More than just a pleasant ending to a perfect meal, desserts have become the inspiration behind many blogs on the Web and more establishments serving only sweet confections have opened in Manila.
Gold Spot Awards 2009 judge Chef Aileen Anastacio, who is head chef of Goodies and Sweets, a columnist for Yummy magazine, co-host of QTV 11's "True Confections" says that she always looks at dessert displays.
"The desserts should be appetizing just by looking at them. I also order and try the chocolate cake if the place has it. Chocolate cakes are fairly easy to make and if it falls short, then something is wrong. The place also has to have good coffee and tea," Anastacio shares.
Fellow panelist JJ Yulo, also thinks that "a dessert place, just like any other kind of restaurant, should allow their dishes to show the pastry chef's personality. It would also be great if they used temperance with their sugar --- too sweet desserts are never fun, in my book. It's actually nice when other flavors enter the picture–sour, or even salty."
This year, five spots edged out the rest of Manila's dessert places in the race for being this year's Best Dessert Place. See which places gets the most brownie points:
Becky's Kitchen, the brainchild of home-baker Rebecca Villegas, turned to baking full-time after years of teaching at St. Scholastica's College. She started churning out desserts in 1987 in her modest Singalong, Manila home until word-of-mouth brought many patrons buying and raving about her brownies, cakes and pastries. To cater to more dessert-lovers, she opened a branch in Valle Verde 1 in Pasig City.
Cafe Breton's dessert and savoury crepes make it a favorite dessert spot. With Café Breton in Manila, French crepes are no longer confined to European jaunts. Café Breton's consistent deliciously light crepes topped with fruits, nutella, chocolate syrup, whipped cream or ice-cream, have won the hearts of Manila's sweet-toothed dwellers.
Mariela Luna of Café Breton shares, "When we opened 11 years ago, it was our goal only to serve the best crepes and coffee. And to be considered as one of the best dessert places and to be top-of-mind when it comes to crepes is reward enough for all our hardwork and commitment."
Inspired by chocolate bars in Barcelona, owners Rina Avecilla, Trish Malvar, Valerie Lopez, and Pinky Ortiz brought the ultimate chocolate experience to Manila in 2004. From cacao bars, gourmet brownies, to traditional hot chocolate and even alcohol-infused chocolate drinks, Café Xocolat has provided chocoholics a place to enjoy chocolate and all its incarnations.
Avecilla says that they are "beaming with chocolate pride" with the Best Dessert Place nomination and hopes to play devil's advocate in a country where coffee shops are king.
Baba Ibazeta's Lemon Torte (right), calamansi bars and Nono's Chocolate Oblivion are crowd-pleasers. Baba Ibazeta turned her passion for baking into a lucrative business. Her popular dessert creations at her Greenbelt 5 shop is the product of 24-hour baking sprees during the Christmas rush, catering weddings and birthday parties, and nitpicking on the designs of packaging of her creations.
From fruit-laden cakes, cupcakes, cookies and other desserts, Ibazeta "likes to give a dessert a twist to make it fresh and elegant." She says, "That way, it's something that's different but not intimidating."
Re-introducing cupcakes to Manila in 2006, Sonja Ocampo's small temptations have inspired the rest of the city to create their own home-baked miniature cakes. Ocampo, who uses top-notch ingredients and creates soft and moist cupcakes topped with thick frosting, already has 25 cupcake flavors to date.
Says the cupcake queen of Manila's obsession with her sweet creations, "I think cupcakes, like donuts and ice cream, are comfort food. They quench our thirst for nostalgia."
Which dessert place hits your sweet spot? Click here to start voting.
Images courtesy of tonyrom.com (Becky's Kitchen), Ismael Tactay (Cafe Breton), Patti Mallari and magnetic_rose (Classic Confections), Eden Gan (Cafe Breton), Karen Go (Cafe Xocolat) and chotda (Cupcakes by Sonja).
