Balai Gloria, Solano

I’m someone who  really appreciates it when restaurant owners make effort to give their restaurants a theme, a personality. For me, Kerman's coffee shops remain number one in terms of creative ambiance. Speaking of ambiance, I surprisingly found myself in two really nice restaurants during my stay in Nueva Vizcaya last week. The first was Kainan sa Kainyugan in Bayombong - my Mom's relative took me and my colleague there. It was only 7:30 pm, but when we got there we saw a sign "We close at 8:30 pm". It wasn't only that restaurant, but it seems Nueva Vizcaya goes to sleep really early! The food options were pretty limited; we all chose roasted meat (fish/ pork/ then chicken for me). 
Just beside our table was a free soup corner! Even though the weather was warm and didn't call for soup, but the bricks, the fire log, the signs were very inviting; I got soup for all of us at our table.

My roasted chicken wasn't so special. In fact, it wasn't really tasty so I went over to a table that had bottles of soy sauce and fish sauce, abundant large calamansis and bagoong and I made my dip so that my dinner would have more flavour. The food was really JUST OK but the place was so lovely! First things I noticed were signs/posters everywhere - customers' comments, and some funny quotations. The tables/benches are wooden and give a very camping-in-the-woods feel.
And this is how the sink looks! 

I won't be adding any more photos, because this blog is actually about the place we went for lunch the next day. Our company invited some guests to Balai Gloria. I learnt that Balai is an Ilocano word meaning house. My first impression was that the houses are "ancient Filipino style!" We entered a huge compound, in which the rrestaurant (Cafe Angelo) was located on the right side, then on the left was a large activity hall and hotel rooms.

What struck me the most was the luscious, verdant, opulent greeeenery in the compound - trees, grasses, plants here, there and everywhere.
At the entrance of the cafe was a big congratulations sign to this month's school graduates. From the door I already knew I wan in for a treat!

While everyone was already at the table, I was still at the door, taking pictures of the interior.
So much details! It was definitely too much for my eyes to take in at first sight, but at the same time it didn't look confusing or crowded or over-done.

notice the graduation hats danging on the left side

We made our orders/reservation much earlier so as soon as we arrived, the food was served on the table. I wasn't able to take a picture of the food because people dug into it almost immediately, leaving me no time to take annoying aerial view pictures of the lunch. I had some crispy pork, and just a little bit of kare kare (I wasn't very hungry), but nevertheless... the food tasted very typical, although the fish platter looked very nice (a big square plate with fried fish, then some chopped tomatoes, onions, boiled eggplant around it). I picked on a few things here and there while my eyes scanned every bit of the hall that I could - I noticed pretty little antiques on top of the windows...oh and look at their pot-pan chandeliers!

After lunch, everyone ordered a slice of cake - some had chocolate cake, some had sansrival. My colleague and I shared a yummy nutty carrot cake. 

As soon as I noticed some people  get up from the table (either to start leaving or to go to the bathroom), I quickly jumped out of the restaurant to explore the compound. I mean, why not - especially when this was the view right beside our table:

behind the restaurant

at the back of the compound

the hall in the middle of the compound. wedding-perfect!?

hotel rooms

I'm guessing this is also a hotel room/villa

This house is basically just a prop in the middle of the compound. And in Balai Gloria world, it's still Christmas!

See, these are the kinds of restaurants that would make you really want to go back, NOT because you enjoyed the food, but because you enjoyed eating there.