Soft Luxe Flavors: Tagaytay - Rosario, Pamanang Panlasa Restaurant Review

We visited Rosario Pamanang Panlasa (formerly Josephine's) in Tagaytay. I wrote about the whole trip in my beauty, fashion, and lifestyle blog, if you'd like to read that. I also showed pictures of the restaurant, the view, and more. In this post, we will talk solely about the food.

Before we sat down, we had a bit of a problem. My sister was using crutches as she has an incomplete fracture of the knee and the hostess who accompanied her suggested a table that would make her go down a set of stairs. 🤦‍♀️ Really? Fortunately, our server (whose name escapes me at the moment), was a star! He anticipated all of our needs and promptly catered to our requests.

Here's what we ordered:

Lumpiang Shanghai

I only tasted one lumpiang Shanghai as I'm not a huge fan, so I'd rather not go deep into this. It was alright, but not for me.

Sinigang na Salmon Belly sa Miso

This was our favorite and the star of the table, hands down. There was a lot of salmon belly, as you can see in the photo. A far cry from city restaurants that serve only a few pieces of salmon. I was really surprised that all five of us were able to eat our fill and still end up with leftovers (that I brought home, of course)! The soup isn't too sour though, so if you want your sinigang to be really sour (like my husband), ask if the kitchen can accommodate your request.

Mango Smoothie

My son ordered this. It's not very sweet, unlike the usual mango smoothies in other restaurants.

Guyabano Juice

My sister and I ordered guyabano juice. It was too bland at first, but as I got lower into the glass, it became sweeter and sweeter until it was too sweet for me! They probably forgot to stir it after adding the sugar syrup. I thought that they used pure guyabano that's why it was a little bland. 😆 My sister was able to finish hers because she added water.

Fresh Lumpiang Ubod

I didn't touch this one because of allergies, but they really liked it and finished it.

Bulacang Okoy

Now this is another dish that I really liked. It's just a crunchy vegetable fritter with a shrimp on top. However, the crunch is a hard crunch, you know? Its the kind that leaves your gums sore after eating, so don't even think about biting into this using your front teeth. What I did was I tore off small pieces and ate it slowly. We liked this so much that my sister ordered another plate. It's still good when we reheated it in the oven a couple of days later. Eat it with the vinegar as it's quite bland on its own.

Binondo Rice

The binondo rice has chorizo and eggs. This was delicious and for some reason, tasted good even when I poured sinigang soup over it. The rice was fluffy and seasoned perfectly. We actually ordered another serving because my son loved it so much that the first caldero was demolished right away!

Pinalutong na Tawilis

This is a core dish of Tagaytay as tawilis can be fished from Lake Taal. There's nothing special about this dish though. The fish itself has no seasoning and even after dipping in vinegar, it still didn't appeal to me. For me, it wasn't super crispy that I can eat the bones. I still had to remove the bones. I only ate about 1 or 2 pieces.

Will we eat there again? With the food choices and taste, the ambiance, the price points - absolutely! I'm excited to try the other dishes! I ordered their sinigang na hipon as pasalubong (homecoming gift) for my husband and to have for dinner that night. He said that it wasn't as sour as he'd like it to be but it was alright for me and my son.

I will leave you with Rosario's Menu: