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.
 

Damaso- the desserts

The desserts that we tried in Restaurante Pia 'y Damaso performed better than the entrees which is I think a better strategy because the dessert would be the last thing you'd remember when you eat.

Just like the entrees, we decided to select 4 desserts and just share it among the 7 of us. We selected the following desserts: 1. Sisa's Dementia, 2. Guni-guni, 3. Ibarra's kiss and 4. Salvi's Canonigo. If after the last dessert, you still haven't notice the references to Noli and Fili, then you should look for the nearest bookstore, go to the Filipiniana section and then buy yourself a copy. Hehehe.
I apologize for the bad picture. Sisa's dementia is a truffle cake with white chocolate almond pastille with dark choco mousse and ganache.

Janet warned us that this dessert might be too sweet but I didn't find it too sweet. It was just moderately sweet. The consistency of the mousse was perfect too.






Ibarra's kiss (right) is a hazelnut chocolate torten with dark chocolate mousse, caramel, cheese and candied confit. How it is called Ibarra's kiss, i do not know...

I actually prefer this dish over Sisa's dementia because of the cheese. It is actually very distinct and adds a different flavor to the sweet and bitter dark chocolate. I also like the hazelnut flavor of the torten.

Now for me, the best dessert of the night was Guni-guni which is actually just a sugar-free Sisa's dementia's truffle cake with white chocolate almond pastille, dark chocolate and ganache. It reminded me of a chocolate bar placed in the fridge. But with more texture and flavors.

Finally, the lightest dessert of the night was Salvi's Canonigo. It was a really airy meringue served with vanilla cream and mangoes. The light and fluffy meringue is best eaten with the mangoes. It's really soft and melts in the mouth. Some of the people around the table actually complained about the dessert being too light but I think it was just right. It's a good complement to the creamy mousse or sweet chocolate ganaches.

As I said, the best dishes (at least the ones that I've tried) in Damaso are their desserts, so keep this in mind when you eat at the restaurant. Make sure you leave some room for dessert.