Before the end of 2015, Cafe Laya located in EGI Taft Tower along Taft Avenue in Metro Manila officially opened.  


When I saw Cafe Laya from the outside, I could already feel the warmth of the place radiating and calling me to step inside.

Despite Cafe Laya's limited floor space, feeling cramped is the last thing that I felt.  I guess it's the wonderful harmony of the place: vibrant colors, creative artistry and melodic sound of chatters and laughter.
 

Everything... even the condiment holders are eye candies.


Cafe Laya is a gallery of Filipino creativity and genius innovations.  There  are beautiful caged lights, chairs and tables made by Silya, Electrika, atbp., a group of artists that use reclaimed and repurposed treated wood and steel.  The covers for the floors poufs on the mezzanine are manufactured by ANTHILL, a cultural and social enterprise that supports our talented Filipino weaving community thus, preserving our amazing ethnic fabric heritage. Cafe Laya also sells products from our native social enterprises such as First Harvest Peanut Spread made by Gawad Kalinga Enchanted Farm, all-Filipino iced tea by Bayani Brew and artisan chocolate by Theo and Philo - I'm a huge fan of this company!

One of my fave fixtures are these recycled steel drums by Archinections, Junk Not!



On the second floor is a floor seating with pillow set up.  One of the most iconic tables is this one with a huge abacus.


The Laya Wall is an exhibit of masterpieces by local artists with a duration of 6-8 weeks. 

Now if you're feeling artistic, expressive and confident enough, you can showoff your skills by insisting and begging their staffs to have your art work belong to such prestigious collection like I did.=p  Just kidding!  Simply ask and they will give you a piece of paper and art materials.

Occasionally, there are some performances.  Every Saturday, there are passion workshops.  If you complete five out of nine workshops, you'll get one session for you and your friend for free.

Food

Pasta Meals (served with buttered bread)

Tuyo Pesto (200 php)

The Tuyo Pesto is an interesting blend of salty and herby.

♥ Pesto Bolognese (200 php)

This is my first time to try a Pesto Bolognese.  It works!

♥ Keso de Bola Carbonara (200 php)

Rich, creamy, savory with appetizing kind of saltiness, the Keso de Bola Carbonara wins my vote among all other pasta dishes.

Sandwich Meals (served with kamote chips)

Bacon and Keso de Bola (155 php)

A grilled cheese sandwich is my kind of comfort food.  And, this Bacon and Keso de Bola is a heavenly meal for me.


Pastries & Desserts

Chocolate Cake (70 php) and Theo & Philo Banana Muffin (80 php)

The Chocolate Cake is like a small chocolate bomb that holds super rich syrupy chocolate within.  It's really more than I can handle.  The Theo & Philo Banana Muffin is delicious but a bit dry.

♥ Kesong Puti Cheesecake (155 php)

The Kesong Puti Cheesecake is smooth and light.  I really enjoyed this!

Yema Cheesecake (155 php)

As expected, the Yema Cheesecake is sweet.  If you're yearning for sweet treats, this is for you.

Chocnut Cake (155 php)

The Chocnut Cake is a bit sweet but not too much too handle because it is complemented by the chocolate-y and nutty flavors.

♥ Ube Pandan Cake (170 php)

 The Ube Pandan Cake is my favorite!  I so love the Ube Halaya sandwiched between the ube and pandan layer.


Drinks

Creamies (Ice Cream Milk Shake)

Mango Graham (175 php)

Coffee Creamies (Espresso-based Milk Shake)

Cookies and Cream (185 php)

Cafe Laya uses coffee beans that are 100% Arabica produced from Benguet Province.

The Cheery Cafe Laya Crew

Tsinoy Foodies Verdict
Cafe Laya is a great place to set your mind and soul free.  So if you want to support local, chill, drink, eat and embrace art and expression then pay this place a visit.

The family and I had no idea that the Uptown Place Mall in Bonifacio Global City was partially opened.  Well, most of the stores and restaurants are still closed and parking space is haunted during our weekend visit.  (Perhaps, because they charge 30 php for it).  Our exploration to this new mall was all thanks to my cousins (yes 2 of them) for inviting us over to Morganfield's for their  birthday celebration.  We were initially invited to Mingkee Live Seafood but they were not prompt in confirming reservations so we had to change venue to Morganfield's.

Surprisingly even though the mall is technically deserted as everything is close, when we went out and saw Morganfield's, there were a lot of diners.
 
The indoor space is quite limited so we couldn't fit in because we were a crowd of 20+.

We were assigned to be on a long table outside (where we were being swarmed by mosquitoes).

They serve their water on these cute ♥ Oink! Oink! Mugs.  Pink for the ladies and blue for the guys.  The servers also assisted in putting on our aprons which had pork quotes on them.

Food



Appetizers

Beer Battered Mushrooms (225 php)

While waiting for the rest who had to attend the Sunday mass, we opted to go ahead with the Appetizers.  The Beer Battered Mushrooms is an alternative to the usual beer battered fish and chips if you want something light.  The beer wasn't so evident.  But if you love button mushrooms, then go ahead with this.  This was supposed to be served with Wasabi Dip, but we got the Garlic Aioli instead without notice.

Awesome Threesome (495 php)

My cousin ordered the Awesome Threesome for us so we got to try their 3 famous appetizers: Crab & Spinach Dip (served with a basket of corn tortilla), ♥ Spicy Chicken Wings (everyone loved this!) and Russet Potato Skins (this was the least preferred among the options). 

