Another popular food haven is in Maginhawa Street, Quezon City near U.P. Diliman. This was my second time in Maginwaha Street. The first time I went there, we ate at "The Burger Project". Maybe I'll post a separate entry for that if I still have pics.
For my second time in Maginhawa Street, I went with my highschool friends on a Saturday night dinner. Unfortunately, it was so traffic in U.P. area so we arrived there quite late for dinner already.
There are no parking spaces available in most, if not all, restaurants there. We decided to park along the stretch of Maginhawa street then walked to check out restaurants we wanted to try.
When I saw Cocina Juan, it rang a bell in my mind. I told my friends that I think this is one of the more popular restos in the area. My friends were probably hungry already that they did not argue with my anymore lol.
Th place was really small that was probably why I wasn't able to take a picture of it anymore.
You'll get to feel an artsy vibe because of the paintings on the wall. Turns out they are featuring the work of a certain artist.
Colorful table and plates. We ordered a pitcher of Lemonada Cucumber since all of us wanted to try it. Unfortunately, it wasn't that good. It looks like they included the peeling of the cucumber. One friend asked for sugar to try to improve the taste.
We also ordered something safe - Buffalo wings. As you can see, the chicken wings were fully covered with sauce so it's really very tasty. Since it's very tasty, it could be too much to handle for some.
Cocina Juan actually features Central American/Latin American dishes. You'll see a lot of "chimichurri" on the menu.
I'm not really familiar with "chimichurri" so if you google it, you'll find out from Wikipedia that it's a a green sauce used for grilled meat, originally from Argentina. It is made of finely-chopped parsley, minced garlic, olive oil, oregano, and white vinegar.
We ordered Churrasco de Nicaragua - Oven roasted beef, pork sausages and chicken served with gallo pinto rice, salad and parsley based sauce chimichurri sauce.
We also ordered pasta. But this pasta is not like any other because it's Pasta Chumichurri hehe.
Of course, you rarely go wrong with pasta. This one has white sauce with corn. Can't actually remember if the chumichurri made any difference in this dish.
It was my first time to try this kind of food. Although there is
nothing spectacular about it, I enjoyed the dining experience because I
like trying new food like trying new things or going to new places. =)
But if you are not the adventurous type (like some of my hs friends i'm with hehe), you might not like Cocina Juan. Or you may wanna try the traditional dishes available like Quesadillas, tacos, burritos etc.
After dinner, we wanted to have dessert at Sancho, also along Maginhawa but it was already 11pm and they were already closed. We tried the place next to Sancho, I forgot the name of the cafe but they also closed at 11pm. We're quite skeptical why they closed early considering that it's weekend and there were still a lot of people in the area. Oh well. :p
Since the night was young, we ended up dropping by "The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf" along Katipunan road.
We love "The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf" because their cakes are really delicious. Very happy with my Triple Decker Cheesecake =) I went for green tea instead of coffee so I won't have problems sleeping hehe.
