When I first saw the cafe I immediately thought, “This is a good place to have breakfast!” By Betty Samson
The talk of our residential village recently was a new café which opened last November called Hazel’s Café. It was the answer to many of the local residents’ desire for a friendly café they could just take a leisurely walk to for lunch or dinner. The café was a welcome addition to the small commercial Village Corner at the Beverly Hills subdivision because its prices were affordable and the cooking was delicious.
The café was not only accessible to the local residents it was also along the old zigzag road leading to the Antipolo cathedral, some 500 meters away from the age-old “Tayo na sa Antipolo” welcome arch.
When business owners Hazel Rosettes and Regie Santos spotted the vacant commercial space they liked it immediately. They saw a café far from passing smoke belching vehicles arriving to Antipolo yet inviting enough for its ambiance under the trees.
L-R: It’s both a sidewalk and an indoor cafe. You can sit outside and people-watch, or you can sit inside and bring your work. Chef Hazel and Resto Manager Regie.
When I first saw the café I immediately thought, “This is a good place to have breakfast!” You can sit and enjoy the cool fresh Antipolo air with your morning cup of coffee.
You have a choice of two all-day breakfast platters to choose from. The servings are generous so either bring a friend or come really hungry. There’s the Best of Three which is composed of 2 sunny side up eggs, garlic rice, danggit from the Bantayan Island of Cebu, longganisa from Cabanatuan, beef tapa made by Hazel herself, and a vegetable relish.
Your other choice is the Sausage, Bacon, Eggs and Toast Platter.
L-r: Sausage, Bacon, Eggs and Toast Platter; Best of Three Platter; coffee along the sidewalk; spicy sisig — very hot!
L-r: Indoor dining at the cafe; the cafe at night
The café was the brainchild of Hazel and Regie, both Industrial Engineering graduates. But Hazel had always loved to cook. She first had a catering business serving small groups then graduated to try a grillery in her town in Cabanatuan. After Hazel took a chef’s culinary course she created her own signature dishes. She also bakes the café’s cakes, breads andpastries at the house. Regie is the store manager.
The cafe also serves meals. Here are some of them including the baked creations Chef/Eng. Hazel makes herself (photos supplied by Chef Hazel).
Photo: Beef-Ox Tripe Karekare
Photos L-r: Dinuguan Rice with Lechon Kawali;Sausage Gambas
L-r from top clockwise: Ferrero-Strawberry cake;Bibingka Cheesecake;Croissant with cinnamon; Choco-Strawberry Cake
Hazel’s Cafe is open from 9am to 9pm.
( All photos unless otherwise indicated, are by the author)
The poor man’s porridge (locally known as lugaw) became a king’s feast that day. By Betty Samson
Photo above: Take your pick — 67 ways to enjoy your lugaw.
Congee, known locally as lugaw, is a rice porridge. Glutinous (sticky) rice is slowly cooked in a chicken broth until very soft then is flavored with salt. That is the base. It was originally considered a poor man’s porridge from where the additional flavors, spices, and toppings depended on what was availble around the house or backyard.
From here a myriad of combinations evolved. Becaiuse the soup base was so simple it invited an endless play of suggestions, until the dish rose to prominence as a convenient and nourishing all-in-one meal to students, motorists, employees, and public transportation drivers.
But nothing can beat thebirthday bash of Lanelle Abueva-Fernando when she celebrated her birthday with a lugawan to end all lugawans. Owner of Crescent Moon Cafe along Sapang Buho Road in Barangay Dali in Antipolo City, Lanelle loaded a long table at the cafe with 67 lugaw toppings to mark each year of her successful life. The guests were overwhelmed with the array of choices. Now was their chance to try different combinations and flavors. Everything was all there at the table. Each guest had their rice porridge ladled into bowls from a hot steaming vat on a separate table. Then off they went to the main course table to face their life’s decisions.
Filipinos eat rice as a main staple in their meals so the lugaw was nothing new except that it’s soggy rice in a soup base. You can eat anything with rice anyway. So Lanelle’s lugawan buffet remained true to form, serving up every conceivable food item you can pair with rice.
After you’ve chosen your meats and vegetables to add to your lugaw the next stop would be how to blend your flavors with condiments and spices so you can have a flavorful bowl. If you’re not happy with your first “experiment,” try again.
How do you survive a lugawan? Don’t eat breakfast that day.
I first saw Crescent Moon Cafe when it was in its infant stage in 1996. I met Lanelle’s late husband, Atty. Teodoro (Bey) Cordero Fernando who had a daring idea of not handing their customers a menu for them to choose what they’d like to order. Instead, Fernando, with his penchant for southeast asian cuisine, cooked what inspired him to whip up for that day and whatever he brought out from the kitchen — was what the guests were to eat. The dining concept dared the adventurous spirit in guests game for anything new. The Cafe grew and developed a loyal following through the years.
Lanelle, meanwhile, who studied ceramic pottery in Japan, opened a pottery studio adjacent to the cafe where she produced her signature handmade ceramic table ware, pottery, jars and vases. Visitors can always pass by the studio to view and bring home any of her creations.
Crescent Moon Cafe and Pottery Barn serves, what Lanelle calls, “Asian Fusion” cuisine. Guests now have a menu when they sit down to order. The Cafe offers several interesting dishes such as the DuckChoy — mixed duck dumplings with bakchoy and fried duck skin in reduced duck broth; Tahjang — deep fried tamarind-glazed beef ribs with Thai basil; and a signature of the Cafe and a favorite through the years, — the appetizer set of basil, coconut, chili, ginger, onion, green mango, dried shrimp, and peanut sauce which you wrap with a fresh alagao leaf. And pop into your mouth.
Crescent Moon Cafe and Pottery Barn is open 9am to 5pm, Wednesday to Sunday.
They come in droves, a sea of humanity streaming along the streets like water from a gushing river, walking and plodding determinedly to reach a domed cathedral at the top of a hill in upland Antipolo, Rizal province. Years ago this crowd of long-distance trekkers reached a record five million.
This is the phenomenal Alay Lakad of Catholic devotees in the Philippines.
This “Walk Offering” more popularly called Alay Lakad starts on the afternoon of Maundy Thursday every year of Holy Week. All throughout my growing up years I’ve heard of this but have never joined it. I was young then, preferred social activities with friends than all that religious fervor on the streets.
Last year I saw these trekkers up close. I had moved up to Antipolo City already. That was my first Holy Week in this pilgrimage capital of the Philippines. Coming home after a lunch with cousins I turned into Ortigas Extension one late afternoon and saw them streaming along the sidewalks moving toward one direction. Mostly young people headed toward the hills of Antipolo. My companion and I marveled and pointed to occasional sights: a kid riding in a stroller pushed by the parents, participants in flat rubber slippers, snall bands of bikers on foot, a thirsty crowd around a coconut juice stand, stations of the cross with loudspeaker blaring out prayers, water and snack stands practically every 3 meters along the way, first aid stations, police assistance centers, resting tents, portable bathrooms, etc.
As I turned into the new neighborhood where I now lived police marshals remarked it was good I had arrived already. In 30 minutes or so they were going to close the entire road to vehicles. The Alay Lakad participants will have the entire boulevard to themselves all the way to the Antipolo church.
Were they that many?
Old timers suggested I should see the Alay Lakad in the evening when the numbers of these trekkers increase. By 9pm that night I went out to the boulevard where they had been walking since their arrival to town. The crowds had gotten thicker. The zigzag road leading up to Antipolo from Ortigas Extension was closed to traffic and the whole road was packed with people.
All roads leading to the Antipolo church are filled with Alay Lakad trekkers. The approach from the Ortigas Extension gave the best experience. The entire stretch from the Tikling rotunda down in Cainta all the way up to the Antipolo church becomes one solid mass of humanity.
One water vendor nearby remarked we should stay and watch the crowd till midnight. It becomes so thick, he remarked, you cannot drop a pin on the street (di mo mahulugan ng karayom).
Devotees of this practice pass the tradition down to their children who, in turn, continue the pilgrimage when they become of age. Upon arriving at the cathedral, though there’s no Mass and the doors close by midnight, they linger and fill the plaza to rest and wait until the dawn Mass of the following day. Others proceed to the age-old Hinulugang Taktak national park to pass the night. It’s the only time of the year, a park attendant told me, where the park is open 24 hours because of the Alay Lakad.
The Antipolo church is swarmed by devotees, many of whom have just arrived as Alay Lakad trekkers.
Object of veneration in the Antipolo church is a small image of the Blessed Virgin which was carved out of a dark hardwood in Acapulco, Mexico in the 1600s. When Don Juan Nino de Tavora was assigned to serve as Governor-General to the Philippines, then a colony of Spain, he was faced with the dilemma of how he could make it safely across the vast Pacific Ocean. Voyages across the ocean in those days was extremely dangerous. Ships faced storms, shipwrecks, piracy, and other dangers including fire, epidemic or mutiny onboard. Being a devotee of the Blessed Virgin Tavora had a small image of her made to accompany him on his travel to his new assignment. The small image arrived with Tavora on Philippine shores safely in 1626 after a 4-month travel surviving a series of typhoons and a fire onboard.
