Cafe Juanita

Finally finally was able to eat here. Have been wanting to longer than I wanted to try Chelsea. When we first got to the place, I was perturbed by their door entrance. It wasn't anything amusing. I was told that the place is such a mix of decor taste and I was let down by their door. But boy was I wrong! The place was so cool! So kitschy-voodoo-theater-eccentric cool! Main theme was red and there was a splish splash of everything else you can think of using to decorate.

These were what we tried:

Catfish and Mango Salad Php152

This was amazing! Divine! I could not find a trace of catfish in it yet I knew it was there. This dish should actually be considered junkfood. Another plus was that the marinade from where the green mango was soaked from was yummy too. In fact, we thought the marinade even kinda tasted of a faint tom yam.

Tom Yam Goong from Soho Php153

We were served a pretest broth to determine if we wanted our soup more or less sour. In our case, we wanted the soup more sour. This was good too. Something unique was that I could actually detect the coco milk used. This was described as a "Thai hot and sour prawn soup with spice in coco milk." My only complaint about this soup is the serving size, it really is good for 1.5 people. If that makes any sense....Anyways, if you think of the serving as good for 1.5 people then I guess the ingredients (shrimp and mushrooms) were quite generous.

Beef Rendang Php 232

"Malaysia's best known meat dish slowly simmered for hours in coco milk, spices, kaffir and tanglad." This was phenomenal. It was my first time to taste Beef Rendang so I really have nothing to compare it against, but this was good! The meat was so tender, almost melt in you mouth! There were a few tendon parts but it was all good...Addicting this one!

Chicken Satay Php 201

The real reason I wanted to eat here was because of the chicken satay. I was a bit let down by this dish but that was probably becasue I was expecting too much already.
I did discover however that Chicken Satay tastes good dipped in cucumber soaken in vinegar sauce and not just peanut sauces!

Ratatouille a.k.a. Pinoy Ratatoy Php 149

This was good too. Traditionally, ratatouille is a merry mix of tomatoes, onions, zucchini and eggplants. This Pinoy version however had lots of capers and tuyo (salted dried fish) added in and no onions to speak about.
I personally am not a fan of eggplant but this dish makes eggplant bearable to me! I loved this so much and will be having more of this in the future.