First Bite: Meet Fresh

My heart always skip a beat whenever I hear the manly "tahoooooo" echo in the morning. I'd hurriedly look for small bills, get out of my PJs and run as fast as I could to the gate and eagerly wait for my favorite morning treat. But more often than not, I miss the manong magtataho or he skips our street. Thankfully, a new store opened that sells something better than taho. 

Hello, Meet Fresh!

Meet Fresh is the newest dessert shop in town and it opened its first store in Podium Mall. 

First Bite: Cold Layers

Rainy days in Manila doesn't necessarily mean sweater weather. With the humid air we have in the city, it's not surprising to see people feast on ice cream, shaved ice or boba. And since a cold treat is always a good idea, I decided to swing by Cold Layers.

Hello, Cold Layers.

Cold Layers is known as a shaved ice shop. But it offers more than just those fluffy snow-like treats. Aside from it joining the boba craze, it also offers savory dishes perfect for breakfast, lunch, merienda and dinner!

Beat the Heat: Shari Shari Kakigori House Philippines Opens this June 2019

With summer coming to an end, the heat still lingers and there's no stopping us from wanting cold treats. Thankfully, a new shaved ice dessert shop reached our shores and is up for the challenge to keep us cool. And it has legit matcha to boot!

Hello, Shari Shari Kakigori House!

Shari Shari Kakigori House from Hong Kong is finally opening in Manila this June and will be serving its bestsellers Japanese Tofu Kakigori, Matcha Cream Special, Earl Grey Milk Tea and Strawberry Special among others. As a Manila exclusive flavor, Shari Shari Philippines will also serve Cantaloupe Melon. 

First Bite: Froozy

This year's summer is crazy! With the temperature hitting 40s, Manila has never been this hot! And I can't stop dreaming of swimming in ice cream. But I found something a little bit close to that. By stuffing myself with shaved ice from Froozy!

Hello, Froozy. 

Froozy is a local shaved ice concept inspired by the Korean dessert bingsu. Designed to be a sweet escape for the health conscious, the ingredients you can find here are made from scratch.

Love at First Bite: Vampire Penguin Shaved Snow and Desserts

Summer is here and I now have the perfect excuse to eat cold treats 24/7. Halo-halo, bingsu, ice cream, you name it, I’d most likely want it. And a few weeks ago, I discovered a new favorite. It comes with an adorable mascot and an interesting name.

Hello, Vampire Penguin.

An adorable Vampire Penguin greeted us as soon as we approached its store located at Ayala on 30th. A display shelf with the different flavored ice, toppings and macarons were among the first things we noticed as we stepped inside the corner store. 

Its name sure made a lot of diners curious. Thankfully, Leo, one half of the duo who conceptualized Vampire Penguin, was there to entertain all our silly questions. He enlightened us by sharing a little story about themselves and how related it is to Vampire Penguin.

Beat the Heat: Seol Bang

Summer is here and so is the detestable unbearable heat it comes with. But summer is also the perfect excuse for me to indulge in cold treats every day. And it was timely that I spotted a new favorite bingsu place. 

Hello, Seol Bang!

It’s not hard to miss this new dessert shop if your goal is to just have your photo taken by the picturesque “Venice Grand Canal”. This place is located a couple of meters away from on the selfie stick zone of the mall and that instantly warrants +10 points from me as I do not have to dodge phones and sticks on my way here.

Beat the Heat: Snow Creme

With the never ending summer heat, shaved ice treats have become a staple dessert in the food scene. I find it interesting how it evolved from Cerealicious and Ice Monster to bingsu. Such changes show how locals also evolved as foodies. We are no longer satisfied with rough shaved ice and now yearn for snow-like ones. We also now crave for a variety of toppings and are no longer content with just brownies, chocolates and cereals. And these changes in preferences help push the food industry to come up with better dishes. I was pretty pleased to find a shop that actually merged two of the food trends that made Manila, well, fatter. 

Hello, Snow Creme!

This charming shaved ice dessert shop is located in the same building as some of the famous Maginhawa restaurants such as Wicked Kitchen and Papa Diddi’s. Cat Café Manila is also in the same building. 

I was actually just looking for something to quench my thirst when I passed by this shop. I figured that shaved ice will do the trick and that I’ll be able to satisfy my insatiable desire for desserts at the same time. To my surprise, this shop offers more than shaved ice treats. 

