Cav Wine Shop and Cafe

With 2011 ending, PJ and I decided to give ourselves our last splurge of the year. During my last run in Bonifacio Global City (BGC, or what used to be known as just 'The Fort'), I passed by an interesting looking cafe, and so we went there.

Let's get this out of the way early in this post: Cav is a pretty expensive place for dinner. There. To their credit, the wine selection was a list of an entire folder, and I had quite a conversation with our server, who more or less knows his wine. We had the three-course set (two appetizers, one entree, and one dessert) and a bottle of Taylor's Promised Land shiraz, '09 vintage.

Our wine and wholemeal rolls.

Mushroom shooters and foie gras.

Beautiful :)

Young Arugula Salad.

Duck Confit Ravioli.

Angus Beef Tenderloin, medium-well.

Creme Brulee.

Good night out :)

The menu was a little hard to understand, and we actually spent the first ten minutes listening to our waiter as he explained the various courses they have plus the wines that go well with those. We went for the 'prix fixe' course menu to keep things simple. Since PJ's a pesco vegetarian (that means seafood items are allowed, but still no red meat) she had the two appetizers while I had the beef to myself. Good choice, with the shiraz that I picked for us.

The ambiance was gorgeous, and the service excellent, but for all of Cav's finer points, it's very difficult to say with a straight face that it is a true value for money establishment. The wine - which is sold within their premises - is still slapped with a PHP 300 corkage fee, something that I find very illogical and unreasonable. However, with bottles priced above PHP 1,500, the corkage is 'waived'. I think this is a ridiculous system since they are selling their wines in the first place. Also, the Brussels sprout on my Angus beef? Four pieces of the small green things were considered a PHP 700 'add-on'. Yes. Four pieces. Seven hundred pesos. Go digest that for a minute.

It was a beautiful date, and we did leave the place very full, but it was not exactly a dinner justified by the final bill. We've eaten in some of BGC's and Green Belt 5's higher-end restaurants, but this has to be the most expensive one yet, and I'm not sure it was totally worth it. Don't be too shocked by the rating below, especially with Value for Money :)

Food: 8/10
Service: 10/10
Ambiance: 10/10
Value for Money: 2/10
Minimum Budget for Two: PHP 3,000.00 - PHP 5,000.00

Jay~