Note: You can call Marge Tan of Balay Indang at 09178665825 if you want to book a week-end.

Discounts for children available.

Front door of Balay Indang

Balay Indang is a quiet and secluded bed and breakfast inn as well as a regular retreat house
inconspicuously located in Indang, Cavite. The best way to get there is to follow the Tagaytay
route, straight thru the town of Mendez and into Indang. Most people will miss it as there are no
signs outside the gate except for the numbers 88.

Front of the house

Balay Indang…is ilokano for Bahay…and is a calm, quiet and relaxing resort …this
vast area…had 17 rooms in around 4 different cottages…there were trees and flowers
and green everywhere.

Nice garden

Huge high ceiling living room

The place is like a garden in a farm with several small houses peppered across a hectare of lot.
There are several cavanas and cottages within pockets of garden as well as a swimming pool
with a recreation or yoga area.
Let us swim

Clear water swimming pool

Clear water

Inside Balay Indang

Awesome
Inside Balay Indang

The rooms are spacious — some with air conditioning while others have ceiling fans. You won’t
be needing them anyway as it’s always chilly there and the breeze just creeps right thru the
window. An old and rustic design with Bali and Chinese influence completes the entire package.
Romantic bedroom

Fresh and clean bedroom

Inside the bedroom
Bedroom fo your choice

Bedroom of your choice

Big living room

Meal are served 5 times a day — breakfast, morning snacks, lunch, afternoon snacks and dinner.
That, plus the accommodations and facilities will set you back Php2,000 per head each night.
Not bad for some real peace and quite.
Pathway at Balay Indang

Meals usually starts with a green salad or soup, with fresh ingredient from their own garden.
That’s usually followed by the main dish of either fish, a stuffed roast chicken, adobo or their
special embutido which is to die for.
Vines serve as shed near the swimming pool

At night, it really gets cold and between 5pm to 7pm. You can stay indoors or hang out at the
cavana beside the pool for some recreation after dinner. In contrast to city living, people here
sleep very early in the evening; sometimes as early 9PM.
Nice pathway
Dine out

Gazebo
My favorite spot

Room outside the house

Nice vine around the window

Orchid garden
Cart of flowers

Honeymoon in open area

Directions at Indang Balay

Note: You can call Marge Tan of Balay Indang at 09178665825 if you want to book a week-end.
Discounts for children available.

Balay Indang is located in Indang, Cavite, a short drive from Tagaytay City. From Aguinaldo
Highway, turn right to Mendez Road and go straight until you hit the end of the road. Turn right
and 3 km. farther, you will see a wooden gate with the number 88 painted on the wall. You have
arrived at one of the most relaxing spots imaginable.

We moved to the large and airy dining room where mirrors of various sizes and designs adorned
one wall. One side overlooked an outdoor dining area and, beyond it, a magnificent garden.
The salad was served. My daughters said they had none of the bitterness that characterize
commercially sold salad greens. Probably organic, my husband remarked.
Next came a platter of barbecued chicken, bangus belly cooked a la bistek, and a creamy dish of
cauliflower florets and ham. We ate contentedly and were told that the pasta would be served
soon. There was plain white rice and yellow rice with raisins and crisp pop beans.
If we were impressed with lunch, dinner was doubly impressive. We had mushroom soup — not
the commercial kind — topped with croutons (I asked for seconds), fresh garden salad, Chinese
style fried rice, tender and super moist baby back ribs, the most tender steak I have ever eaten,
cabbage omelet and a stir-fried shrimp dish.
We played scrabble after dinner. At 9 p.m., the girls didn’t object to settling in for the night. In a
place where there are no TVs or the Internet, early bedtime did sound logical. But owl that I am,
I went down again–and outdoors–to take more photos.

We had breakfast at around 7:15 the following morning. By 7:45, we were out in the gardens
again.

There is no concierge or reception desk at Balay Indang. Our bill was handed to us when we had
our morning snack. PhP 1850.00 per head for an overnight stay might not sound inexpensive. In
fact, my husband was not too keen on going to Balay Indang when I told him the rates a week
earlier. But after experiencing what Balay Indang had to offer, even he had to concede that it was
worth every centavo. The ambience, the cleanliness not just of the bedrooms but of the entire
place, the friendly and very efficient staff, the food (effectively eat all you can)…

Balay Indang prefers that its guests make prior reservations. Day trips may also be arranged. You
may reach them at 09178374261.

