Bagoong Club Resto

My family in Bagoong Club

093410

R17

Bagoong Club Resto

To most people, Bagoong Club is a place where friends and families can get together, bond and eat good, award-winning comfort food. To others, it is a sufficient and adequate place to conduct meetings, presentations, family gatherings and reunions. As the son of the owner of Bagoong Club, I see it as something more than all of these. Despite my efforts to lose weight and stay in shape, I now find myself, once again, in Bagoong Club, a restaurant that I now call my third home. (It comes after my real home and school.)

I find being the son of my father a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing because my family and I get to eat here at least once a week and I don't really know how the system works but we more or less get everything for free. However, this means that I get to order as much food as I want. It does not become a curse because of horrible tasting food, uncomfortable surroundings or disrespectful waiters. It is actually the complete opposite of all of these that I find “annoying”. They are all too hard to resist. These are probably the same reasons why people keep coming back to eat here. Despite the fact that it is virtually impossible to lose weight in my position, I still love this place and I wouldn't trade it for anything else in the world. I just wish that the plate of Crispy Pata beside me would stop staring at me in the face. It knows my weakness.

Believe it or not, I consider Bagoong Club as one of my favorite study places. I have actually finished a lot of my assignments and research papers here. It is a very inspiring place. A wise person once told me that music can help inspire us or get us out of a writer's block if we do not understand the lyrics. I understand and believe this now because of Bagoong Club. Bagoong Club's iPod's playlist is mostly made up of vocal-less and instrumental folk songs. The songs played in the restaurant are calm and relaxing. Based on my experiences, it is safe to say that the music can appeal to anyone. It gives a kind of nationalistic, patriotic vibe that seems to relax customers and enjoy their food more.

People talk in Bagoong Club. This would be inevitable. However it is usually the relaxing kind of noise that is present here. What customers hear are the kind of conversations that blend in with their surroundings in order to sound like a mere murmur or whisper. There are some exceptions, of course but nevertheless, I would not want it to be any other way. The noise is my ideal mix of loud and soft. It probably has to do with the good acoustics of the place. My dad had been placing egg cartons and cork boards under the tables and on the walls and removing them over and over again for the longest time before he finally got it right.

Woah, I can't believe that I have actually gotten this far without talking about the food.

Saying that, I want you to imagine the juiciest, softest and most mouth-watering slab of beef. It melts in your mouth in the most delicious way possible. Now, multiply it by six and toss them into a hot steaming bowl of munggo soup. Are you hungry yet? I am. Well if you are, you have Bagoong Club's best-seller to blame.

You can call our best-seller Bulalo or Munggo but you might as well call it “Not Delicious.”

It is called the Bulalo Sa Munggo. It is basically a fusion of Filipinos' two all-time favorites: Bulalo (bone marrow) and Munggo Soup. It has become a reason for a lot of cutomers to come back here. Other favorites are the Ukoy, the Pancit Buko and the Garlic Chicken Inasal. When I pay my visits to BC, I would usually order garlic rice and fish, either Ginulat Na Tilapia or Hito (catfish). It lessens the guilt from cheating on my diet.

Aside from serving amazing food, Bagoong Club also offers a very relaxing atmosphere. My dad says that it is supposed to give customers the same ambience that one gets while eating at home. This is another “annoying” feature because the coordination of the yellow to orange colors, the slow-spinning ceiling lamp-fans and the old fashioned picture frames displaying their respective old fashioned paintings combined with the old fashioned dark brown furniture really does the trick for me. In other words, even though I consider Bagoong Club as my third home, I've probably eaten more here in the one year that the restaurant has been open than I ever have in my two other homes combined.

Bagoong Club does more than give me something to be proud of. It has done more than protect me from hunger countless times. It has also brought our family closer and I am very grateful for this.

Now, if you'll excuse me. I believe that there's a piece of Crispy Pata still calling my name.