ROSE AND GRACE:Specialty: Filipino Food – Bulalo. Lot 3, Block 31, Barangay Don Jose, Sta. Rosa Estate, Sta. Rosa City, Laguna. Phone: 043 778 1052 (?). Other branches: (i) Santo Tomas, Maharlike Highway and (ii)SLEX, Total Station, North Bound.
If you travel to and fro Manila and points elsewhere you will surely have favorite stopover points. It is usually a restaurant or cafe by the road and if you travel that road often then it becomes a familiar stopover on your journeys.
And that was how it was when we used go to Bolinao a lot and to Batangas and to Laguna through Rizal Province. We used to stop at this carinderia in Dagupan that served what probably was one of the most delicious rice one can eat paired with menudo. In Montalban, we used to stop and buy fried chicken at this one store on the road. I think it is still there going strong. And in Batangas we used to stop at Tagaytay at this restaurant that served bulalo and bulalo steak.
But what is Bulalo?
The bulalo of Rose & Grace
A encompassing or wide-ranging definition of Bulalo is a traditional Tagalog Soup that is composed of bone-in beef shank or the bone of the beef shank – ie beef shank with or without the meat – often with or without vegetables. One can enjoy and eat the bulalo by: (I) sipping the broth; (ii) eating the meat and vegetables of the soup; and (iii) eating the bone marrow and sometimes the bone ligaments.
The home of this dish is Batangas. And the best bulalo can be found in Batangas and Tagaytay. And this might be due to the proximity of the restaurants to the source. The freshness of the meat is important in cooking bulalo.
Anyway …
Recently, I found myself going to and fro and back again from Manila to Batangas. During, one of those trips we were treated to the restaurant Rose and Grace. Just across Paseo de Santa Roxas is what seems to be a house with glass walls. It had ample parking space. The inside was well-lit due to the light and sunlight from outside. As you enter the restaurant what greets you are trophies and awards won. This led to the main dining hall and the food stall.
The food was displayed carinderia style with an array of Filipino from laing, tawilis, lechon kawali and of course bulalo – I believed served with or without vegetables and with soup bowl already filled with and also refilled with bulalo soup.
The bulalo of Rose & Grace up-close
The Bulalo was a welcome respite and nourishment from the travel. Its clear broth was nearly without a layer of fat floating on the surface. The bulalo was cooked and probably had the fat skimmed – one or two times before cooked and served – resulting in a tasty and fat-reduced bulalo. Maybe or this is what it seemed to me.
Chicharon
Lechon Kawali
SERVICE AND OTHER THINGS
The staff were courteous and the toilets were clean. Something important for all restaurants and more so for restaurants by the highway.
THE PROPRIETORS AND AN INTERESTING BEGINNING
Rose and Grace are the proprietors of the restaurant that was founded by their mother. The restaurant had been in existence for nearly forty years, with one of the first restaurants established in Pasay. Since then the sisters and the family have been continuously at work improving the dishes they serve and the over-all service of the restaurant.
Definitely, a foodie stop over if one is near by or along the way.
