Great restaurants are often tucked in an area far from the city and civilization. Discard the fascination over imported franchise food and focus on local culinary feats - starting in Liliw, Laguna.

Arabela Restaurant, located in the land of cheap and fashionable footwear, Liliw, Laguna (or what Metro Pinoys call 'The Marikina of the South'), is a restaurant that doesn't offer the town's specialty and does not purely offer Filipino food. It offers a fusion of comfort food filled with delectable carbs standard for Italians - pasta and pizza. Of course, being a fusion restaurant, it also offers salads, soups, steaks, and several rice and fish tandem dishes. But pizza and pasta dominate their menu.

Clearly, Arabela does not depend on the shine and glint of the surface but it focused on the quality of the food. The restaurant is rather small and claustrophobic, as it's located on the first floor of a house. If your height is past 5 feet 5 inches, you can find yourself checking if your head will bump the ceiling. The interior is quaint and well thought of - you can say it's chic and reminiscent of Old Spaghetti House or Banapple.

The restaurant has a sign outside to guide first time customers but I think the locals already know of this small restaurant so they are free to ask the locals where it's located. You can reach Arabela in two hours from Los Banks and maybe 3-4 hours from Manila.