AdventureScapes

Crescent Moon Cafe Culinary Experience
Angono Petroglyphs
Art Houses: Nemiranda and Blanco Museums
Balaw Balaw Restaurant: An Extraordinary Fare

So maybe the exotic menu of this restaurant is perhaps the weirdest selection I've ever come across up until now, but that's what makes the Balaw Balaw Restaurant a great attraction.

The Balaw Balaw restaurant is pretty close to Nemiranda's Art House and in fact, when we came, Nemesio Miranda was presiding over a meeting with (I presume) other artists. Perhaps the Atelier he founded? We were too shy to come forward and talk to him. We recognized him from the photos we saw at his Art House.

The wild boar and breaded frog legs dishes. They don't look scary at all.

I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised but really, to find out that the restaurant doubled as a folk art museum, brought our art tour to a whole new level. That meant every single place we visited today was an art stop, even the restaurants. Lol.

The owner and artist of the restaurant is Perdigon Vocalan, now deceased. His paintings and sculptures can be found mostly on the second floor of the restaurant.

I wanted to try the creepiest dish (in my opinion anyway), which was the uok, or beetle larvae, but my companions weren't as adventurous. So we ended up ordering the wild boar, breaded frog legs and a minaluto, which were decidedly less risky than the other exotic dishes. A minaluto is a huge basket with everything on it: pork, salted eggs, chicken, fish, squid, clams, shrimp, various vegetables and a huge mountain of yellow fried rice on a bed of banana leaves. A single order of this was enough to satisfy our group, which was composed of seven people. I found it to be really delicious.

The delicious minaluto

Other exotic dishes were frogs marinated in wine, crickets, cow butt and balls, aborted duck eggs (balut) in banana leaves, and freshwater eel. I'd like to return one day to try one of these.

This final destination ended our Angono Art Tour teambuilding activity and we went home with a higher sense of cultural knowledge about the Philippines.

Balaw Balaw Specialty Restaurant: Folk Art 16 Dona Justa Street, Angono Rizal
Contact No: 651-0110

Crescent Moon Cafe Culinary Experience
Angono Petroglyphs
Art Houses: Nemiranda and Blanco Museums
Balaw Balaw Restaurant: An Extraordinary Fare

Next on our list was the Nemiranda Art House, owned by Nemesio Miranda, Jr. He is a well know painter and sculptor, and his works can be seen all over Angono. In 1975, he founded the Angono Atelier Association, the first group in Angono to popularize sculpture in concrete.

Nemiranda's Gallery

The Art House itself, was surrounded by huge sculptures of his work, often mythical figures in graceful poses. This particular sculpture below is known as the Mermaid of Angono.

The gallery of paintings showcase the paintings of Nemiranda and his children. I think I was more interested in exploring the house. It just had so many twists and turns, and was by itself, a form of art. In my opinion, anyway. Lol.

The Mermaid of Angono

Our next stop was the Blanco Family Museum. On the way, we were awestruck by the sheer number of sculptures, murals and paintings that lined the streets of Angono. If we had more time, I wouldn't mind just walking along the streets to get a better look on the art pieces.

Did you know that there is a family from Angono whose every member is an accomplished painter? The head of the family is renowned artist Jose "Pitok" Blanco. All his seven children are gifted painters and their museum showcases their work.

Done by one of Pitok's children

The gallery is arranged from the works of the youngest Blanco child up to the father, Jose Blanco. The children's works had their ages posted together with the painting. Even at 7 years old, the Blanco children's work rivaled professional painters. As the children grew older, their styles became more developed and the vast improvement of their skills really shone through.

Jose's wife, Loreto "Loring" Blanco, also paints but she started much later, at the age of 48. Jose Blanco was inspired by the works of Botong Francisco. One of his works I particularly liked was the Filipino version of the Last Supper, where a group of 13 fishermen dined on shrimps they caught.

The man who is bent over is said to be "Judas"

The "Angono Fisherman's Festival" is also considered to be Pitok's Obra Maestra. All the people depicted in this painting were people Pitok personally knew and he obtained permission from each one to include them in his masterpiece. Pitok also painted himself and his family in this painting.

