Meat overflow – Meat Overflow (front): with beef toppings, pepperoni, ham, bell pepper, onions, double cheese. Easily my baby nephew’s favorite. To the left is the Cheesy Madness: beef toppings, mushrooms, bell pepper, cheese melt, double cheese.
Before, whenever I had friends coming to visit me, I panic because I had no idea where to bring them. We don’t have waterfalls like our neighbor Iligan is famous for. We have beaches but the nearby Camiguin is more tempting with its white sands. The culture that the Indigenous Peoples share is not even truly ours anymore as we, settlers, have driven the communities to the mountains of Bukidnon.
Visitors always say they want the authentic CdO. So I thought, what do my friends and I do? We eat, we chat, we hang out at coffee shops, tea shops, and really binge on food. We do have the white water rafting but it does not really take two days to go down the river. If my friends have already had their fill of the extreme outdoors that we offer, I take them on a food trip.
Yummy Salami: salami, bacon bits, bell pepper, onions, black olives, double cheese. The house’s pride.
Let me do a sample tour and start with one restaurant review. While most of the hang outs are in downtown Cagayan de Oro, it does not hurt to chill in a more relaxed and quiet space from time to time – make that twice or thrice a week. I have two favorite places to just hang out and stuff myself silly with amazing food – one is by the sea which is in the next municipality so I will not talk about it right now as I want to focus on restaurants in CdO. The other is a homey pizza place near SM City which used to be bustling when our old Lumbia airport was still used commercially.
Hula – the favorite of Irene’s little girl. Hawaiian Pizza
Jeannette’s Pizza, Pasta and More is undoubtedly my favorite pizza place. Just thinking of their Cheesy Madness and lasagna always makes me ready for lunch even at nine in the morning. What I absolutely love is that their pizza crust isn’t oily but it isn’t desert dry either. And although most of the surface is covered with melted cheese – that’s for the Cheesy Madness favorite – it doesn’t taste like bread and cheese shoved into an oven. It tastes like a proper pizza. And cheesy too. I’m sorry but I’m really all about cheese too bad I forgot to ask the owner – who is there day in and day out as a hands-on worker – what kind of cheese they use. But I was assured by one of their staff that all ingredients are just bought locally.
Lasagna – the very cheesy lasagna. My favorite. And apparently, it’s one of their best sellers too!
Irene Stuart, the owner, admitted that their restaurant isn’t aiming to be like the fancy pizza parlors scattered all over the city. They do everything in little portions because she doesn’t want to store the food for which she would need preservatives. She is particular about this because the restaurant actually serves as their family’s kitchen – both her children being pizza fans, which was actually the inspiration for her and her husband’s putting up the business. So everything is fresh – the dough for the pizza made almost every day, the other recipes cooked according to the schedule we usually cook at home.
Jeannette’s Restaurant also serve different dishes for lunch and dinner.
This pizza place is located at the ground floor of the Primavera Residences. Far from the bustle of the city, it is perfect for some catching up with the lives of your friends, your friends’ neighbors and even your friends’ neighbors’ relatives. You can talk all you want because you don’t need to compete with the usual city commotion and hurt your throat in the process.
Coziest spot in the restaurant
When I am asked what unique food we have in CdO, I do not have a ready answer for this. Because it’s always that everything turns unique when prepared the CdO way. Italian pizza? Nope, Jeannette’s pizza is our pizza. CdO pizza.
Still can’t decide whether it’s Italian Pizza or CdO Pizza? Drop by Jeannette’s Restaurant by clicking here.