Upon the death of Tavora in 1632 the image was bequeathed to the Jesuits. The Jesuits were evangelizing in the forested hills east of Manila. When Fr. Pedro Chirino, historian, was appointed parish priest of Antipolo, he brought along the litle brown image. Never did Tavora imagine that his little brown Marian image would go on to carve out a long history that survived wars, invasions, 10 crossings of the Pacific Ocean, even an epidemic. The image quickly became a favorite world traveller. Ship captains and crew would borrow her before journeying across the Pacific during those two and a half centuries of the Galleon Trade. The Virgin of Antipolo crossed the Pacific on five galleon ships from Acapulco, Mexico from 1641-1746. Each ship arrived on Philippine shores then journeyed back to Mexico (and vice versa) with both goods and passengers aboard safely each time.
In one journey in 1653 in a galleon ship the San Diego, Sabiniano de Lara was onboard to assume his post in Manila as Governor-General. The ship survived 3 Pacific typhoons. De Lara conferred by public decree on Our Lady of Antipolo the formal title of Nuestra Senyora de la Paz y Buen Viaje (Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage) when he arrived safely on Philippine shores.
In 1746 then Governor-General Most Rev. Juan de Arrechedera, also Bishop of Nueva Segovia, borrowed the image to cross the Pacific and return to Mexico. This was during a period of constant attacks from Dutch and English pirates aware that these galleon ship were rich with their cargo. The governor-general placed his cane, symbol of his authority, in the hands of the Nuestra Senyora as symbol of surrendering his governance in the hands of the Virgin. This act was immortalized for as as you look closely at her image, the little brown Virgin carries, not a scepter but a field marshall’s baton. The ship, the Nuestra Senyora del Pilar, returned back to Acapulco with the governor safely in 1748.
The image was canonically crowned in 1926 by then Archbishop of Manila, Most Rev. Michael O’Doherty. Antipolo church, home to the Nuestra Senyora became a national shrine in 1954, later a cathedral in 1983.
The Alay Lakad began as a commemoration of the Virgin’s return to Antipolo from the Quiapo church in Manila in 1954. During the Japanese occupation of the Philippines in 1940 the invaders made Antipolo a garrison. In 1944 during the Liberation with the arrival of Gen. Douglas MacArthur and his troops Japanese forces retreated to the hills. Devotees fled with the Virgin in a perilous escape though the back forests in the midst of the bombing and burning of the town. This wilderness trail led down to the banks of a tributary where the image was loaded into a canoe (banca) accompanied by the devotees and sailed under cover during the night. The stream joined the Pasig River and led them to Manila. The VIrgin was unloaded at a secluded riverbank and kept in a private residence for a month. She was transferred to the Quiapo church (beside the famous Black Nazarene) until the end of the Second World War. The Nuestra Senyora was carried back to her home in Antipolo on October 15, 1954 by devotees on foot. This was the first Alay Lakad which has since been observed every Maundy Thursday as a commemoration.
A trek beginning at the Quiapo church in Manila is a good 24 kilometers away, to be taken leisurely even if it takes all night with several stopovers at snack booths and drinking stalls dotting the sidewalks. Not everybody starts the walk from the Quiapo church, of course. Devotees flock from all over the Philippines to join in this commemoration and they can start from anywhere they like. Groups who arrive in buses and jeeps alight at an agreed point then walk the rest of the distance. The young will start from wherever their fervor inspires them.
Today the trek is done for a variety of reasons from gratitude for a favor bestowed, love for the Virgin, special requests, penance, and others.
(Above) Like waves of water that wouldn’t stop flowing — devotees kept arriving all night.(Above) Young participants add a touch of fun and Easter with lighted headbands.(Above) An occasional senior Alay Lakad participant (front center in photo) all geared for a long walk. He may have just started from the Tikling rotunda down the hill. That’s a 3-4 kilometer walk good enough for his age.(Above) I saw all sorts: from dog walkers, parents with strollers, Korean students gamely experiencing the culture, and seniors. This trekker (center right) solved his dilemma of lugging a box in his arms by balancing it on his head and practicing his catwalk …(Above) Young girls gather empty plastic drinking bottles to sell in the morning. This must be their 5th sack and the night was still full of arrivals.
Being associated with safe travel, the Nuestra Senyora de la Paz y Buen Viaje is visited by overseas contract Filipino workers and others leaving for abroad to ask for her blessing and protection. The Antipolo church is also a favorite destination of owners of new vehicles who bring their new acquisitions to be blessed by a priest there.
All photos by the author.
(Above) Young devotees take a breather before finishing the last 2 kilometers to the church.
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