Cariño: Baguio Connections 93

LAST week, we left off at the Taimong sisters, said to beauties all in their day. This week, a focus on one of them, Auntie Elsie.

It is actually she and her husband, Uncle George, who set up Teahouse, which is still there, on Session Road, as it has always been. You enter it now and there are tables to your left, front, and right. Somewhere in the back of the room is a counter with a cash register.

These days, it is a full serve restaurant that serves largely Chinese food (noodles, Hototay soup among others, sweet and sour pork/fish. Shanghai lumpia, beef in various sauces, the usual suspects). Unlike many a Chinese place, which often have not much for dessert beyond almond jelly or buchi, Teahouse has an entire spread of pastries.

Perhaps most famous of the pastries in this era is Chona's Delight, a version of chocolate cake that has endeared itself to the Baguio palate. Just like that palate knows "sans rival" by Sizzling Plate, never you mind whatever else gateau le sans rival is supposed to be. Chona is the lady responsible for the aforementioned version of chocolate cake, she married into the Teahouse family perhaps in the 1990s? For a time, too, Chona and Teahouse pastries operated out of SM on the hill. I think no longer.

At any rate, Teahouse first began operations in the late 1960s. Yes, they are that old.

In those olden days, you went up the stairs from Session Road, and to your immediate left was a glass counter with cakes. There was siopao, too. Manning the counter was Uncle George most of the time, Auntie Elsie sometimes. Chairs and tables took up the rest of the space. If I remember correctly, it was not quite a full serve restaurant then. There were mostly merienda things-mami, lomi, spaghetti, coffee, and such.

Many a high school lunch was had at Teahouse with the high school gang, 1970-74. I loved the spaghetti, not knowing then that it was the sweet kind, a.k.a. in this century as "Pinoy style" and even branded as such in the world of spaghetti sauces. My best friend Sylvia (Salazar Ruff) did, too. I think so did the rest, except for Elyu. No, it is La Union that only borrows that nickname from someone who was called Lulu, and whose name spelled L-U-L-U. She played basketball as did yours truly, and the cheer blast for her was "Hooray, Elyu, L-U-L-U, Elyu." Her fave was lomi.

Then, you could see Auntie Elsie hovering about between backroom kitchen and store, she was a Teahouse fixture. She was friend to my parents, often stopping to talk if we were eating there or even parked outside of the store. That was often too, since my father's office used to be in the same building, but on the second floor.

That same Antipolo building is also now where Phototechniques is located, a sought-after photography studio under the proprietorship of Mark Perez, son of Auntie Elsie and Uncle George.

I know, small world, this.

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