Snow Creme also offers milk teas, fruit teas, smoothies and light snacks like fries and squid balls.  I ended up getting Strawberry Kiwi Iced Tea (PHP70, Large | PHP80, Extra Large) and Taiwan Shaved Ice (PHP130, Small | PHP180, Large). 

My Taiwan Shaved Ice was served in less than 15 minutes and it looked pretty nice with its generous serving of mochi, red beans and coffee jelly. It sure was a steal for PHP130. 

First Bite: Ikigai Kakigori Café

Bingsu has been popular in Manila last year when Café Seol Hwa made such an impact to the foodie community (especially to those struggling to survive from the summer heat). Since then, several bingsu restaurants popped literally everywhere.To spice things up, a Japanese shave ice concept came to Manila--Ikigai Kakigori Café. Since we were already around the area, we decided to drop by after Kozui Green Tea. (Yes, it was right after wolfing down a bowl of soft serve ice cream simply because we were really melting that day.)

Hello, Ikigai Kakigori Café.

The quaint looking café has a very Japanese vibe with its adorable façade and decors. The restaurant itself is cramped and could sit a maximum of 10-12 diners, sardines style. Moving around the restaurant was barely possible when we were there. Anyway, on to our orders.

One thing I love about these looloo foodies is that they are game to try anything. We got our orders down in less than 2 minutes. We got the bestsellers Matcha Kakigori (PHP190 | PHP250), Mango Kakigori (PHP180 | PHP240), Kuromitsu Kakigori (PHP180 | PHP240) and Strawberry Ichigo Kakigori (PHP210). 

Service was quick and first served was Strawberry Kakigori. 

It didn’t look as appetizing as the ones I'd get from bingsu places like Hobing or Seol Hwa but it was spot on with the milkiness of the shaved ice. The strawberry chunks were a bit mushy and covered in milk and sweeteners but still delightful to munch on. This was the best one we had at Ikigai.

The Matcha Kakigori was served next and it came with matcha ice cream, adzuki, shiratama (mochi) and extra matcha syrup. 

It was quite plain and needed more matcha syrup (more than what was given as extra) especially for hardcore matcha lovers. I liked the shiratama and adzuki though as it added a different texture to the bowl of shaved ice. The matcha ice cream was pretty good too.

Restaurant Love: Café Seol Hwa

I have been raving about Café Seol Hwa for weeks now. I was really happy with the bingsu that I ordered the last time I visited to the point that I crave it every day. So one hot day, I decided to visit again and this time, I went with R.

Hello again, Café Seol Hwa!

The Korean dessert place was quite empty during lunch and we easily got a table. Since we were a bit hungry, we decided to go for Cheese Garlic Toast (PHP220) and Strawberry Bing Su (PHP240, regular | PHP360, large).

Service in general seems to be slow in Café Seol Hwa as it took them around 10 minutes to prepare our toast. (Then again, an average toast would be 3 minutes so it seems reasonable.)  

And after one bite, I realized that… it was stuffed with MOCHI! This is BRILLIANT!!! The crunchy toast with a generous spread of cheese and garlic and the chewy rice cake was a lovely combination. It may seem pricey for PHP220 but it was worth it.

Summer 101: Get Shaved

It’s getting hot. Really hot. I was pretty happy a few weeks back as it felt like the Christmas breeze finally arrived but it is now gone. (T.T) Oh well. Then I remembered this shaved ice place N loves so much to the point that he was proud to bring me there. 

 

Hey, Get Shaved!

 

The place was charming with its cool blue interiors. It makes me feel cooler already. The choices also have cute names such as Root Beer Dream and Monkey Brains. I ordered #5 Sour Puss on a UFO bowl ($2.75) as I was not sure if I will like it while N ordered an Ice Cream Sandwich ($3/piece).

In less than 3 minutes, we have our orders ready.

A Sneak Peek!

I know it has been a while (a long while) since my last update and thanks to my sister's friend J, I got motivated to post an entry explaining my disappearing act. I'm on a Dora The Explorer mode. I got to visit several restaurants and places I can't wait to blog about. Here's a teaser of what I'll be blogging about soon! :)

San Francisco Tour  

Solvang

 

Hearst Castle

 

Palace of the Arts

 

Fisherman's Wharf (and it's clam chowder!) 

 

House of Prime Rib (steak heaven!!!)

Yosemite

 

Food truck stop