Life's celebrations at Morty Bakes

Friends for life

Food has a way of bringing people together, be it friends, family, or relatives, we all gather for/with food. Last year, my girlfriends from highschool sent an invite in our group chat. It was my birthday week and they wanted to meet up on a Saturday. The good news, they’re paying for it since it’s my birthday. Haha!

After arranging my schedule (which needs to be arranged all the time, so many things happening 😂), I freed up a couple of hours after lunch. That weekend my boyfriend wanted to spend time with me as well. I invited him for the meet-up since he hadn’t been officially introduced to my high school friends except for a surprise encounter in Jollibee a few weeks earlier.

Now a boiling concern started to get in the way, where are we gathering? My friends are not the type who’d go for a mile or longer just to eat great food. They’re more of “Let’s go somewhere near” kind of friends. That means spending time in one of the cafes or restaurants within Carcar City. I know with the recent developments in our small City, various cafes and restaurants had been sprouting every now and then. The downside is not all of these cafes and restaurants offer quality and affordable food. There’s this gap between expectation and reality.

I’m always not at home and when I’m at home, I rarely go out. I just spend the entire weekend at home resting – reading, writing, watching Netflix and taking care of the household chores. With this, there’s no way I would know which café to go to! So we all left the decision-making to Fritze who works and lives in Carcar. Not long after that, Fritze was firm she’d bring us to her favorite pasta place.

When we arrived at Fritze’s house, she was still sleeping after pulling an all-nighter. She looked tired and weary, but when we came she started to be alive and transformed into the talkative, entertaining friend I know. In a few minutes, Hershey arrived with the sweetest smiles and from her vibes, I knew she got tons of stories to tell. Just so everyone will understand how special this kind of gathering is for all of us, we rarely meet. And if we do, we just pick up where we left off as if we were seeing each other every day. I’ve always believe that real friends don’t necessarily have to meet all the time just to stay connected. I have friends, mostly from highschool, I only see at least once a year but time or distance never bothered us. We just acknowledged that we’re living different lives, keeping up with our daily life struggles but at the end of the day, we’re still the same great friends.

Anyway, back to my story. We were only waiting for Enteng; she had a half-day duty at work that’s why she’s a bit late. We walked towards the main road and met her there. At first, Fritze didn’t tell us that we were going to Morty Bakes, she just mentioned that she’s bringing everyone to this place that serves amazing Carbonara. Later, we all found out that it’s less than 100 meters from her house. Now you’re getting what my friends meant with “Let’s not go far”. 😂

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What’s inside?

For all I know, Morty Bakes is new but I was wrong. It has been operating for a couple of months or maybe over a year when we visited. It is located in Cogon, Brgy. Poblacion 1, Carcar City. A few meters away from our Alma Mater. If you are traveling from Cebu City to Carcar City, it’s on the left side when you take the road going to Barili.

It’s a very small café. In Carcar City, the floor area of Morty Bakes is the usual size of any café I’ve visited in the city. There are even smaller cafes than Morty Bakes.

The café extended their tables and seats just outside the café. Personally, I wouldn’t want to stay outside, aside from not weather proof it’s also located just beside the National Road – dust and all, if you know what I mean.

Inside, the design revolves around the black and gold theme. I can recall the beautifully crafted marble tables (which unfortunately I wasn’t able to take a photo of). They have a small counter where you could order.

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Savory and sweet

If you go over their menu board, you’d conclude that this place offers a balance of sweet and savory offerings.

But as anticipated, we all ordered Carbonara. We wanted to verify Fritze’s claim that they offer the best Carbonara in town.

My boyfriend and I have this tactic: we order different food and share them. This way we get to try a variety of food. We ordered both Carbonara and Lasagna. The lasagna was good but I’d give the spotlight to the Carbonara.

Apparently, Fritze wasn’t bluffing with her claim. It was the best Carbonara I ate in town; maybe not until I decide to open my own shop and offer the next best carbonara. 😂 Maybe next time, I’ll share my recipe here; I made one from scratch for my friends during our Christmas Party.

It was my (and in a way my boyfriend’s) birthday celebration, too. We both share the same birthdate. There’s no room for calorie count. I’m a huge fan of ube (purple yam) cake, but they don’t have sliced ube cakes. So we ordered this tub ube cake. I shared the cake to whoever wants to try but I ate most of it! 🤣

We also ordered milkshakes/shakes, we ordered mango, chocolate, and strawberry shakes. They were all so delicious. My boyfriend ordered something with coffee. I forgot what exactly he got.

My boss would always say “Food has a way of reminding us of memories from a long time ago. At times, it’s not about the food but the memories made with people we care about during meal times that make us remember cafes or restaurants or food”

I couldn’t agree more with his notes. We had so much fun eating and catching up with my girl friends at Morty's and that's what I'll remember everytime I think about Morty's. More than the food it was the memories I made with my closest friends. 😁

That’s it for today, foodies! Have you been craving some Carbonara lately? If you’re from the south side of Cebu, don’t forget to drop by Morty Bakes.

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