Boodle Fight sa Bilao at St. Nicholas Catering and Restaurant

We Filipinos love to eat with bare hands, it gives us the feeling of being at-home and it adds more excitement and flavor to the food we eat. This is why boodle fight or boodle feast is now a popular culinary experience in the Philippines and is starting to be a big hit in restaurants.

Do you know that somewhere in Mandaluyong hides a great place to grab and eat as much as you can with your bare hands? The place is called St. Nicholas Catering and Restaurant.

The entrance of the restaurant is so simple. At first you would think it's a garden because you will be welcomed by plants in plots and tall bamboo trees. I love the entrance because the lush green gives a relaxing mood to the visitors and it somehow gives you a feeling of being secluded from the pollution in the metro.

While the entrance looks so simple, the interior is surprising, there are a lot of colorful stuff and nice table settings. Feels like you are in a barrio fiesta where there are a lot of colorful banderitas that sways when the wind blows.

It was Christmas season when we visited the place that is why the main attraction in the place was this spacious stage decorated with inflatable Santa Claus and the big teddy bear which was according to the owner, imported all the way from the US. The stage aside from the Christmas decorations, is also filled with a collection of antique jars and some paintings, statues of Catholic Saints and the owner's collections of the stuff they use when catering for birthdays, weddings, etc.

According to the Chef-owner, Nick Pelaez, the place was really an ancestral house which was converted to a dining place, that is why visitors will see a lot of family memories all around especially of Nick's mother.

So what we had for lunch? This is one of their best-sellers, Boodle Fight sa Bilao 1: Davao. This bilao contains hot n juicy shrimp, calamares, shrimp tempura, lechong kawali, eggplant tempura,
rice, salted egg, tomatoes and onions. This costs Php999 and is good for 3 -5 persons. All the seafoods were fresh, the tempura is really crunchy, lechong kawali is tender, everything is flavorful. My personal favorite is the shrimp because they are really sweet and juicy, because St. Nicholas directly sourced them from the country's seafood capital; Roxas City, Capiz. The shrimps are delivered to the restaurant a few times a week to make sure its quality is never compromised.

We also had an order of Hot n' Juicy Shrimp which costs Php399.00 for half a kilo. It's really spicy but tastes heavenly good!

We also had desserts, but because we were too busy enjoying the shrimps, we almost forgot that the desserts were served with ice cream. Since the place is not fully air-conditioned, the ice cream melted but it even made the cakes taste better, hehe. The creamy ice cream mixed with the bitter-sweet taste of the cakes and the result is better-tasting desserts!

The owner of St. Nicholas Catering and Restaurant is not really a graduate of culinary but his passion for food reflects in every dish they serve. The restaurant does not only serve good food of reasonable prices which every customer from all walks of life can feast on, but it also tells a loving memory of a family which we all can relate with...

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Come and visit the restaurant located at #1 Fatima St Corner San Rafael St., Plainview Subd., Mandaluyong City! They are open from Tuesday to Sunday, 11am-12am . They also offer catering services, for more info visit St. Nicholas Catering and Restaurant FB page.