Nothing is better for that big vat of coffee than a natural cold to drink it with. But coffee (or hot chocolate, for that matter) isn’t the only edible thing best consumed in the Baguio cold. Here are some of the best places you can retire at at the end of a long walk around the city (which I’m sure you’re going to have to do, especially come Panagbenga weekend).

1. Hill Station
Average price per dish: P300
Location: Below SM City Baguio

 Clockwise from top: Death by Chocolate Cake (their best-selling dessert), Crispy Duck Flakes, and Steak and Prawns Peri-Peri. Photos by Owen Ballesteros

Though on the steep side, Hill Station remains one of Baguio’s best restaurants. It’s warm and cozy and the food gives you that fuzzy feeling you will remember Baguio by. It’s also a great place to impress a date (large French windows, wooden panels, and a grand staircase–the works).

But Hill Station is just a fourth of what this spot is all about, the remaining three being Casa Vallejo’s hotel, North Haven Spa, and Mt. Cloud Bookshop. They’re housed inside Casa Vallejo, the more-than-a-century-old former hotel that was literally leaning on one side until 2010 when it was restored.

Literally steps away from one another, these four spots are guaranteed sources of pure Baguio bliss. You can literally wake up from slumber, eat steak, have a full body strawberry scrub, and then read a book right after with your cup of coffee on hand. To say it’s convenient almost sounds blasphemous more than an underestimation. The idea almost seems too damn good to be true, but hey, it is.

[See also: Back to the old American Hill Station]

2. Cafe by the Ruins
Average price per dish: P200
Location: Below the Baguio City Hall, beside Eurotel Baguio

This is perhaps the only restaurant in Baguio that serves Coffee Alamid–yeah, civet cat dung. I haven’t gotten around to forking out P300 for a cup though. For those who can’t deal with that prospect yet, Cafe by the Ruins serves up hearty meals that have beguiled countless people all these years. Usually doubling as an art gallery for local artists, Cafe by the Ruins’ decor is almost never permanent, and that’s one good reason to keep coming back.

3. PNKY Cafe
Average price per dish: P200
Location: On the way to Teacher’s Camp; just across the so-called Baguio Haunted House (the white one).

One word for PNKY: fascinating. Every person who has made it his or her life’s work to travel will feel right at home at PNKY with its lomo-littered counter, souvenirs of the owners’ travels around the world. If you find the wooden Diana mock-up table napkin on your table interesting enough, you can buy it (just please don’t nick it). Everything there–furniture included–is for sale (though I think not the suitcase, as shown in photo above).

Food options have globe-trotting leanings: Lake Como Catch, Beef a la Seine, Roman Holiday, Vaticani, Le Louvre, Chicken Spinach Riviera, Under the Tuscan Sun, Ciao Bela Carbonara, Anne Frank Omelette, and Leaning Tower of Pancakes, among others.

PNKY also has a Bed and Breakfast.

4. Villa Cordillera
Average price per dish: P150
Location: Outlook Drive

 Clockwise from top: quarter-pound cheeseburger, Lechon Kawali, and Pinakbet with Bagnet. Photos by Owen Ballesteros

You can’t dine at the Baguio Country Club if you’re not a member, but you can taste their superb coffee (yes, the exact same thing, at P35 with refill) and their even more famed raisin bread (the.exact.same.raisin-pockmarked.bread) at Villa Cordillera, a bed and breakfast and restaurant operated by the BCC Corporation. The catch: food here is affordable, and typical servings are more than enough for two persons (as usually happens to us). Since barely anyone dines here (it’s a bit far off, but nowhere a cab cannot reach), you’ll have the peace and quiet all to yourself (plus the rather great view of the golf course and pines at the balcony, so you better go al fresco).

5. Solibao
Average price per dish: P150
Location: Along Session Road (along the lane of Starbucks); Burnham Park (near Melvin Jones Grandstand)

Baguio spoils me with Christmas weather all year long, and Solibao spoils me even more with piping hot, delectable, sweet, melt-in-your-mouth puto bumbong any time of the day, any day of the week. For P45, you get a generous serving of this purple goodness, with enough coconut, butter, and muscovado sugar to fuse together for that heartwarming taste you can only associate with Christmas morning.

Solibao’s Kare-Kareng Bagnet is another guilty pleasure. Their Session Road branch cooks it perfectly every time, though its lack of open-air windows tends to keep the place too warm to be comfortable. Their Burnham Park branch, on the other hand, has a superb al fresco option which never fails to polish off even the simplest of meals (though I have yet to try the Kare-Kareng Bagnet on this particular branch).

