COCONUTS HOT SPOT — Patio de Conchita, an old house in Intramuros, is how Hogwarts would look if the Harry Potter franchise were set in the Philippines.*
And if students of Hogwarts were allowed to drink.
Patio is a well-kept secret of cops, reporters, crooks, and other people who like to drink in relative anonymity. An odd combination of restaurant, dive, and student’s dorm, Patio is decorated year-round with Christmas lights, a Christmas tree, and buntings.
I have been going to Patio since 2008 and things have not changed. Things seem to have been kept pretty much the same since the waning days of the Spanish Empire.
Cheap carinderia folding tables mix and match with shabby-chic furniture from Betis, Pampanga. We are not talking here of cheap benches of palo china wood. Drinkers at Patio sit on the sort of chairs Padre Damaso may have sat on, were he real. We are talking of chairs that let you sit like a boss. Chairs too heavy and too old to use in a bar-room brawl.
The beer is cold, the food is hot. Specialties like lechon kawali and sisig are heated on skillets when you order. Those skillets also double as serving plates and impromptu ashtrays for post-prandial cigarettes. Less special dishes are served in regular bowls, but are just as filling. The bowls can also serve as ashtrays but using them like that means you are a savage.
A patio, walled in by glass, dominates the restaurant. This, perhaps, is where the master of the house, the Dumbledore of Intramuros, keeps watch over his muggle customers. Or where the policemen who drink there temporarily stash their prisoners of Azkaban.
In dark corners, deals are struck between Manila city hall officials and various shady characters. A patronus spell, if you will.
On the second floor, there is a videoke machine that you can use free of charge. All the better, I guess, to keep the students living on the third floor up and at their spell craft.
—
681 Beaterio St. Intramuros, Manila
*Naturally, the Houses will have their Filipino analogues: Leong Lipad, Ahas And You Shall Receive, Uwak Attack, and Humpy Dumpy
**Originally posted on Drunken Dispatches, a tumblog that the author helps run.
