~italian carinderia~
Yes, the title is correct. If
you’re not familiar about “carinderia” or “karinderya”, it is a Filipino term
for an eatery. So yes, this post is about an italian eatery which is very common in Italy,
found in many of its sidewalks. But no, I didn’t go to Italy just to eat in their yummy eateries (how I
wish!), rather this special eatery is found in Dumaguete City.
.
As you can see this eatery is sorely lacking in ambiance.
Monstrous ugly signages welcome you to an open-air eatery which is right in
front of Dumaguete’s main street. Thus, all you’ll hear are traffic sounds
(mostly of tricycles and motorbikes) plus the chatter of the personnel and the
whirring of an electric fan. The store is decorated mostly of Italian
knickknacks and airplanes. The lady owner (a Filipino married to a former
Italian pilot) was there when I ate and she said that they have a hotel in the
nearby province where the centerpiece is an airplane! Meaning, they have a nonfunctioning
airplane in the resort which was converted into a restaurant with nautical
details. Cool huh?? There were some pictures of the hotel in the eatery’s walls
but I was unable to take pics of those. Anyway, despite the lack of ambiance,
the eatery was still a haven because of its yummy comforting smells from the
baking oven. However the oven was steel, not the brick type (think of
Picobello’s oven) which is requisite for true-blue Italian cooking. The oven is
at the left side of the picture below:
.
So, the eatery is also a bakery! And almost every
3-4hours, they have fresh Italian buns. Mmm, they were good! And cheap!
Its for only P6 apiece and very filling at that. Most of the customers I saw
were there to buy the buns and gelato (Italian ice cream) and thus the buns
were rapidly gone (no one ate pizzas like me, tsk!). To continue, the eatery’s
interior was divided into 2 parts: the left (if you’re facing the entrance)
consists of the bakery, cooking area, cashier, etc while the right portion has
plastic tables and chairs for eating. Very basic and coupled with a view like
this–
–you know you’re definitely not paying for the ambiance,
LOL! I forgot the pizza type I ordered but it was definitely worth the price I
paid for it =) The pizzas were pricey (just a bit cheaper than Picobello which
has great ambiance!) for a place like this but the taste is truly authentic
Italian. Fresh tomato paste (with tomato flesh!), lots of cheese and olive
oil, chewy thin crust, all baked to perfection. Delicioso!!! Despite my
huge appetite, I still wasn’t able to finish the 8 slices so I took home the
leftovers which I ate the next morning. Surprisingly, the crust was not soggy
and the pizza still tasted great. Here’s a closer view of the pizza:
Doesn’t look great huh? And served on a paper plate pa, my
goodness! Hehe! But as I said earlier, it lacked the finer points of an Italian
resto– it is, after all, just a sidewalk eatery! But one that is worth
coming back to =)