Finding Boston Cafe (04-Sep-2008)

Things have been going so fine this day that there has to be a glitch somewhere.

We asked Harold to recommend restaurants in Dumaguete City. One of his recommendations was Boston Cafe. Bee and I decided to eat there this evening. Bee called Harold on the phone and was given directions how to get there. While they were talking, Harold would interchange Boston Market with Boston Cafe.

The cafe was supposed to be walking distance from the hostel, and one of the Boston Cafe flyers we found pegged on the corkboard (people could peg flyers and calling cards on the corkboard to advertise services and establishments) even had a map of the place ... it was at the corner of Hibbard Avenue and E.J. Blanco, and along Piapi. Bee and I stopped by the front desk to once more ask directions.

I didn't mind walking but Bee would rather take a tricycle, so we did. The driver didn't speak Tagalog or English and worst, didn't know where Boston Cafe was. He was driving in what we thought was the opposite direction so we told him to stop and we flagged down another tricycle driver to ask him if he knew where Boston Cafe was and if he could tell our driver how to get us there. We still ended up lost so we told the driver to drop us off at the Mercury Drug Store.

Bee was already stressed out but I still managed to keep cool even when it started to rain hard. We decided to ask directions from the people in the drugstore. One of the customers spoke perfect taglish (he he he - I never thought I would be joyful to hear someone speak taglish) and she immediately recognized the name as she associated the cafe with pizzas. She told us to tell the driver to park in front of Foodnet, a place every tricycle driver in Dumaguete is familiar with. We thanked her profusely as she stepped out of the drugstore with her kid in tow.

We waited for the rainfall to turn into somewhere near a drizzle (but not quite) before stepping out and flagging down another tricycle with instructions to drive us to Boston Cafe which is in front of Foodnet. As we stepped out of the tryke, there was no doubt that we were in front of Boston Cafe, but the spa and Bamboo Wall that Harold said were landmarks to look for were nowhere in sight.

Boston Cafe looks like a country inn from the outside that I was a bit surprised to find out from the menu that it served Italian food like pizza and pasta.

The chairs had big backrests but didn't look sturdy that Bee requested to be given a different, stronger chair. The waitress obliged and pulled a heavier wooden chair from the outside.

While we were looking over the menu, I couldn't help but ask the waitress if Boston Cafe had a another outlet. She said that they have a branch along Piapi.

Bingo! We were in Boston Cafe's main branch ... Harold was giving us directions to another outlet which is why we couldn't see any of the landmarks he gave us. The waitress then said that the branch is actually called Basil Tree. It was at this point that I got annoyed with Harold and his directions. It's hard to find a place if you have the wrong name to start with. To clarify things: Boston Cafe USED to be called Boston Market, its branch along Hibbarb Ave. is called Basil Street.

Anyway, I jokingly pointed out to Bee that the moral of the story is: the next time someone says a place is walking distance, we walk.

We ordered a pizza because the lady in the drugstore seemed to think the pizzas here tasted good. We also ordered pasta and salad.

It's a good thing we ordered pasta and salad. They used the right mix of herbs and spices on those dishes. The pizza was a disappointment. I only ate one slice and Bee didn't even finish the slice she took. It's like eating 3M pizza.

According to Bee, the dough wasn't good to start with and they didn't use mozarella cheese. I had a problem with the toppings, but she was right, it starts with the dough. We ended up asking the waitress to pack the rest of the pizza so that we could take it back to the hostel and give it to the lady at the front desk. We figured the staff would like the pizza since they recommended the restaurant.

Bee had earlier asked the waitress where we could eat dessert as the Boston Cafe menu didn't have dessert. She recommended eating at nearby Sans Rival. Unfortunately, Bee and I were too full for dessert when we finished our pasta and salad. Sans Rival Pastry Shop of Dumaguete is actually well known.