I’m clicking away on my keyboard as torrential rain overcomes the skies. I look out and everything is so white, I can’t even see Makati from the tall building I’m in. This is exactly the kind of weather that calls for good old comfort food. I would normally troop to the kitchen and look for champorado or arroz caldo—my choices of gastronomic indulgences during a rainy afternoon—but those were the good old days when I was still a kid playing indoors because classes were suspended. Nowadays, because I’ve turned into this reluctant corporate drone who often misses home-cooked fare because of work, I resort to restaurants. That kind of dulls the idea of “comfort food” but that’s only because I had not known Basilio’s Restaurant before.



If you can’t cook to save your life or mom/lola/ate are busy with their own lives to make you that perfect adobo, consider Basilio’s—a sleek but relaxed two-floor restaurant tucked in the placid street of Rizal Drive in Bonifacio Global City. I love this area of Fort Boni because it’s part-commercial and part-residential, making it just the perfect spot for a little getaway from the maddening weekend crowd of High Street or Serendra. Basilio’s also offers free valet parking and they have 100 parking slots at the basement building, lest you’re worrying about their corner location.



Basilio’s Restaurant is the brainchild of Pablo Basilio Valdez, or Chef PV. It is only a year old but has already gained quite a following through word-of-mouth. Chef PV defines the type of cuisine they serve as “contemporary comfort food,” which means they narrowed down their menu to familiar dishes but stretched their imagination cooking them.

Clipcast

Basilio's Restaurant
Enjoy feel-good comfort food at Basilio's. This Forbeswood Heights restaurant is home to simple and uncomplicated fare in a modern and sleek setting. Executive Chef PV Valdez talks about Basilio's Restaurant.

I don’t mind at all since I get a kick out of discovering new tastes in familiar dishes. To drive the point of home cooking further, Chef PV served the Callos (P420) first. He proudly announced that it’s a family heirloom recipe that has graced the dining tables of their clan’s many generations.



I love this Spanish legacy but it’s a dish that I’m very selective of because not a lot of people can cook it without bastardizing it. I’ve tasted callos that should’ve been more suitably called menudo or afritada. Fortunately, Basilio’s version is first-rate. The sauce is thick, spicy and extremely tasty. The tripe is slow-cooked for eight hours, resulting to a delicate, easily chewed meat. The aroma is savory, instantly indicating a very strong tomato flavor. Combining it with steaming white rice is just delightful and takes you back to dinner at lola’s house.

Then, there’s the divine-sounding Fifty-Clove Garlic Chicken (P380), which really has fifty cloves of garlic stuffed inside it. Not only is the entire chicken chock full of garlic, it’s also baked with garlic outside it. To add more flavor, as if the gazillion garlic cloves aren’t enough, the chicken also has lots of herbs such as rosemary and lemongrass. Then, lemon is drizzled all over as the finishing touch. Can you smell it already?



I tore a piece from the chicken and dunked it in gravy, which isn’t like the more common gravies out there because this one tastes richer. Its consistency is grainy and creamy, covering the chicken meat in a new blanket of flavor. The gravy is made of giblet, which is the culinary term for a fowl’s internal organs (usually the heart, liver and gizzard). It has a more in-depth flavor perfect for the sharp, garlic flavor of the chicken. I ate it with the Tomato Rice (P80), which is white rice cooked with real tomatoes, and the mix of flavors makes you wish you had a bottomless stomach.



My favorite though, is the Spanish Adobo (P280), which is pork confit cooked in Spanish paprika and soy sauce. It is named such because Spanish spices are used, instead of soy sauce, which is the Filipino way of preparing adobo. I recommend this if you are an adobo aficionado because it is a unique take on the traditional dish you’ve come to love. It is also the most garlicky adobo I’ve tasted in my life. The smell is undeniably irresistible and I ended up eating more than I planned.

I down everything with a couple or more glasses of Solicello Rosso Igt Sicilia (P180/glass).



For dessert, I recommend their bestseller--the Molten Chocolate Cake (P180). It is made of egg whites and chocolate, with a chewy crust outside, and a moist soft cake that cocoons some thick and warm chocolate fudge in the center. The dark goo oozed out as I forked a small chunk from the cake. Simple, not sickeningly sweet, and just real chocolate. The Illy coffee they serve would be a perfect match for this.



If it is comfort food, Basilio’s Restaurant is spot-on reminiscent of all the good things we love about homemade food. The irresistible aroma of freshly cooked ingredients, the vivid flavors that bring back childhood memories and the unhurried, peaceful vibe that makes eating such a delightful experience—they’re all there. Torrential rain or not—or maybe, a broken heart, a bruised ego or simply a bad day—Basilio’s is a worthy refuge.