Bench café is local, honest, good
Imust have been about 11 or 12 when I went to my first retreat. There was singing, dancing, reflections, journaling, and of course, the inevitable trustbuilding activities. I remember having to stand on a chair, with my back turned to a crowd of people who had promised to catch me. I had just met them. How would I know if these strangers would break my fall? If I didn’t trust them, I’d have to put my faith in their basic humanity; that they would naturally not want to see someone hurt. There’s that leap you have to take and completely let go and put your fate in their hands.
Well. That’s not so far from the sensations I feel nowadays when I enter a new dining concept. Am I willing to put the fate of my next two hours, my hungry belly, finicky palate and overall wellbeing into their hands? More importantly, the eventual mood of my husband, as of course, when the food is bad, his grumpiness will take over and perpetuate until there has been sufficiently enough good wine to make him forget the awful experience. It’s a tough job that often leads me to eat in the same few places or simply enjoy a home-cooked meal.
Trust is the elusive Holy Grail that most brands are on a quest for. Funds are poured into R&D and countless marketing and publicity campaigns just gain that customer trust. The kind of trust that, no matter what product you bring out, your loyal clients will buy into it because they believe that you won’t do them wrong.
In the big game players of this world, Bench is one of them. The proudly Filipino brand has built an empire, from T-shirts to hair salons with a reach that goes well beyond our shores. This past year
Bench Cafe's interiors are highend, the ingredients, everything is high-end, except for the price. Almost everything on the menu is between P200 to P300.
they’ve ventured in to the tricky realm of F&B with the expansion of their Bench Café concept.
“It was more on identifying themselves as a lifestyle brand, that they can attach their brand to anything that’s relevant to the consumer and then it works,” shares Foodee Global Concepts’ COO Eric Dee, Bench’s partner for Bench Café. “That they don’t need to sell you T-shirts or Bench Body to be Bench. You can put Bench in a parlor, in a barbershop, and it would still work because it’s relevant to the consumer. As soon as Bench Café opened, people flocked in without hesitation. They knew it was for them.”
With great power comes great responsibility. In this viral social-media age where one mishap can be your Waterloo, according to Eric, Tito Ben — as he fondly calls the retail scion Ben Chan — “was a little bit more careful with this one. It had to fit the Bench principles of quality for all.”
The concept is decidedly Filipino. “I wanted to extend our advocacy of #LoveLocal to help promote Filipino fare,” explains Chan. In this light, Bench Café is eyeing international expansion and hopes to be an ambassador for our cuisine.
To be honest, I had prejudged the concept. Categorizing it in my head as just another lifestyle café, another feather in Bench’s already fully adorned cap. However, an indulgent lunch would prove that they are taking things seriously at the stove.
The food was simple and straightfor- ward but impressively well executed. Great care had been taken in the food prep, ensuring that the ingredients were treated with respect. Take my favorite dish, for example: instead of the usual overcooked, over-sauced, soggy slop that is often served, their Gising-Gising was a bright and vibrant mix of crunchy sigarilyas, sitaw and French beans. The beans were cooked to absolute perfection, keeping its freshness, with just enough of that spicy coconut sauce and tender bits of pork. Matched with their Dilis Fried Rice, and I was in food heaven: spicy, savory, slightly coconut-ty with that crunch from the beans and crispy saltiness of the dilis. I really didn’t need much else.
“The path I would take and a Filipino cook would take is different but we get to the same destination,” shares chef Carlo Miguel, the man behind the pan. The classically trained chef, who has lived abroad most of his life but has always eaten Filipino food, has applied the principles of both worlds to his cuisine. Simple things like Bangus A la Pobre — another favorite — and Sous Vide Liempo are elevated by the cooking techniques. The bangus was soft, with a crisp skin and flavorful with a rich, tangy sauce topped by heady fried garlic. The liempo remained tender and juicy but still charred at the edges from being placed on a grill at the last minute.
Other notable dishes are their well-balanced Green Apple Sinigang and Tinapa Cones.
The restaurant went into full swing with no notion of a soft opening. It was packed over lunch with regular walk-in customers. From where I sat, I saw a very efficient ballet of servers bringing out dishes that looked exactly like what was served to us at a rather impressive pace. On its first day of operation at their newest branch in Greenbelt, Bench Café was already a well-oiled machine.
The place is super-cute! I loved the eclectic but modern vibe, with a nod to the local by way of stained-glass panels reminiscent of your lola’s house in the province. Graphic artwork coupled with pastel pantones that the younger set loves all make for a very “Instagrammable” location.
More than that, what impressed me the most was the value for money. You can eat a full meal for just under P140, which is what I paid for a rinky-dink shawarma sandwich this morning. Rikki Dee, CEO of Foodee Global Concepts, explains that this was their main intention: “We always wanted to have value for money. As you can see, the interiors are high-end, the ingredients, everything is high-end, except the price.”
Almost everything on the menu is between P200 to P300 for either a full Bench-To for one person (a local play on the Japanese bento box concept) or generous à la carte dishes good for sharing. Feel free to walk in for merienda and pay P20 for a turon and a lovely place to sit and chat with a friend over coffee.
To sum it up? Bench Café is local, honest and good. And highly Instagrammable. What more do you need? Oh yes… a drink? They have those, too, but perhaps a Bench Bar is coming soon? If it is, then I’ll happily partake in inuman and pulutan! They’ve earned my trust.
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