One of the newer establishments in El Nido town, Lonesome Carabao Lounge, is located in Hama Street, and we passed by it every time we went to town. (We lived a few kilometers outside of town, in the direction of the Lio airport.) I heard about how good the tacos and burritos are but never actually went in. On this one time I decided to try it, I found it overflowing with people so I had to go somewhere else. In addition, my predisposition for beachfront places did not really help.
One rainy August afternoon though, I saw it empty, save for a few guests all on their laptops, so we went in.
My daughter, Lia, and I took this little table by the wall near the door.
It has become a habit of mine to ask the waitress/waiter every time it’s my first time at a restaurant what their bestsellers or specialties are, so that’s what I did. The waitress recommended tacos and burritos. Being a huge fan of quesadillas, even if it wasn’t in the menu, I asked if they had it. And they did. I ordered beef quesadillas, a banana milk shake for Lia, and a pinacolada for me.
And after that, I was addicted to this place. I’d sometimes just be sitting at some random place and in some random time and find myself thinking about their quesadillas.
Lia loves their milk shakes too.
On that afternoon, some divers were seated two tables away from me, while another man occupied the table next to ours.
When I started taking photos, the man approached me and asked about the photos. Apparently, he owned the place.
Lia likes Lonesome Carabao Lounge for their chairs outside by the door where she gets to play with some of her friends from school, and she had quite a preference for the bar. On our subsequent visits, she insisted on sitting there.
She liked looking at the menu, and writing on the pad paper with the bar’s pen – the ones that the waitresses use for taking down orders. She’d spend hours making art work on the paper. We were there a lot that she made friends with the waitresses, and she had loved playing with her Kuya Bryan, the son of one of the owners and a student at our school.
She also liked the souvenir corner underneath the stairs. She would arrange and re-arrange the wallets and holders on the shelf.
The red walls and decorations in the lounge make the place comfortable and great for just hanging out. (Also, I hear they have good and relatively fast wifi, that I did not try because I have my own network-provided unlimited data plan.) Lia liked practically everything in it and about it – the wall decors, the lamp, the curtains, and even the carabao.
I, for my part, liked the music, as well as uhm, admiring the collection of bottles at the bar.
Our bill was always somewhere between Php440-Php700 because we’d have quesadillas, pasta, a cocktail and a milk shake every time we were there, but I kept coming back, because that’s how much I was really addicted to the quesadillas.
Around town, I went to Art Cafe for breakfast, Sea Slugs for the Shirley Temple and Tanigue in lemon butter sauce, The Alternative Inn for their pinacolada, Trattoria Altrov’e for their pugon-baked thin crust pizza, Pukka Bar for their clubhouse sandwich, pressed coffee and Malibu Pineapple, and Lonesome Carabao Lounge for their quesadillas. At that time, my old favorite hang out place, RicSons was closed, and I never made it to Squidos (which we also used to frequent) for their pasta. There are still so many other restaurants in El Nido, and I’ll post about some of them some time. I didn’t get to eat at all of them though. We usually went to establishments owned by someone we knew and was quite uneasy in places where we didn’t know anyone. We did try Cadlao Beach Resort Restaurant and El Nido Corner Beach Bar and Restaurant, just click on the links for the photos and blog.
Lonesome Carabao Lounge
Zone 3 Hama St., Brgy. Masagana, El Nido, Palawan
Phone: +63 939 792 0493
Email: lonesomecarabao@yahoo.com
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Here are related links:
- Lonesome Carabao Lounge Official Website (complete with gallery and menu)
- Lonesome Carabao Lounge on Facebook
- Lonesome Carabao Restaurant Review on TripAdvisor
- Lonesome Carabao Lounge on FourSquare
- Deep Blue Safari Contacts
- Diving in El Nido
- Nomnomnoming my way around El Nido
[…] photos of Calle Hama begin at Lonesome Carabao Lounge and end right before Marina Garden Beach Cottages. Calle Hama is the busiest street in El Nido town […]