Now Brewing in Laguna

I now appreciate the fascination for craft beer.  Friends have started brewing these in the neighborhood  (their capacity and the facility is large, to my mind, I hesitate to call it "home brewing").

They had us sample them, and I enjoyed the first one I tasted. (We happened to have spicy chicken wings along with the surprise bottles. Good timing!)

Tuff Tuko with every sip somehow brought me back to Baguio...Baguio just last January.  I couldn't put my finger on it, but there was certainly something "woody" about it. 

Then my friend sent me this flyer, and I also then read the label..."pine hops"...no wonder...!

So what do I appreciate about their beers? Fresh tasting, just the bitterness of beer but no bitter aftertaste.  I've had pilsner in Prague and aside from Baguio memories...this reminded me of the Czech republic. Really.

Merry Christmas friends and family...these are coming your way when I see you!

Moving to Cavite...

  The subject line had been drafted some months ago, but I never had the time to actually post about this subject. Heck I have not had the time to post anything period.

   Still none now, except to maybe post this photo of Buffy's buffalo milk and ice cream store's porch wall*.  No direct connection to the subject other than Buffy's being located in bgy. Lumil, Silang, Cavite (on the road to Tagaytay), and my childhood fascination with bamboo and interior design, added to the interest in cottage/flea market/vintage coming together in this place.

   

    Buffy's sells fresh carabao milk and really delicious carabao's milk ice cream. They also have pastillas de leche ...one of the best I have tasted. I have made my own pastillas using carabao's milk and I love my own, but I bought theirs rather than mix up a batch. Again, I have little time (or poor management of it), and if you know how to make pastillas, you know how long and how much arm muscle it takes.

     Back to the porch wall, and Buffy's interiors in general.  I especially noted today, that Buffy's Lutong Bahay Filipino restaurant on the second floor actually is able to combine style elements I have had percolating for some time. That is...  

       ...it has their basic white, white wooden tables and benches, picket fence, farmhouse, cottage, dairy look...but upstairs, bamboo-lined walls, Filipino windows, and bamboo vases on the same white wood tables and chairs.  

      The only thing I'm not sure about is the plastic greenery, flowers, and random little plastic birds lining the walls...but really, they're consistent all over, that I can overlook the fact that I prefer real leaves and flowers.
It gives the place a lot of originality anyway, and hey, less upkeep all around!
Their flourescent light bulbs are bordered by bamboo, too.

      I've always felt it seemed a quaint place to take little children for ice cream...   

      Now I see how I might be able to achieve those two design elements after all---whitewashed cottage and natural color bamboo/native materials.  It is doable.

      Their milk and ice cream are enough for a stopover or ultimate destination.  But it is nice that the owners still took care to make the place pretty too.
     
*  Those birdhouses? They are sold along the road to Tagaytay too by one seller...