Breakfast at... Mercato Centrale!!

So this morning, we were gonna meet up with one of my wife's oldest friends (since college) and we decided to have breakfast at Mercato Centrale @ the Bonifacio Global City!  It's just beside the MC Homes Depot and slightly at the back of the only Starbucks with a drive through order service.

They used to only open at nights but recently, they also open on mornings but only on weekends.. Scratch that first line... as one of the comment posters pointed out (thanks for the input!) this was originally a weekend morning food haven.. I guess to cater to the early morning joggers/runners at BGC.   Recently, they have opened up the Midnight Mercato which the name suggests, opens late in the evening to the wee hours of the morning (10pm-3am).  Mercato Centrale is a refuge for food enthusiasts and caters to those who are tired of the same old meals that you can buy everyday from the same food stores.

Back to the story, we were a bit late... my wife's friend (Loujean) and her special friend Ted got there ahead of us.  So they roamed around a bit buying some cassava cakes to take home in the process.  We arrived a few minutes later and found them on one of the tables setup for the customers.  Now, I don't have to tell you how long absent friends of the opposite sex behaves when they meet again... needless to say, short of screaming, there were a lot of kissing and hugging and kissing and hugging and a few greetings and then more kissing and hugging... Well, Ted and I being guys just shook hands and introduced ourselves.  After the intros... we then proceeded with the task at hand which is to sample the delicious food laid out in front of us!

There were a lot of selections, there's barbecue, chicken barbecue, an assortment of pasta, LECHON!!!, different styles of the filipino tapa, MONSTER burgers, Hungarian sausages and a whole lot more!  One of the things I gotta have is the lechon!!  how cool/sinful/bad is it to have lechon for breakfast?! It was delicious!  We also had Paella Negrita, some barbecues and some Cheesy Garlic Potatoes (Yummy!!!).

 The Yummy Lechon in all it's glory!!!

Hungarian Sausage for the hungry...

The Yummy Cheesy Garlic Potatoes!!! (I'm drooling while writing this...)

Some ribs and lasagna ...

 Our friend Loujean getting us some early morning fruit shakes!!! Cool!

The Monster Burger!!! Check out the size of the thing! It's massive!!

 It was starting to get packed!!! Some Stalls were still setting up...

 Some cupcakes for dessert?

A super close up of the Angry Birds cupcakes!!!

We had our fill but we still had another roam around just to check things out... And there I found that I missed the food that I was targeting at Mercato... The Pan De Bagnet!!!!   Imagine a fully cooked and crispy bagnet in the middle of bread with tomatoes, onions an a special sauce!!! Utterly mouth watering!!! I had to have one so I ordered one to go... <Insert devilish laugh here!>

The famous Pan De Bagnet!!!

They also have Lechon de Tortilla!!!

They also have Lechon de Tortilla which is  shredded bagnet with onions and and tomatoes and a special sauce wrapped in a tortilla!!! I didn't get one of these... maybe next time... no! Definitely next time! :)

Afterwards, we had desserts!  We got over to the Mochiko stall and got us some Ice Cream!!!  One order gets you a scoop of their special ice cream wrapped in a sticky rice wrapper.  Check out the pics!

The Mochiko Stall!

The wifey showing off her Mochiko Special Mint Tea Ice Cream!

The desserts were the perfect ending to our early morning breakfast adventure!  We had to part ways coz we had another appointment elsewhere (and yes, that's for another blog post...)..

I hope you guys liked this post, if you do, run over to Mercato to sample their delicious food!  The ones I've told you here and what I've shown in the pics barely grazes the assortment of food available.  You have got to try it for yourselves!  Oh yeah, some (not all!) of the food is a bit pricier than the common food that you eat in fast foods so be prepared.  I had to throw that out there... but it's totally worth it!!!

'Till my next mumblings.. (couldn't mumble properly coz I have Pan de Bagnet in my mouth...)!