix head on to Rockwell, Greenhills and Landmark Makati only.

Via Mare

Ground Floor Rockwell Center
Rockwell Drive cor. Estrella St.,
Makati City Metro Manila
telephone: 898-1305

Greenhills Promenade
Greenhills Shopping Center

San Juan, Metro Manila

telephone: 726-8931