Buon Giorno?

If you feel like going somewhere quiet in Tagaytay with a great view of Taal yet easily accessible, head towards Cliff House. It's a small compound of eating establishments located along Aguinaldo highway beside the more known restaurants such as Leslie's or Max's.

Cliff House - good view of Taal, plenty of space so not too crowded, pretty garden

One of the more popular places to eat here is Buon Giorno. My friend and I always wanted to try this place out but there's always a long line of people waiting for a table.

perfect - no customers yet

Last month, we finally decided to phone in our reservation for early lunch on a Saturday.

Buon Giorno's mix of best salad ingredient drizzled with the
well revered house dressing P218

We started with the Buon Giorno Salad - Tagaytay greens with fruits in season accompanied by their well "revered" salad dressing. The dressing had plenty of flavor (sour/sweet combination) but would have preferred they lightly tossed it with the salad instead of putting gobs of it on top.

Prosciutto Funghi Pizza - deep flavors of ham, mushroom and oregano (about P249)

The Prosciutto Funghi Pizza is about 10' inches with a thin, crispy crust. The prosciutto, a fancy name for thinly sliced ham, had a subtle taste. Mushrooms were plenty as were the mozarella.  Overall, the pizza looks impressive with every space filled with toppings and cheese but there weren't any real "deep" flavors. Thank the culinary gods for chili oil!

Lasagne Al Forne - alternate layes of spinach pasta, ragu and cheese P280

The Lasagne Al Forne looked delicious with its bubbling tomato and cheese sauce. The flavors were deep and rich. However, after a couple of bites, we began to wonder, where's the pasta? The ragu was more meat than tomato sauce and they packed so much in between the layers than it completely obliterated the thin delicate spinach pasta. It tasted like we were eating just pure ground beef. Not a good feeling.

Servings were good for 1-2 person.

Chocolate Pistacho Sansrival P207

Unlike their other dishes, the Chocolate Pistacho Sansrival was really really small.  One bite and all we can say is, "Wow! Butter!" I like butter but not that much. The person who assembled the sansrival must be the same one who did the lasagna because the icing layers were so heavy that the wafers in between were just flattened out. Saying that, kudos for using a generous serving of pistachios.

ready to eat

Service

Service was really really weirdly bad. When they showed us to our table, there were a lot of bugs, spider and ants on the banquette seating. When we pointed this out to our waitress, she just looked at us and said, "wala po kaming magagawa". No effort at all to sweep it away. After just standing there and the waitress looking at us blankly, we decided to take matters in our own hand and just sat at another table.

Waiters were inattentive and borderline rude. Service was slow and you have to call their attention repeatedly to request anything. They would talk to each other about personal matters even though they were just standing beside us. One waiter was singing (off key!)  in a normal voice despite another song being played over the speakers. Honestly, the owners should seriously consider teaching the waitstaff some manners.

Final Verdict

The food prices are not that bad and except for dessert, the food can be shared by two. Expect to shell out P400-P500/person. The food is very pretty to look at and except for the pizza, their dishes has strong flavors. However, any enjoyment you derive from the food and the peaceful surrounding is destroyed by very bad service. You might want to avoid the aggravation and try the other restaurants at Cliff House instead.

Buon Giorno

4 Cliff House
Aguinaldo Highway
Tagaytay 
(beside Yellow Cab Pizza House)

Tel 046-4832102