UP’s Beach House

August 9, 2010

When I was still a college student, one of my favorite places to eat is at the Beach House in UP DIliman, behind the Main Library. It was a small shack and it was open from around 9 am til 3pm or when the food runs out. It was very popular with the students, especially those who can barely afford or are fed up (ha!) with the food at the CASAA or other bland canteen food. The best seller: pork barbeque.

By around 10:00 in the morning, one can already get a whiff of the pork barbeque cooking as one heads towards the library. The aroma of meat cooking over coals was seductive and irresistible, calling out to the students. If one could bottle it and sell it as a perfume, one is set for life .  I often had to eat lunch before 11 am as it would be impossible to get a table after that. When one is able to secure a table (and chairs too) one has a choice: eat inside where it is cramped and hot, or eat outside, among the trees. Should you prefer al fresco dining, beware of falling twigs or bird poop. Despite the obvious hazards, lots of students eat there. It was the best barbeque I know back then.It was so good that there really is no need for a dipping sauce for it, but I really liked dipping it in a toyo-mansi sauce with siling labuyo and lots of black pepper.

Years passed and I’ve tasted some barbeques which could give Beach House a run for their money. I yearned to go back, but I was not sure if Beach House was still open. Fortunately, I read on Facebook that the place is still there. So when I had work at Quezon City, I decided to drop by there for some nostalgia. I went on there on a weekday, past noon. There were only a few students as it was a Wednesday (there are only a few classes on wednesdays and saturdays). These are what I ordered, my favorites from years back:

    pork barbeque

itlog na maalat with kamatis

 minatamis na saging  

After the late lunch and a post-dessert dessert of dirty ice cream, I thought about my lunch. I’ve indeed have better and cheaper barbeque (the one beside my place in QC has bigger slices and is cheaper at 16 pesos- Beach House barbeque is sold at 25pesos), but what I just had for lunch was not merely barbeque, salted egg and minatamis na saging. What I had was a chance to go back and relive my memories. And that is priceless.