Of bull’s balls, white busts, and chubby friends (Balaw Balaw Specialty Restaurant and Art Gallery)

Because there’s nothing quite like sharing cow’s privates to celebrate three decades of being alive. :-P

This year saw most of the Katipips reach the age of *gasp* 30. *gasps again* I know! *gasps for the third time* I could still remember meeting these wide-eyed Physics freshies from 2001, and after almost thirteen years of friendship – and two babies, several master’s degrees, a couple of weddings and an ongoing pregnancy in between – we’ve gone past our 20’s and are now full-fledged, honest-to-goodness adults. Or at least that’s what we’d like to believe. ;-) Alen’s and Eio’s arrived first, and to celebrate, we decided to head over to a famous destination in Angono, Rizal. The group wanted something out of the ordinary (it being a milestone birthday and all), and, well, we got more than what we bargained for.

Balaw Balaw Specialty Restaurant and Art Gallery, as its name suggests, is not your typical Filipino restaurant. On one hand, it’s still traditional, with the smell of musky wood, table settings that are so Pinoy, and an assortment of religious and regional artefacts. On the other hand, you see an eclectic scattering of almost oddball displays (PNoy’s papier-mâché busts, for example), an old piano, and finally, an adjacent gallery displaying pieces from local artists. As they say, mata pa lang, busog ka na.

And then the food.

We knew coming in that we’ll be faced with fare we don’t normally encounter in the city, or anywhere else for that matter. See Balaw Balaw is a restaurant Andrew Zimmern or Joe Rogan will be proud of, thanks to its range of offbeat dishes, featuring proteins and ingredients even Pinoys would consider adventurous. In fact, their menu has a dedicated section called “Mga kakaibang lutuin” (exotic dishes). They do have “normal” dishes too but we all knew we didn’t travel all that way just to eat something regular and boring. Riiight…

We initially planned on ordering kamaro (crickets) and uok (wood grubs), but luck was not in our favor (or was it?!?) and they didn’t have it that day. We instead “settled” for Soup No. 5, Sinabawang Balot, Sizzling Butt and Balls, Tapang Kabayo, and Bouganville (sic) flowers salad. Yep. We had a healthy combination of cow’s butt cheeks and testicles (one version swimming in a hearty broth, the other sitting on a blistering hot plate), an unhatched duckling, cured horse meat, and pink flowers for lunch. Beat that!

Soup No. 5: Butt and Balls of cow soup

Sinabawang Balot: Duck embryos cooked with soup

Tapang Kabayo: Cured dried horse

Sizzling Butt and Balls: Butt and Balls of Cow cooked as adobo

Bouganville flowers salad: Bouganvilla with cucumber tomatoes and vinaigrette

We ended the meal with probably the best, and most-loaded halo-halo I’ve ever had. Yuuum!

To be fair, the dishes were more palatable than what we expected. I actually enjoyed the flavor of the horse tapa, and the crisp-yet-chewy mouth-feel of the sizzling butt and balls. (That sounded sooo wrong…) The two soups were not bad as well. Think a slightly game-y (but not malansa) bulalo. The balut, was well, the balut that it should be, only wetter, so no surprises there. The only plate not quite meeting the others standards was that of the flowery salad. It was your typical vinegar-based dressing laced veggies, just topped with the common garden’s very, very, VERY bitter petals. Try it for the experience points, I guess.

Over-all, our food adventure turned out to be a positive experience, and I cannot be any happier having shared it with the group of people I had it with. Now that I think of it, the Katipips is very much like the dishes we had that day: at times cheeky, almost always ballsy, minsan may bitter (LOL!), and most importantly, karamihan masarap. Wahahahaha! Joke! (But you know the thing about jokes being half-meant right? :P) What I really meant to say was, if given the chance, you’ll be in for a pleasant surprise. Boom!