Vaccinated and boosted (Thank yous again go to the PH government, Baguio LGU; yes, frontliners/last lines of defense and volunteers, too. Lab-lab to you all.), the city moving into better normal, a powwow was finally set for P3+1. After two years of just keyboard catch ups and virtual hugs, man! AT LAST. \m/
Mangiamo Ristorante and Pizzeria menu. Click for full view.
The usual meeting with two of my favorite people involves gorging on foodstuff to power us on for the chitter-chatter with a few serious hushed discussions sprinkled around. *wink Luckily, I just heard about Mangiamo at the old C Boutique Hotel from Sir Albert of Ozark Diner. And so, a “let’s eat” meeting was set up the next day (Because eatcited much *hihi) at the in-house resto of what is now known as Giraffe Boutique Hotel. (Wait, we didn’t get an answer as to why giraffe, out of all the creatures in the animal kingdom. We’ll just have to remember to ask again when we’re back here.)
Mangiamo’s signature pizza. (“,)
And back at this ristorante is where we want to be as soon as we took a bite out of Chef Giovanni’s signature pizza. Ate Beth was across the table from me when she bit into the crust of her slice when she gave Karla’s pizza-eating style a try of starting from the crust. It’s not like we were silent, but I tell you, I heard the crisp crunch of that crust breaking apart. Cue an angel’s chorus for the elation our tastebuds felt for this moza, truffle oil, scrambled egg, ham, asparagus, pepper, and parmigiano reggiano topped pizzapie. =)
Nicolas pizza Italiana. =]
Since this Let’s Eat Italian resto is also a pizzeria, we focused on the pizzas and also picked out Nicolas. In comparison to Mangiamo, this was a refresher type due to its subdued flavors, just the right slice to calm our palates down. Though I felt like it needed some oil drizzles around to have some moisture to it, and I’m not much into prosciutto, it’s all right. (I’ll live. *harhar) The parma ham strips on top of the pizza was also pretty to look at in tandem with the arugula.
Snippets in Giraffe and Mangiamo. Live the sweet life! =D
Thinking we might as well get a bit from the other sections of the menu, we went with Mescolare l’insalata, a “surprise us” (Say it like Ego does to Remy at the end of Ratatouille movie *hee) kind of salad. Indeed, we were treated to a wonderful sight. Would you look at the beauty?
Mescolare l’insalata.
To be honest, I don’t remember what the salad tasted like since four of us shared the serving for one. I do know, it didn’t taste bad. *tahaha So there’s that.
From the pasta section, we got Spaghetti nero di seppia. You already know what’s in it by the look of it. Whoa, that was a briny sauce the squid ink made. Pro tip, I just alternated that with my prosciutto pizza and it was all balanced. =D
Spaghetti nero di seppia.
Oh, we had a chance meeting there with Chef Cris, who introduced us to her friends, the owners of Giraffe who gave us complimentary drinks – coffee and cappuccino. The Layover episode where an Italian woman was saying matter of factly with a disapproving look: “Cappuccino is black coffee…you drink only during the morning. Please do not drink cappuccino after 11:00 a.m. It sounds strange and definitely you become a tourist.” came to my mind again. I didn’t care. If we’re simply tourist on this day; why not, Chocnut?
Taking a pause at eating for a photo, of course. *hee
The meringues that had macaron-like quality about them were given to us while we waited for our first order to be delivered at the table. How very “Life is short, eat dessert first” eh? =b
Compliments of Mr. Reyes. Thank you, Sir. ^^,
Feeling we still had room for one more pizza pie, we added quattro pormaggi to our list of Mangiamo pizza Italianas enjoyed. The four cheeses in this were moza, parmesan, gorgonzola, and fontina. A taste explosion as with the first one we got with the slight difference because this one doesn’t have truffle oil. I found myself forking some of the cheese here to my last slice of Nicolas. (“,)
Quattro pormaggi. I don’t believe I’ve ever had fontina cheese before. \m/
Amid the face-to-face convo, not a morsel of the dishes we ordered was left on our plates. Tip to crust, lip smacking, fingertip kiss good were the pizzas … That again, we haven’t left the pizzeria yet, we were already thinking about when we’d be back with our other foodie lovies. =]
X marks Mangiamo Ristorante & Pizzeria for good food in Baguio. Into my favorites list, this restaurant goes! I’m (still) eatcited, aren’t you? Let’s eat!
Food:
Service:
Ambiance: Dining area expanded with a balcony. (Yes, COVID is still here so we truly appreciate the distanced tables so we can all keep on keeping safe.)
