Bakery Felt's Pastries Are the Dopamine Boosters You Need on Your Worst Days

Bakery Felt
2/F The Mega Atrium, SM Megamall, Mandaluyong City
Instagram: www.instagram.com/felt_ph
Open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., Monday to Sunday

(SPOT.ph) I don't know how many times pastries that looked incredibly good in photos and videos turned out to be rather disappointing or lackluster once I've tried it out for myself. In the age of aesthetics and keeping all things Instagrammable—especially food, it is rather rare to find pastries that both deliver visual and taste.

Oh, what a pleasant surprise, a breath of fresh air Bakery Felt, erm, felt like at first bite. 

In the row of restaurants at SM Megamall stands the new shop, with its gigantic pastry display, bright red interiors, and the neon sign "(Take What You Need)." While it doesn’t have that inviting scent of freshly baked pastries, rest assured that all pastries are indeed baked on the day of. Heck, even the pastries on the display table are freshly baked and the real thing. 

Also read: Krispy Kreme's New 'Churro Doughnuts' Look Damn Good—But Do They Taste Good Too?

Feel all the good emotions at the Bakery Felt

BraveFoods is the company behind Bakery Felt, and interestingly enough, BLK 513 and FRNK, too. This is the company's first rodeo in venturing into something that’s not labeled as a “healthier” alternative or something that is nutrition-focused. Instead, Bakery Felt is a “feel-good connection” with food, Abi Sy, founder of BraveFoods, explains.

Bakery Felt's underlying message is that food affects our mood—it always has, it is the universal truth that we do eat based on our emotions. And what better way to feel happier—especially if your love language is food—than delicious pastries, right?

Sy's vision for Bakery Felt is to allow customers to be more introspective and to know what they want. "You look at our products, and you understand exactly what you're able to get from our products. And hopefully, by the time that they leave, they're happier."

The bakery's signature brioche + croissant hybrid pastry does that job of being a dopamine inducer perfectly—and it sure helps that each pastry has a punny and aspirational name attached to it such as Pastillas Inner Peace, Choco Cheat Day, and, as a true marites always looking for the hottest and latest tea, Ginisang Munggo Hummus Chismis. “So that's why if you notice our flavors are tied to moments, or like the things that you kind of crave in your life," says Sarah Caringal, the Brand Marketing Manager of Brave Foods.

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What to try at Bakery Felt

Bakery Felt main pastry is a brioche-meets-the-flaky croissant with a hollowed-out center, which is always filled in three layers. There's the crunchy or flaky base, a creamy filling in the middle, and a topping that brings in the flavor. It's evident through the bakery's three pastry categories: Pick-Me-Up, Just-In-Time, and Anytime Brunch.

With Bakery Felt’s extensive and impressive menu—consisting of mostly hits than misses, it’s hard, almost cruel and unfair, to choose a favorite. It's even harder because every item does sound like a flavor combination that obviously works in theory, otherwise, it's an experimental flavor that will make you curious enough to try. 

To help you overcome the indecisiveness that will likely happen upon seeing the 27-item menu (as it did with me), I'm picking my favorites from each category. In the Pick-Me-Up section, the Dark Choco "MOMOL" (P125), which uncoincidentally does look like tangled tongues (ICYDK, MOMOL is Pinoy slang meaning "make-out, make-out lang") is a red-tinted Babka-like pastry with swirls of 74% South Cotobato Dark Chocolate for a bittersweet taste. Then there's the visually unassuming (at least by Bakery Felt standards) but unforgettable Coco Alone Time (P125) which reminds me of a Kouign-amann, but this one has a slightly spicy coconut yema jam in the center.

It honestly comes as no surprise that Bakery Felt's bestsellers in the Just-in-Time Treat section are the Berry Heart-to-HeartBerry Heart-to-Heart (P175) and Ube Staycation (P175)—of course, anything with strawberries, ube, and/or leche flan is almost always bound to win over a crowd. But the two flavors that really got my attention are the "SL" Flan (P175)—SL here means sick leave—and the Banana Office Break (P175). (In other words, this is me saying I need a break from working.)

The "SL" Flan translates as the bakery's version of a key lime pie. It has that signature brioche with a Palawan cashew cookie for its crunchy base, a sweet-tangy calamansi cloud-like cream in the middle, followed by a square slice of leche flan with the essential zesty dayap. The Banana Office Break is made for the banana cue fans. It has the same nutty crust as the "SL" Flan, but this one has a spiced coconut yema cream in the middle, and fried sweet plantain or saba.

Bakery Felt also has a line called Anytime Brunch. This, in particular, was the hardest to break down—I pretty much liked every item on there, even if they did sound unconventional, borderline crazy with all the savory, umami, and tart in all its layers. If I were to pick my biases, these would have to be the Laing Home-Cooked Meal, a Filipino take on the cheese-spinach pizza trend but using creamy laing and cubes of cheese, topped with kangkong chips; and the Labuyo Love Life, which has that vibrant pink sweet tocino bits in the bottom to hold the structure, luscious sriracha-tasting cream, and topped with adobo egg.

The combination of sweet tocino, sweet and spicy cream, and adobo sauce-marinated hard-boiled egg isn’t exactly something anyone would instantly think of combining for breakfast—at least, not for me. Still, the playful flavor combination worked perfectly that I inhaled the pastry way too fast than I’d ever admit.

Another Bakery Felt-must is the mother Earth-friendly Hug-in-a-Cup Bibingka Pudding (P165), which is a reimagined Christmas staple that consists of upcycled tears of bread, cheese fondue, toasted pinipig, a salted egg custard, and coconut crisps inside one cup. Sure, it feels nice to eat this during the four-month-long Christmas season, maybe even as a post-simbang gabi treat, but I know this is something I'd enjoy during the other eight months in the calendar.

If you don’t like bibingka, you Grinch, the bakery has a chocolate version with the Hug-in-a-Cup Banoffee Mood (P165) that uses the same recycled bread and mixes it with a spicy coconut yema, 74% South Cotabato dark chocolate fudge, and Philippine cinnamon; and a simpler take with the Care Twists (P150) which are plain bread scraps with your choice of dip—much like a pretzel. The dip choices include the Labuyo Cream Filipino Bird’s Eye, 74% South Cotabato Dark Chocolate Fudge, or Salted Egg Custard.

Of all the drinks we’ve tasted, we highly recommend the Calmin Cacao (P155), to pair with the pastries while we await the bakery to launch its iced coffee line. This rich, thick hot chocolate uses 74% South Sotobato Dark Chocolate and is topped with burnt meringue—like s’mores!—and chocolate chip cookie crumbs. Sy tells SPOT.ph that Bakery Felt coffee is in the works, and as a person who will always pair pastries with coffee, I’ll take that as a reason to go back.

Judging by how trigger-happy the pastries are, I know for sure that I'll always leave Bakery Felt feeling happier than when I come in. And I know that when I'm having a f*cking bad day, it's something "MOMOL", or an "SL", or a "Home-Cooked Meal" can't fix.

Also read: Last Order at Corner Tree: Owner Chiqui Mabanta On The Journey of A Makati Dining Landmark

For more information and updates, check out Bakery Felt on Instagram.

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