Ketchup: The Food Community — Cafe Circolo

Ketchup: The Food Community is located right across Wright Park. Can’t miss it. Take a Mines View jeep from town, and it can drop you off right at the entrance — or from the Pacdal Circle, walk towards Romulo Drive, or just follow your nose. If you can smell the horses, you should be pretty close.

I was supposed to meet a friend at 12:30, then the other friends at 1pm. True to my legendary promptness, I got there first and headed out to Cafe Circolo just cause they had an upper deck outdoors.

I love the M&M’s inspired chairs and the unique wall. From afar, it actually looks like cheese. It gets you hungry just looking at it. So I ordered their specialty, ” Fish and Chips” with strawberry shake. Items in the menu were mostly fast food-ish, cafe-ish –shakes, salads, some rice meals, burgers and such.

Their combos

The upper deck with the M&Ms inspired chairs with a view of the adjacent lot.

I’m a big fan of fish and chips or fush and cheeeps as my Kiwi friends would say it. In Baguio, the best one I’ve had so far was at Cafe Will. It remains to be the best. I was excited to see my order, it was pretty big and I love how they didn’t scrimp on the fries. The colors were perfect. Two dips accompanied my order– ketchup and some mayonnaisy dip. It wasn’t tartar sauce, but was tartary. The fish was coated with flour and such. Coating was crispy but the fish inside was soft and tender. I never had fish so crispy on the outside, so, it was a bit of a surprise for me. Typically, I still see the essence of the fish under the crumbs or breading. The coating was more empanada-ish than just breading. For me, it was like the fish  actually wore a coat. Nevertheless, it was good and perfectly complimented by french fries– not the store bought kind, thank goodness.

The full order! Tadaaa! I love the fries, fish coating was a little too crunchy–bordering on matigas. Actually, in this picture, it’s hard to tell which one the fish is.

I loved my strawberry shake the most — until a fly nosedived into it.

I swear someone from the kitchen hates me and sent me this chilling message. XD

Which leads me to just that. The upper deck was mostly exposed thus, flies were all around. I know I was outside and had the option to go in, where there was less or no flies. But don’t customers deserve a fly-free zone regardless of where they decide to take a seat? That was the ultimate deal-breaker. Plus, menu said all the combo meals came with salad. I realized this when I was done with my meal and was too lazy to ask for the salad.

All in all however, it was an okay experience. I love the outdoor upper deck — not the view. I could see the adjacent lot from where I was sitting — soda bottles and all sorts of junk littered the vacant lot. There was also a huge house that sat in the middle of the view. Of course, they really can’t do anything about that.

Quirky architecture inside Cafe Circolo. Lights hang from long electrical wires from the ceiling.

All in all, I paid 154. Fish and Chips was 109, strawberry shake was 45.

I don’t really give stars, but starting now, I will. So here you go, two out of 4 stars for Cafe Circolo.