Cooked with love

I was pleasantly surprised with our accommodations.

- CHIT U. JUAN

The hotel was clean and well-equipped, and for the price of a business hotel, it was very good value. What also made me very happy was that this may be one of the best breakfasts I have had during our travels to coffee lands. You can tell if the cooks are happy because the food, as simple as scrambled eggs with tomatoes and onions, tastes good. I can be very happy when breakfast starts the day right. Our breakfast at this business hotel was very good even if it was simple fare.

Another surprise was the restaurants we went to for dinner. In faraway Valencia City, you may think you can only find a mall restaurant or the usual grilled chicken along the highway. But we had two good dinners in a row. The first café has been around for 10 years already and is called Manna & Quail. To our surprise, the owner, who studied in Manila's Enderun, decided to come home to set up this café in Bukidnon. We had very good staples—dry adobo, pinakbet, and monggo—all well prepared and cooked with love. The second restaurant we went to offered steaks and burgers that Bukidnon is quite famous for. But we chose to have chicken binakol (cooked with young coconut meat) and sinigang soup, both of which were enjoyed by our colleagues. The food is good and the staff is friendly.