Quezon Adventure 1: Silangang Nayon Day 1

For the first time ever, I went on a road trip…Just me, Mig and the road. Instead of going to Boracay this year, I wanted to do something a bit more quiet, and a little more adventurous. So we packed our bags and headed to Lucena City, Quezon…where our first stop was our accommodations at Silangang Nayon Resort and Restaurant in Pagbilao, Quezon. It was a nice drive without traffic. We left Manila at 4:30 and got to Pagbilao at about 8am (with a breakfast stopover and some initial goodie buying). I only found out about Silangang Nayon through the internet, I fell in love with their huts over water, where you will be eating in front of the wonderful Tayabas Sea.

Unlike all the pictures I saw online, Silangang Nayon did some improvements on their bamboo bridge and now reinforced it with cement…same is true with their dining halls on water. I looked down and saw so many oysters growing on the stilts, the waiter says they grew their own oysters, but an order would be really big for just 2 people. We admired the scenery and waited for our food to get to us.

After a few minutes we hear a funny buzzing sound. It’s a silver airplane on a wire slowly coming down from the cliff. Our food was in there. So here’s what we had:

Grilled Samaral – Super fresh! I loved this fish and it was grilled nicely and we dipped it in a little soy sauce, chili and calamansi.

Chopsuey – This was really good. Unlike most restaurants, the veggies were not overcooked andstill had a good crunch. This was definitely a good way to eat vegetables.

Shrimp in Butter and Garlic — this was odd. It felt like there was too much slurry on it that the butter sauce looked like a weird version of hot and sour sauce. The shrimp was also not fresh despite the resto being near the sea. I am highly sensitive to frozen shrimp and this one sadly gave me the itches.

Still we enjoyed our stay at Silangang Nayon. The staff was very, very friendly and fast. They were accommodating and made us feel like this place was a home. People began pouring in by 11:30 am so we were just on time to have our lunch and a few beers. Watch out for the next installations of my Quezon Adventure! The Philippines is a truly beautiful place!