Cafe Bob's -- Bacolod is alive and kicking at 1 a.m.!

The last time I visited Bacolod City must have been ten years ago. Genteel, elegant, laid back -- it was nonetheless quite "provincial" in its waking hours. Like any area outside of Manila, everything slowed down when darkness fell.

Well that's no longer the case today!

To my delight, Bacolod's main drag -- Lacson Street, is very much awake, alive and hopping even till way past midnight.

There are small bistros and bars in an upscale mini mall called Piazza Sorrento; a newly opened and bigger Calea's (Bacolod's cake heaven) is right across the hotel L Fisher, and there is even a (shudder) Starbucks for the coffee crowd.

But Starbucks notwithstanding, I'm happy to note that the more popular and "happening" coffee place along Lacson St. is none other than Cafe Bob's -- which is really Bob's Version 2.0.

Big, imposing and impressive and right at corner of Lacson and 21st street -- Cafe Bob's is a home grown success story, an offshoot of Bob's Restaurant, that thankfully, is adding spark and light to Bacolod after dark.

We arrived nearly midnight and because it was a Saturday night, the place was full of young people, enjoying coffee and pastries. Art, for sale and made by young Negrenses, lined the walls of Cafe Bob's turning it into a mini gallery. A lot of the art was very reasonably priced -- for a few thousand pesos, you could take home framed original work -- exuberant, youthful and very colorful!

Cafe Bob's had a lot of pasta dishes but we had already eaten dinner.

I was more interested in their wide selection of cakes, pastries and frozen desserts.

There was even a well stocked selection of gelato flavors!

The waiter said their pizza, cooked in a real wood burning oven, was a specialty, so much against our better judgement, we decided to order a four cheese pizza. It was hot, thin, crisp and arrived at the table with bubbles of blue cheese goodness!

Of course we had to have something sweet after that salty, yummy pizza so two small macaroons just had to be ordered. And yes, they were good too.

Cafe Bob's stays open till 2 am. We left a little after 1 -- having thoroughly enjoyed our after hours foray into Bacolod's night life!