Feasting at Balay Indang

[Originally published on May 6, 2009 in Manila Standard Today; please
see previous articles here and here.]

My family was in Balay Indang again early this month and it was a total gastronomic experience
as usual. If you haven’t heard of the place, it’s the subject of a feature article (“Peace and
tranquility at Balay Indang,”� May 17, 2007) that was published in this paper. In a nutshell,
Balay Indang is an inn and getaway to soothe city-weary nerves “� guesthouses, pavilion and
cabanas scattered over huge Zen gardens…
We arrived on Saturday, May 2, in time for a late afternoon snack. There was homemade suman,
some stuffed with chocolate, others with mango strips. Then, there was turon covered with
sesame seeds, traditional ingredients for halo-halo like red beans and macapuno hidden inside the
bananas.
We were shown to our room and after setting down our bags, we were off to explore the Zen
gardens that we missed so much. Armed with four cameras, an assortment of lenses and a video
camera, we made the most of the remaining daylight to capture images of the grounds. It was the
perfect opportunity too to digest the merienda we just had so we wouldn’t feel too full by
dinnertime. Dinner, we knew from experience, is always the highlight of a Balay Indang
weekend.

Dinner was unforgettable. Served al fresco under multi-colored canopies and soft warm light, the
food parade began with a delectable consomme and fresh garden salad. Then the main courses
arrived and I got flustered not knowing what to do first “� take photos of the food or start
eating. There was a dish with tuna seasoned subtly like teriyaki but with a hint of wasabe too.
The very light sauce of the pasta with clams was a mixture of clam broth and wine. The shrimp
kabobs were topped with mango salsa. And, the most memorable dish of all, hickory-flavored
pork spare ribs so tender that the meat was falling off the bones. But the feast didn’t end with the
main courses. Dessert was chocolate fondue with mini-marshmallows, diced pineapples, apples
and bananas. After-dinner tea was a wonderfully surprising pot of fresh mint leaves steeped in
hot water.
After shower and a game of Scrabble where we all lost miserably to our 15-year-old daughter
Alex, we slept in our well-appointed bedroom that echoed the overall theme of Balay Indang “�
casual shabby chic that never intimidated but, rather, imparted an aura of restfulness.

Breakfast the next morning had a decidedly Filipino theme. Chicken adobo, tortang talong
(eggplant omelet) and crisp fried fish were served with garlic fried rice and tomato and salted
eggs salad. Too ordinary? Ordinary is unheard of in Balay Indang. The fried fish was not the
usual daing nor the paper thin sun-dried danggit or tuyo. It was something in-between “�
butterflied biya fried to a perfect golden crispness that even the heads were perfectly edible. The
salted eggs and tomato were tossed with snipped cilantro that gave the salad a piquant aroma and
flavor.
We skipped the mid-morning snack so as not to ruin our appetite for lunch. Between breakfast
and lunch, my 16-year-old daughter, Sam, and I did what we like to do best in Balay Indang
(next to eating the wonderful food, of course) “� take photos. Then, it was lunch — salad,
pasta, baked fish with Parmesan, fried lumpiang ubod served with a delicious sweetened vinegar
that defies description, embotido, chicken smothered in gravy and, for dessert, ice cream. We
were so full we didn’t even ask for coffee anymore.
Did we overeat during our Balay Indang weekend? Probably. In a place like that and with that
kind of food, it’s hard not to. And what’s really great about the food in Balay Indang is the lack
of pretense. There is no attempt to prettify the food to make it appear more delicious than it is.
The food presentation is always thoughtful but one has to eat the food to really experience it.
Balay Indang’s manager, Marge Tan Natalis explained the food philosophy in one sentence, “We
don’t serve food that I wouldn’t eat.”� She comes up with the recipes and the kitchen staff
executes them. The result is both creative and inventive “� an indefinable mix of comfort food
and casual élan that has become the benchmark of Balay Indang. My friend and fellow lawyer
Sam Sabalones-Celiz who first recommended the place to me describes the food as “to die
for”� and I wholeheartedly agree.

Balay Indang is located in Indang, Cavite, a short drive from Tagaytay City. From Aguinaldo
Highway, turn right to Mendez Road and go straight until you hit the end of the road. Turn right
and 3 km. farther, you will see a wooden gate with the number 88 painted on the wall. You may
inquire and make reservations at 09178374261.