Wooden Spoon
329 Katipunan Avenue, Loyola Heights, Quezon City
Tel. no. 426-0044
Open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., Tuesdays to Sundays
Wooden Spoon serves Pinoy favorites you can’t get enough of
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(SPOT.ph) For a little nondescript joint that sits along the long road of Katipunan, the strong energy surrounding Wooden Spoon is undeniable. Doors swing open with hungry diners, tables are abuzz with happy campers, and the staff is in full swing taking orders, delivering meals, clearing tables, the whole nine yards.
Since it opened earlier this year, Wooden Spoon's popularity has grown from the student and teaching population of nearby universities to include residents of the Xaviervilles and the Loyola Heights and the La Vistas of the area and finally to people from as far away as Makati, who know and appreciate a good meal, plain and simple.
Forget about highfaluting culinary concepts, or next-to-pretentious gastronomical ingenuity. The true genius of Chef Sandy Daza-of the famed Dazas-comes from...normality. Which, and especially in the case of Wooden Spoon, should not be confused with mediocrity. He knows what good tastes like and he's very good at making it.
At Wooden Spoon, he serves familiar Filipino favorites. Whether it's innovating a dish, like the Dinakdak ng Lechon (P205), where he marries lechon kawali with dinakdakan; or making real his thoughts, as in the Stuffed Pechay (P155), which he shares on the menu as something that came "straight from my imagination." Diners are assured his dishes come deep from inspiration, a cathartic eureka moment, quickly passed on to the diners with every spoonful of magic.
Perhaps the size of the restaurant should clue you in to the serving sizes of the dishes: small. Save for the crab pansit (P145), orders came in a serving size that might clock in at bitin. But then it's easy to see the silver lining, two in fact: first is that Wooden Spoon is presyong estudyante. It's so affordable you quickly forgive and forget its portions. And second, bitin often equates to ordering more.
Which, in the case of Wooden Spoon, you really won't be able to help anyway. It's so good you'll be ordering seconds in no time. We did.
Photos by Tammy David
