Cafe Via Mare - the desserts

If you're looking for a place where you can try the best Filipino desserts, try Cafe Via Mare. We had our desserts there last week and we had a grand time.

There are three kinds of cold desserts in Cafe Via Mare: the ginumis, the halo-halo and the mais con yelo. All three sounds good and looks soooo good in pictures so it is quite a good thing that Cafe Via Mare has the sampler which they call shooters.


They serve the three cold desserts in shot glasses which gives the customer a taste of each of the desserts.



Of the three desserts, the best for me would be the ginumis which is almost like a halo halo but with different ingredients. There are no beans but instead there's gelatine (gulaman). There's also lots of sago and pinipig. Instead of evaporated milk, they use coconut milk and instead of sugar for a sweetener, they used panucha.

The great thing about Cafe Via Mare's ginumis is the crunch of the pinipig vis-a-vis the soft gulaman. The coco milk is creamy too and the sweetness is just right.

The halo-halo is actually quite good as well. Although, there were a number of things that were missing (or was I just looking for a bigger serving?). What I liked about the portion of the halo-halo that I got was that the sweetness is just right. Just like the ginumis, the halo-halo was not too sweet.

The weakest of the three would be the mais con yelo. I think what is missing would be some more flavors of corn in the syrup. The mais con yelo was also a bit bland for me probably because you'd only know that what you're eating is a mais con yelo only when you've tasted the corn kernels. 

So after trying the three desserts, I concluded that ginumis of via mare is the best. The halo halo is ok too but the mais con yelo needs improvement.
 

Happy Lemon-Just close your eyes and give it a try

Last Saturday, after badminton, we had the opportunity to try out one of the most raved about drinks in the metro.

To be honest, I haven't really heard about it but having been documenting my experiences of different restaurants and talking about their food, I thought it would be good to document my experiences about trying new drinks as well.

My companion then swears by the goodness of the drinks in happy lemon so that also gave me a motivation to try it out. Looking at their menu, I was actually a bit shocked if not turned-off because of the unheard of combination of rock salt and cheese on coffee drinks. I was actually confused, was it supposed to be savory or a sweet drink?

When we got our drink, I was discouraged some more. My drink (green tea with rock salt and cheese) looked like it was something brewed in a witch's cauldron. There were bubbles and foam that are not really enticing.

Ia's drink was a bit more presentable. The cocoa powder as toppings was the saving grace because it was able to cover the foamy and bubbly substance on top of our glasses.

But I am grateful to Ia for encouraging me to give it a try. Because after the first sip, I was won over. Don't mind the presentation and don't mind the description of mixing rock salt with your drink. Just give it a try and you'd be won over too.

My drink won me over because it is very fragrant just like real honest-to-goodness green tea that I've tried in Japan. The saltiness was not very empowering but emphasized the sweetness of the drink making me like it some more.

Too bad there are too few branches. I would certainly recommend it to my friends to try.