Corn Tortilla

Salad

Sesame Shrimp Salad (395 php)

The Sesame Shrimp Salad is a taste salad which for me seems Asian inspired because of the homemade oriental dressing and fried wanton strips.  If was a nice of contrast texture between the crunchy greens, green apple, fried wanton strips and soft prawns and mandarin orange.  There's a right balance between the fragrant and rich sesame dressing and the tangy mandarin orange and green apple too.

♥ Salmon Caesar (495 php)

I was supposed to order the Smokin' Duck Salad but it wasn't available so I opted for the Salmon Caesar instead.   This is simple but well-executed.

Sharing Platters
For their opening promo, every order of the Sharing Platter had a FREE half slab of ribs or a bottle of red wine so we took advantage of the promo!   

♥ The Carnivore (2,995 php)

The Carnivore comes with your choice of full slab Spare Ribs - Hickory BBQ (Spicy Asian BBQ was not available), 1/2 Herb Roasted Chicken or Tequilla Spiked Chicken, grilled spicy Devil sausage, grilled Herby Hog sausage, garden salad, 3 grilled corn on the cob, 3 corn bread and crispy French fries.

♥ Ribs Sampl3r (3,225 php)

With the Ribs Sampl3r comes with your choice of 3 1/2 slab Spare Ribs (Spicy Asian BBQ was not available so we ordered the rest that was available), grilled Footlong Farmer's Bratwurst sausage, grilled spicy Devil sausage, grilled Herby Hog sausage, garden salad, 3 grilled corn on the cob, 3 corn bread and crispy French fries.

Our FREE 1/2 slab of  ♥ Smoked Peppercorn Spare Ribs (said to be their best-selling variant)

We loved everything on the Sharing Platters.

I have to agree that they have one of the best ribs in town.  The Hickory BBQ Spare Ribs was more on the sweet side.  The Garlicky BBQ is more subtle in flavor so I liked it the most.  The Smoked Peppercorn was really bold and rich tasting.  I couldn't eat it without any staple.  I guess we'll have to come back for the Asian BBQ next time.  All of the spare ribs were very soft and falls of the bone!  The corn bread is even better than the old Kenny Roger's (it used to be good now it's just okay because you can hardly find any corn kernels in it).   All the sausages are good!

From the Sea

Blackened Salmon (795 php)

The Blackened Salmon is the one plate that blackened our experience at Morganfield's a bit.  First off, my cousin requested the salmon to be served medium but it was served raw so she couldn't it most of it because it taste fishy.  The Pilaf Rice was so slimy.  We asked the manager if that was right and he insisted that it was!  Only to find out later on that it wasn't because all our Pilaf Rice orders even my nephews were changed to Plain Rice.  And, the veggies was not cooked!  My cousin told me it was bitter and when I saw it I knew instantly that they were all raw.  They weren't even buttered.  God thing there replaced it with a cooked and buttered one.  The Smoked Baked Beans was good.  It had a sweet blend.  For the price, I highly suggest you go for the Salmon Caesar.  (Scroll up and look at the portion of the Salmon - it's the same at almost half the price)

In fairness to Morganfield's, they later on apologized by giving my cousins a pair of the Oink! Oink! Mugs which was so cool of them!

Mouth Watering Desserts

♥ Chocolate Brownie (175 php)

We were supposed to order the Volcanic Chocolate Lava Cake but it wasn't available so we opted for the next best thing which was the Chocolate Brownie.  Although everyone was very full, we managed to finish this because it was so good in a sweet kind of way!  (We all wanted to order coffee as accompaniment but their espresso machine was not working at the time.)

Drinks

The Fluids & Liquids

♥ Vanilla Milk Shake (175 php)

Their Vanilla Milk Shake is thick and rich just the way I like it.  This is quite competitive with the others I've tried around the Metro.


The Chilled & Blended Coolers

Ginger Pop (155 php)

The Ginger Pop is fresh mint, ginger, honey, brown sugar and ginger ale (or beer if you want).  It was good.

♥ Begonia (175 php)

The  Begonia is one of their best-sellers.  It comes with chunks of kiwi, strawberry and lime and served in lemon lime soda topped with passion fruit syrup.  Everyone loved this!

♥ Mango & Lime Lassi (195 php)

I ordered the healthiest option which is the Mango & Lime Lassi.  It is mainly mango puree and yoghurt with freshly squeezed lime.  It was only blended in ice without any sweeteners.

♥ Berry Easy (195 php)

Another healthy choice is the Berry Easy which is a puree of black grapes, blackberries and strawberries.

The Smashed Grapes

Delicato Woodhaven Cabernet Savignon (1,450 php)

Since the bottle of red wine we got failed to satisfy my uncle, he ordered us another bottle of Delicato Woodhaven Cabernet Savignon. 

Claiming the 1 Year FREE Spare Ribs
For having exceeding the minimum of 20,000 php, my cousins got a card field with 12 card slots of free spare ribs. We all went home with bulging bellies because of this promo.  Aside from overloading food, the guys also ordered some beer because of their 3 Pints Awesome Threesome Promo! 

Tsinoy Foodies Verdict
Overall, the experience at Morganfield's was good because (1) Overload of promos that are NOT mutually exclusive of each other (We claimed the 1 year free spare ribs!) (2) The Spare Ribs are really one of the best in town! (3) We're pleased with the Oink! Oink! Mugs that got more than 1 pair (we're suckers for cute stuffs!).