6. Volante
Average price per dish: P150
Location: Along Session Road (along the lane of KFC and Pizza Hut)

Photos by Owen Ballesteros

Order anything in Volante and you’re sure to love it. You’ll love it even more because it’s so affordable you can practically order the whole menu if you’re hungry enough. On a personal note, Volante conjures up memories of countless satisfactory breakfasts, lunches, and dinners–even those taken at the ungodly hour of 2 AM, right after hopping off a bus from Manila (yeah, it’s open 24 hours).

We’ve dined with friends and family here more than any other restaurant, and bumped into friends we haven’t seen in a while right in this place, simply because everyone considers it the same way: like a home we come back to over and over again.

I particularly love their four-cheese pizza. Actually, I can eat any pizza on their menu–and it’s all because of the crust. It’s soft and gummy and served fresh from the oven, and you can have your very own six-inch serving for under P100 (I’m not kidding).

For breakfast, I highly recommend their Waffles + Omelet, a super heavy combination (2 big waffles + an omelet with your choice of filling) for P112. Their coffee is the cheapest yet of the good coffees I’ve had at P28 (with refill!), while their P28 lemongrass tea is just as satisfactory. Pair that up with their salad with shrimp and blue cheese–not only are you doing your body a great favor by avoiding the fat and oil; you’re also going to feel so full you’d forget you ate just leaves.

UPDATE: January 27, 2013: Pizza Volante has another branch at Wright Park, beside the Ketchup Food Community, and another one at Camp John Hay’s Technohub.

7. Gecko
Average price per dish: P200
Location: Session Road, along the lane of KFC and Pizza Hut
UPDATE (Sept. 21, 2012): As of this writing, the Flying Gecko has unfortunately closed down.

 Clockwise from top: Strawberry & Peach Melba, Good Ole Burger, and Wheatgrass tea

The Flying Gecko looks like a cross between a pub and a coffee shop, but all’s good in a place that knows its burgers well. The Good Ole Burger, their signature dish at P300, is a quarter of a pound of juicy meat sandwiched between an unnumbered layer of cheese and greens. Their assorted tapas are great with beer as well. Neutralize all the burger fat with their Wheatgrass tea and you’re ready to cap off your meal with sweet Strawberry and Peach Melba. And it’s open 24 hours too.

8. Tea House
Average price per dish: P100
Location: Session Road, along the lane of Starbucks (look for the big black and white photo of a baby plastered on a window and you’re there. You’re not going to miss it.)

 The thing that delights Chona most probably will delight you too.

Two words: Chona’s Delight. Make that with an exclamation point: Chona’s Delight!

Tea House’s Chona’s Delight looks like milk, cream, chocolate, and pudding mixed in gleeful abandon with sugar and poured on microwavable containers, with the smallest effort at presentation from the five loosely circular white shapes on top, which I can only assume were meant to be flowers. But Chona’s Delight is sweet, frozen, creamy heaven–something you’d think only your mother will be kind enough to whip up for you. For P110, you take home a piece of that cold goodness with you. I get giddy everytime I buy one. Until now.

9. Vizco’s
Average price per dish: P150
Location: Session Road, along the lane of Starbucks

Not far off from Tea House is the home of the strawberry shortcake–a round assembly of white and scarlet, the latter courtesy of strawberries sitting on top of the heap, filling every space possible. Nobody does this shortcake better than Vizco’s, and since you’re in Baguio, never leave without the most delectable strawberries in town.

10. Rumours
Average price per dish: P150
Location: Session Road, along the lane of Starbucks

Photo by Owen Ballesteros

Rumours is a pub with a gelato. You can’t have better beer elsewhere, because only Rumours gives you that rather cramped space that lets you sit practically shoulder to shoulder with the person on the next table.The pub is of course abuzz at night, though you can still have your gelato fix at noon in the deserted dining area.

Others you may want to try out:

O My Gulay
Serves vegetarian fare, but the really mind-blowing thing about this place is its interiors. Just see for yourself. If Georgina Wilson was impressed, maybe you will too. It’s on top of La Azotea building along Session Road, on the same lane as Pizza Hut and KFC.

Forest House
Dining at Forest House means eating their specialty, the distinctly Pinoy dish Crispy Bagnet, inside a profusely decorated log cabin. They might have had a fireplace somewhere to complete the look, though I can’t be too sure about it. Forest House also has a Bed and Breakfast just below (read this if you wanna know more). It is located along Loakan Road, walking distance from the Panagbenga Park and Nevada Square, one of two Baguio nightlife spots (aside from Legarda St.).

Photos by Owen Ballesteros

Choco-late de Batirol
The best start to a cold morning is, aside from coffee, a steaming vat of rich, nutty hot chocolate straight from the jar (you can choose from their original blend or those infused with cinnamon, strawberry, etc). And while you’re at it, you may try their Vigan longganiza as well. It’s located inside Camp John Hay, just after the entrance gate nearest the Baguio Country Club.

Photos by Owen Ballesteros

[See also: Baguio brew and Panagbenga 2012 Guide]