Angono Fisherman's Festival

Interestingly, the Blanco Family logo was an upturned fish with a bulging belly. The museum guide explained that Jose Blanco was the son of a fisherman and people often called him "Pitok Bunggan" because he was bald with a huge stomach, vaguely resembling an upturned fish when he was asleep.

All too soon, it was time to go and we needed to heed the calls of our growling stomachs.

Crescent Moon Cafe Culinary Experience
Angono Petroglyphs
Art Houses: Nemiranda and Blanco Museums
Balaw Balaw Restaurant: An Extraordinary Fare

Information on the Petroglyhs from the mini-museum

Therefore, there was no better place to be the home of the oldest work of art in the Philippines, the Angono Petroglyphs. These are 127 human and animal figures carved onto the surface of a rock that dates back to 3000 BC.

From Crescent Moon Cafe, we travelled to Fiesta Resort and Casino in Binangonan, since this was the site of the petroglyphs. See the map below.

Map to the Angono Petroglyphs. Click to enlarge.

Before actually going to the petroglyphs, we passed through a short, unlit tunnel and took a five-minute walk to the mini-museum. There was an entrance fee of I think Php 20 or Php 30 per person. I can't really remember. A guide accompanied us to the viewing deck.

The figures

I could make out a turtle, some frogs, and a group of people gathered in a circle for some sort of celebration. It was unfortunate that erosion has caused some of the figures to be less discernible.

I learned that this site was discovered by Carlos V. Francisco, popularly known as Botong Francisco and (surprise) a National Artist of Visual Arts. Didn't I mention already that this place had a lot of National artists?


 Today, the Department of Tourism and the National Museum are trying to preserve this heritage site, and it is listed as one of the Cultural Treasures of the Philippines.

Crescent Moon Cafe Culinary Experience
Angono Petroglyphs
Art Houses: Nemiranda and Blanco Museums
Balaw Balaw Restaurant: An Extraordinary Fare

Crescent Moon Cafe Interior

A co-worker suggested that our first stop would be at Crescent Moon Cafe in Antipolo. We were supposed to have brunch here but we late in starting so it became lunch, instead.

Feeding the koi

We left Ortigas at 10am and arrived at Crescent Moon at around 12 noon. The place has a very homely feel.  It is owned by Lanelle Abueva-Fernando, the niece of the National Artist for Sculpture, Napoleon Abueva.

This restaurant is unusual in that it has no set menu. You walk in and order whatever is the dish of the day. It's still guaranteed to be awesome. While waiting for our meal, we had fun exploring the place.

It was obvious that careful thought and love went to building the restaurant, with small personal touches here and there, like the crescent shaped tiles in the walkway, or the shell and starfish windchimes. There was also a pottery workshop, while the finished pieces were displayed in the restaurant.

It was a pleasant surprise when we were handed a small bowl of fish food to feed the huge koi in the pond. One of them vaccuumed the food straight from my hand!

Appetizer

The restaurant is famous for its's appetizer, called the alagaw. The alagaw leaf is said to contain medicinal properties and it is used as a wrapper to hold the ingredients such as bean paste, dried shrimp, minced onions and coconut shavings.

We had fun wrapping them in the alagaw leaf and taking a bite. The taste is unusual but definitely a must try! Next, we were served a bowl of pumpkin soup that I positively enjoyed. I'm not usually a fan of vegetables but I really liked that soup. Lol.

The rest of our meal proved to be just as awesome. I can't name them though. I'm not good at cooking and can never identify half of what I eat. Lol. Let me just say that the food was great and leave it at that.

Suman with mango

I know the desert, though. It was suman (sticky rice cake wrapped in coconut leaves) with a slice of mango. The suman was so delicious that we bought a dozen more to take home.

On weekdays, meals cost Php 350 and Php 450 on weekends. It's also a good idea to make a reservation first so that you won't have to wait too long for the food. You can reach them at 658-3866 or 09175232356.


A map to Crescent Moon Cafe is provided below.

Map to Crescent Moon Cafe via Ortigas

Next, we headed to Angono to see the ancient Petroglyphs.