"Oh my God, it's so good..." Marsha gasped, as she took a generous bite of the pizza. A tear rolled down her eye. Then another and another...

I've been featuring restaurants for quite a while now, but I've never encountered someone crying, out of the sheer delight of food. If you are curious about the pizza in question, it was a dessert pizza from Chi's Brick Oven Kitchen called White Chocolate Strawberry Madness (P125). I don't know if it merits a teary, existential moment, but it is very, very, good. A thin layer of sweet strawberry preserve is spread over the paper-thin crust, then topped with delicate white chocolate shavings. I usually don't like bastardized pizzas, but I have to make an exception with this restaurant's creations. I think it may be the dough. The crust is light and airy, doughy soft on some parts, crunchy and charred on the others; the sort of dough you get when it is freshly made everyday and cooked in a 700 degree brick oven.



Since we were a table full of girls, we had three(!) dessert pizzas and the requisite chocolate cake. Apart from Marsha's tear-stained pizza, we also had the Blueberry Cheesecake Delight (P125), which has blueberry preserves, crumbled graham crackers and luscious cream cheese; and the Chocoholic Pizza, which has cake batter sauce, layered with white chocolate shavings and mini chocolate chips. The latter led Marsha to go smoke outside. Ah, girls and their desserts.





What about the Brick Oven Chocolate Cake A La Mode (P120) you ask? Five minute-long squeals of delight. As I carved it with a spoon, the crunchy, crumbly exterior collapsed into a hot, thick ooze of chocolate, eliciting the squeals from my dinner companions. I was a little skeptical about cooking cakes in brick ovens, but this cake totally eased all fears and preconceived notions.





When I asked owner Apple Tirona why they decided to open a pizza restaurant, she corrected me gently. Chi's Brick Oven Kitchen is not really a pizza joint, but rather a place where they cook everything (about 95%) inside the hulking brick oven that dominates the open-kitchen. Pizzas, according to her, were simply one of the main dishes because it was husband and head cook Anton's favorite food. "He can literally eat it everyday." She laughed. That kind of passion shows.





While pizza joints abound all over Metro Manila, very few actually offer quality ingredients and crusts that makes people's mouths water a the mere mention of the name. Chi's is well-known in the south for their inventive pizzas like the Sisig and Balut pizzas (don't knock 'em until you've tried them. They're one of the bestsellers on the menu!), but they also offer more traditional fares like my favorite Margherita Pizza (P180), which is simply mozzarella, fresh sprigs of basil, and tangy, freshly made tomato sauce. Chi's version quickly shot up to my top 5 just after one bite.



It's easy to screw up such a simple dish, which many restaurants do, which is why I deeply appreciated Anton's restraint. The guy really knows when to pull his punches, which is incredible considering he did not have any formal training. Consider his version of the Creamy Chicken Calzone (P250). While he wisely held back on the pizzas, he went all out with the calzone, stuffing it silly with gobs of mozzarella cheese, tomato sauce, roast chicken chunks, smoky bacon, pimiento, mushrooms, hard boiled eggs, and bechamel sauce. When the dish arrived on simple wooden board, the fragrant steam of the percolating richness inside scintillated my nose. I absolutely adored this dish, which still tasted light despite the overload of ingredients. To cut the richness, I sprinkled in a smattering of red chili flakes. Some people balked at adding heat to a creamy, soothing dish, but I found that the flakes add a kick and another layer of flavor. Just don't go crazy with them.





One of the sinful bestsellers in the menu is the Puchon (P295), which is basically lechon kawali cooked Pugon-style (pugon being what we call the local brick oven). The charred slab of pork is served with rice and sidings, and it is absolutely delicious. I am not a fan of lechon as I don't like biting into greasy pork fat or crackled skin drowned in liver sauce, but this version had me scraping my plate for the hardened bits of skin and fat. Cebu lechon is still king in my opinion, but Chi's version is well worth the drive for you Northerners out there.



As though the food weren't enough of a come-on, you can also bring your own wine. Yes, you read that right. No corkage at all. The Tironas were very insistent on letting people have a 'dining experience' each time they go to Chi's, so they designed everything, from the menu to the interiors, to the bring-your-own-wine perk to let people feel as relaxed and as happy as they would in family gatherings. Customers are encouraged to linger after meals in order to really savor the food and enjoy the experience. Even the restaurant's hand-painted, Spanish-style ceiling tiles, marble floors, and charmingly mismatched wooden chairs exude some form of familial charm, as though you were merely visiting a favorite aunt or uncle's house on a weekend.

When we visited, the whole of BF experienced a black out. While Anton went on firing up the brick oven (an advantage here), Apple and the staff quickly lit the candelabras found on the shelves and set them down on the tables. Thank God for functional design! Also, thanks to the high ceilings, the room wasn't was not stuffy at all and the guests enjoyed romantic candlelit dinners for a good half an hour before the lights went back up again. Thankfully, Marsha's eyes had dried up by right around this time and we enjoyed the rest of the evening tear-free.

Photos by: Rinka Romero