Hagonoy Municipality After the Flood > Chocolate Around the World ...

Bar Celona Resaurant
warded off the competition and eaten them all myself,
but the boys were faster. We had the same response
to the dish of moist albondigas (meatballs) stewed in
saffron, allspice and tomato. That’s the only problem
with good tapas – there’s never enough to go round
more than once!
Full and sleepy, the kids headed back to the hotel,
while my husband and I decided to do a circuit of the
old town. It proved to be a good decision on our part.
It wasn’t a long walk, but round the corner we found a
quiet, leafy street aptly named Green Street. Colonel
Green had obviously owned a fair stretch of this road,
and had also built the beautiful, turn-of-the-century block
of apartments on the corner. (1909 I think was etched
into the wall.) It looked like a vast Spanish villa, with
pretty balconies overlooking shady, verdant lawns that
spread across into the neighbouring park: Pasadena’s
own Central Park.
By then, the tapas had settled and dessert required
further exploration. As it turned out, we were spoilt for
choice. Two doors down from where we had eaten
lunch, we found a small gelateria, where everyone was
struggling to choose less than half a dozen flavours from
a delicious display of twenty four. My coconut and lemon
waffle cone proved to be a perfect combination of zesty
and creamy.
Further down West Colorado Boulevard was a local
chocolate shop where the chocolates are made on site
(and it was listed on the official food tour). In typical
super-size me tradition the truffles were huge and the
slabs of chocolate fudge were bejewelled with M&Ms,
Oreos, peanut brittle and other childhood favourites.
Around the corner ‘lette macaroons had filled their
windows with silver branches decorated with macaroons
of pastel pink, chartreuse, lemon yellow, tangerine
and raspberry. The counter held a tempting display of
twelve different flavours (pistachio, chocolate, raspberry,
passionfruit…) that were presented to us beautifully
boxed for the meager price of $19.90 per dozen. (I say
meager as a recent and besotted convert to macaroons
who would happily pay any price and then lock myself in
the bathroom with the box to avoid sharing!)
Old Pasadena is choc-a-block with restaurants cafes
and wine bars, whose buildings have all been lovingly
restored. It also has some great boutiques, art
collections and antique shops. A popular area with 20 th
century millionaires, there are several grand houses
on the outskirts of town that are open to the public,
owned by such wealthy individuals as David Gamble,
the Proctor & Gamble heir, and railroad magnate Henry
Huntingdon. I began to see why the grumpy woman in
the information booth thought we should stay longer, but
we were only there for the food, so by now, our hunger
totally assuaged, we headed home.
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