Pinoy Food & Other Cuisine :: Food PhotoBlog and Events |

Whenever I go to the southern areas outside Metro Manila, like Laguna or Tagaytay, it’s not uncommon to see vendors and stores selling edible pasalubong you can bring back home with you. The most popular item for sale is buko pie, followed by the usual native delicacies like pastillas de leche, cookies, ube, etc. I don’t normally buy any of them though. I bought a buko pie off a random store once and I was extremely disappointed at the poor quality. It wasn’t so much buko pie as a-lot-of-starch pie. There wasn’t even a single sliver of young coconut in the filling!

Buko Pie costs around 180 pesos a box

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I can’t remember the last time I bought something from a Starbucks. About a year ago I resolved to never buy anything from there because I don’t like how this big, multi-national coffee chain has become the standard that other smaller coffee shops have to measure up against. That and other political reasons that I won’t discuss at length. My friends understand and respect my decision, and I love that they go out of there way to meet up with me at other coffee shops like Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, Bo’s Coffee, and most recently, a Filipino-owned chain called Figaro.

Well actually, I go to Figaro for an entirely different purpose: to study and do my papers. For some reason I am completely incapable of focusing and getting any work done in my room, which means I have to do my work either at school or at a coffee shop. Besides being the only coffee shop five minutes away from my house, Figaro has cozy interiors, an air-conditioned smoking area (well, the one that I go to has one), and best of all, affordable, great-tasting coffee.

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been working at Figaro at least once a week, and on a lark I asked the lady at the counter if my frequent trips made me eligible for any discounts. She then told me about the Figaro Coffee Club, which I can become a member of after having collecting 10 stamps (one stamp per ordered drink) and paying 150 pesos. But because I’m awesome they decided to skip the stamp-collecting process and went straight ahead to giving me my temporary card (after I paid the 150). I don’t have my real Figaro Coffee Club card yet but my temporary card allows me to enjoy the awesometastic freebies:

1) All new members get 5 free drinks!
2) For a minimum purchase of Php 200 on food and drinks, I get a 10% discount. And if I complete the membership gift card, I get a Figaro Coffee Club mug/tumbler for free.
3) Every time I buy a coffee drink, I get a FREE 8 oz cup of brewed coffee or 50% on my next drink. (Only one free cup per visit though!)
4) When I visit any Figaro Coffee shop during the month of my birthday, I get a premium cake of my choice.
5) Figaro Coffee Club members also get invited to out-of-town trips to their coffee farms, coffee seminars, and parties.

Don’t you just love it when the establishment you frequent loves you back?

Visit the Figaro website for more information on the Figaro Coffee Club.

Newly opened Trinoma Branch has Valet parking services

It might surprise a lot of people to know that there is a consumer coffee tradition that’s older than Starbucks, and it originated right here in Asia. The Ueshima Coffee Co. (UCC) began during the eighth year of the Showa era in 1933. Japan has been importing coffee for three hundred years, but it only became a popular consumer item when Tadao Ueshima established UCC.

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I love all things that are chocolate and minty. After Eights, mint chocolate chip ice cream, Goya Dark Mints, Lindt - I’ve probably tried and loved them all. It occurred to me just recently that I’ve never had a mint chocolate chip cookie; that is, until yesterday.

While I was walking around the Podium with my mom, I noticed a small bake sale going on at the third level. Though we weren’t looking for anything in particular we decided to check out the booths anyway, and at Cosmo Bread I found something I have never seen before - white house peppermint cookies. They’re dark chocolate cookies with white chocolate and tangy mint chips. The moment I tried a tiny sample of the cookies, I was sold. I grabbed a dozen for Php 180 and skipped off home.

For breakfast today, I had the peppermint cookies with my coffee and it was absolutely delicious. I love how the mint lingers on my tongue and makes my mouth feel tingly when I take a sip of my hot coffee.

Other gourmet cookies by Cosmo Bread are pretty unusual - Peanut Butter & Chips, Ginger Chip Biscotti, and Unconditional Cookie. Besides cookies, Cosmo bread also sells classic favorites like food for the gods, devil’s food cake, and originals like Pandan sans rival, frozen oreo mousse, and chocolate toffee chip. For orders and more information, call them at (632) 336-4725 (allow 2-3 days lead time) or visit the Cosmo Bread website.

BTIC is no longer the only place in town where you can get frozen yoghurt. For those of you who haven’t heard of it yet, The White Hat is a quaint store in SM Mall of Asia that serves the finest scoop of frozen yoghurt, molded to resemble a little white hat (hence the name “The White Hat”). And this is not just any type of yoghurt in - The White Hat uses nothing less than authentic Italian yoghurt. Italy is a country known more for its carb-heavy cuisine than its desserts but apparently, they also make the best dairy products - and this includes yoghurt.

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One of the best teas I’ve ever had in my life was a concoction made by Master Tea Blender David de Candia at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf’s Tea Appreciation Workshop several months ago. I was taken aback by how flavorful it was and I thought it’d make the perfect present for my tea-drinking friends. Unfortunately, that delicious tea brew wasn’t for sale then, and we didn’t know when it would be out in the market until very recently.

Yesterday, The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf (CBTL) finally launched what I think is the best tea they’ve come up with - African Sunrise.

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It might not look like it, but the University of the Philippines Diliman campus is a haven of affordable, restaurant-quality cuisine. In the Shopping Center alone (near the UP Chapel and the infirmary), establishments like Rodic’s have been serving signature dishes (tapsilog) for decades - and they’re still a big hit among students today. Filipino food isn’t the only kind available in the Shopping Center, though. One of the newer restaurants is called Mashita and as you can guess by the name, they specialize in Japanese and Korean dishes.

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