Like an Aristocrat in Old Manila

Last August 31, the Company's SVP for Brand Marketing visited us and our Division President decided to treat him to dinner together with the entire Marketing team, heads of our Agency partners and our Bottler's President at La Cocina de Tita Moning located at San Rafael Street , Manila near Malacanang Palace. Kandy chose La Cocina not only for the Filipino-Spanish dishes it served but also for the turn of the century dining experience that the Legarda ancestral home provided its guests.
The evening started with cocktails as we waited for our party to be completed. During cocktails, ladies in uniform served vegetable sticks with a creamy sauce, some kind of butter and cheese spread mildly toasted on soft bread and a gingery tasting juice (failed to ask what it was). The servers constantly, albeit graciously, kept going around offering us the snacks as we chatted about the evening's traffic incident.

After a few minutes of waiting, we were then led by our guide, Edel, to the entrance of the main house. She told us about the Legardas who lived there and how San Rafael Street was like when the house was built. First room to your left as you enter the house is the Train Room. Dr. Legarda had bought a collection of model train set in 1970 which was originally from the late 1930s but never opened it. I think it was in 2001 when the granchildren decided to build the train set. It continues to be a work-in-progress. The room across the Train Room was turned into a selling area for their recipe sauces and dips. Next to this room is the Library. Musty smell of old medical books and Life magazines from the time filled the room. Across the Library entrance is a small hallway that led to Dr. Legarda's Clinic and Camera room. To this day, the Clinic still had his examination table, x-ray machine and actual human skeleton. We were told that at the time, medical students had to source their own cadavers thus the skeleton in his clinic. It also still had several bottles which had unborn fetuses of unsuccessful pregnancies but you could hardly see them as these were at the top of high shelves. Meanwhile the Camera room boasted of antique and different types of cameras. And pictures of the family were displayed all over the house as a manifesto to this lifelong hobby of Don Legarda.

Following this was the tour of the upstairs of the house. The living room area had original Juan Luna and Felix Hidalgo paintings. The house also featured a bedroom and a dressing room. The dressing room featured a designer's body form that wore a wedding gown with a long intricately embroidered veil and other wedding accessories around the room. I would have appreciated the lovely dressed but since the body form was made to face the wardrobe mirror had a really creepy effect matched with the old musty smell of the room. It's really quite an elegant spaceous house.

Finally it was time for the meal.

As there were about twenty of us, we were seated in two long tables at the main dining area. It was a sit down dinner with complete table settings. I've lost the copy of the menu that evening but needless to say it was satisfying. Not great but satisfying enough. Personally I think one really pays more for the experience of being waited on, having a bell to ring to call the "help", using the antique table settings and being in an almost majestic old house in Manila.

It was indeed a different dining experience but only if you have the cash to spare.