Beso Cucina Vinotera @ Bonifacio High Street

On my second day in Metro Manila, I attended two 30th birthday celebrations of two friends, both former colleagues of mine in P&G. Jerome’s was over lunch at Mesa, while Caloy’s was over dinner at Beso. Yeah, I know, the names of the restaurant have similar letters, so funny, right?

In case you’re wondering why the two didn’t just join forces, it’s because I had two different groups of friends from P&G. Jerome was my batch mate – we started on the same day but we were assigned to different departments. So my first P&G friends were my batch mates, and I ate lunch with them. Our group soon expanded to include a few other people who were hired the same year we were. Meanwhile, Caloy was from my department, Accounts Payable. We were a bunch of happy, funny folks who got on well together at work and eventually started hanging out beyond office hours. The people who went to Caloy’s birthday dinner were all part of that department, some of them after I left back in 2008.

Okay, now that the lengthy intro is over, let’s move on to the event itself. I met up with Set and RJ at Starbucks in Salcedo Park, Makati City where we took a cab to Beso in The Fort, Taguig City. When we arrived, the birthday boy was already there with a few others, and as I gave him a hug, he said, “Only you got the memo! Polka dots!” Then he asked someone to take a pic and suddenly: Instagram. Haha.

“Only one got the memo! Dots all over! Let’s polka!” -caloykoi

There was a flurry of hellos and how-are-yous with everyone, the usual fodder for reunions. There was definitely a lot of this:

Gossip girls Have you heard about – ?? OMG really?? How could he??

And of course, a lot of this:

Filipinos. We love to pose.

Let’s not forget that there was also a lot of this:

Because hello, we were in a restaurant. We were there to eat as well as gossip socialize and cam-whore.

If you’ve read my other blogs before this you’re probably wondering why I haven’t labelled above pics with their names and descriptions. That’s because I have no idea what their names are. Other people ordered them and I was so busy gossiping socializing that I forgot to ask what they were and take notes. They were all delicious, though. But the most delicious of them all was this:

Beso paella (For 6-8 persons – P1,355) Pork, chorizo, bacon, prawns, squid, mussels, and clams with rice

Coincidentally, over lunch earlier with my other set of friends, we had somehow got around to the topic of paella and how there weren’t too many good ones in Manila. Well this definitely falls under the good category! It’s super yummy, I swear.

Another yummy one was this drink:

Sangria

My friend Ngangi, whom I was staying with during my vacay, had told me to order this when I mentioned I was going to Beso. I didn’t have to because they had ordered a pitcher for everyone.

Later on, we surprised Caloy with this:

We had picked that up from Kink Cakes before heading to the restaurant. We ate some of that cake for dessert.

Then we left to take the party to a wine bar called Barcino elsewhere in The Fort. We rode different cars. I went in Rhea’s. We got lost. I wondered if maps apps didn’t work in Manila. We asked some folks for directions and eventually found the place, realizing that we had been driving by it several times already but just didn’t see the sign. Yeesh.

We found a table upstairs and ordered more sangria. We played 30 questions for Caloy. There were only 8 of us so for every one question we asked, Cheng had to ask another. Haha poor Cheng. I found myself playing the role of facilitator (which apparently is what I always do in gatherings, as Jenelyn pointed out), saying things like: “the jury commends the question” whenever someone came up with a really nice question. Not sure why I called myself a jury. Must have been the sangria speaking.

Then at the stroke of midnight, it was his birthday, so we brought out what remained of the cake and lit up the candle again so he could “slow blow” and make his wish.

It was one really fun night. Glad I went. Happy birthday again, Caloy!

Beso Cucina Vinotera
Address: GF, Quandrant 4, Bonifacio High Street, 9th Ave, Taguig, Philippines
Phone:+63 926 614 9695