Cafeño's crisp tulingan strips (first cooked as a paksiw then fried) with fresh eggplants, achara, and garlic rice

On the road to Laiya, I chanced upon an antique house on General Luna Street corner Rizal Street in the poblacion of San Juan, Batangas. It used to be the site of an old Mobil Station in the post-World War II era, but now, the house is a quaint café called Cafeño.

Many offerings possess the old Batangueño charm and character with barako coffee as their potent house brew, a spicy, smoky, roast with a light layer of crema on top from their small machine. The menu contains many surprises with the panache of provincial flavors.

I had a plate of tulingan strips fried with crispy exteriors. The tulingan (bullet tuna) was first cooked as a paksiw with ginger, fish sauce, and coco crème, and then fried.

This was served with a sweetish brown Cafeño sauce with side slices of sweet and probably market fresh eggplants (I’ve never had eggplants this fresh before), which were the small, round, green type. Homemade achara pickles and garlic rice completed my plate as I enjoyed the simple county fare to my last grain.

My son, Gino, ordered a waffle combo, after being tempted by a beautiful looking professional waffle machine displayed on the bar. We got excited as the waitress served a plate of homemade ham with glaze accompanied by freshly cooked waffles that were crisp and finely corrugated in the French Gauffrettes style.

Glady Zamora, our catering event planner to the stars, ordered a beautifully piled plate of very crisp chicken adobo flakes, lightly sweetish and redolent of long simmering in vinegar and soy sauce.

Another item on the menu that tickled our curiosities was the Sweet Tamales or sticky rice served with a coco jam sauce. The tamales, which turned out to be suman lapad, was very reminiscent of the old county flavor as its cooking in wood smoke was quite obvious.

Their ice creams, like the barako coffee, are served with chocolate syrup and pinipig crispies. This is not the creamy type one expects. It may be quite icy and refreshing for this humid season, but I rather think of it as a low-fat milk sorbet or granite because it is still fluffy and well textured.

Just as refreshing is the Buco-Lychee ice cream, which I believe could even be best, without their chocolate syrup though.

I would definitely be back for this on the next trip I make to this beach area.

Also on my next trip, I’d like to satisfy my curiosity on their champorado combination of tuyo or dried fish flakes, fried saba (plantains), and sweet milk chocolate rice gruel made with their native chocolate.

Definitely, it’s a place worth coming back to even for us food professionals. They even score high marks for their eggs. They surprisingly have a knack for cooking over and easy eggs better than most pros we know.

This is definitely a café Batangueños can be proud of.