Enoteca Galileo

Enoteca literally means "wine depositary" and Enoteca Galileo certainly had the feel of one. A smallish restaurant along Pasong Tamo Extension with unusually large tables, one is literally surrounded by wine and aperitif.

On to the food. I had the set meal of cold cuts, cheese, bread and dip, a choice of pasta, wine and coffee. It was a feast. I particularly enjoyed the cold cuts, cheeses (provolone and mozarella) and the pasta (aglio olio with pepperoncino). The bread and dip, however, were redundant since the restaurant does give you these as a free starter. They did change the bread and dip which was to have accompanied the set meal with mushroom soup. The white wine was also quite good; the first glass was not chilled but the server must have realized this as she offered me a second glass (chilled) for free! I managed to get quite tipsy this lunchtime.

My lunchmates ordered T-Bone steak which was not surprisingly not very good (we were in a italian deli). Others ordered the pasta genovese (pesto).

We finished with coffee and gelato. Coffee was excellent; good enough to take black. The gelato, however, was disappointing; it lacked the smooth, creamy texture of what i think gelato should have. Rather, the ice cream was quite frozen, studded with ice crystals.

Service was a bit inattentive; we stood around waiting for a table for a few minutes with servers running around us, basically ignoring us. Apparently, the restaurant was not used to having too many customers at one time. However, I must say that service did improve as the meal progressed.

Pricing was moderate (my set meal was P500, all in). However, my lunchmates felt the steak was overpriced (at P600), probably influence by their dislike for it.