Mongolian BBQ @ Cafe Azul

I love having the Mongolian BBQ bowl at Cafe Azul, a fine-dining restaurant in our university sports center. It has the traditional style of combining your ingredients of choice from rice and noodles to vegetables and condiments. What keeps me coming back for more is the variety of sauces. A customer can choose savory Mongolian sauce, sweet teriyaki sauce, spicy chili paste or a combination of them all. The best part is that you can get as much vegetables and spices as you like. That is, of course, as long as it fits in your bowl. The amount of squid and meat is rather controlled. 60 grams is the fixed weight for the mini bowl (see above photo) while the regular bowl has 100-grams. The choices are either beef, squid, chicken, pork or a mix.

For Php 100 per mini bowl that comes with a glass of iced tea, the price is reasonable but there are some things to remember:

1. Learn the art of compacting the ingredients into the tiny bowl. The value of your money depends on how much rich and vegetables you put in.

2. Choose more oranges than greens. For some reason the food always seems less after it has been cooked. The cabbages and onion springs tend to shrink and disintegrate when heated while the other s don't. So instead of getting a mountain of cabbage shreds, it is better go choose more tomatoes and carrots to minimize food loss.

3. A scoop of teriyaki sauce goes a long way. Unless you want a real sweet taste, go easy on this sauce. It easily overpowers the other flavors.

There you have it. I highly recommend trying the Mongolian BBQ bowl at Cafe Azul. Although it may be tricky in getting the perfect mix of ingredients right the first time, this dining experience is worth your time and money.

Signature Chocolate - Starbucks

As you may have already noticed, I've been blogging a lot about chocolate drinks. I'm actually in search of the ideal cocoa beverage. One that has real chocolate taste yet at the same time has the perfect balance of creaminess and sweetness. Now, the Signature Chocolate of Starbucks is under the spotlight.

The first noticeable characteristic was its strong bitter-sweet cocoa taste. I strongly believe that the beverage was not tainted with sugar or any dairy products. Sure, it has whipped cream on top but it did not compromise the original flavor. The chocolate was so pure that I felt like I was drinking a water-diluted Hershey Cocoa Powder Mix, the type used for baking. I'll give Starbucks major credit for the authentic cocoa taste but the lack of milk and creamer leaves the texture of the beverage thin. The richness of its overall flavor did not meet my expectations. As for the price, the product gives you more value for your money. At Php 115 for a tall cup, it certainly beats the small-sized drink of Cafe Xocolat, which also has the same price.

At Cafe Xocolat

Sunday mornings are usually the perfect time to drive to Katipunan Avenue and hang out at the coffee shops. There is no traffic and parking is plentiful. But today, I decided to try out the restaurant that I read about in business magazines. Cafe Xocolat, or simply Xocolat for short, is a Filipino-owned cafe/restaurant that serves, what else, chocolate products. From ice blended drinks to cakes and brownies, they always have something to offer the average chocolate addict. I've always been primarily curious about their chocolate drinks. Now, I had the chance to check them out for myself.

I bought the Xocolat Lava. It's one of their best-sellers. The title "Lava" gives justice to the richness of the chocolate drink. It tasted just like those hot coca drinks served in luxury hotels. What I can say about it is that the taste is very, very genuine as if the drink was made from freshly processed cacao beans. It's not over sweetened with sugar nor is it diluted with too much milk. The bitter-sweet taste captures the true essence of chocolate. But for a small cup (refer to picture above) priced at Php 115 it's certainly not a substitute for those expensive chocolate drinks made by multinational corporations like Coffee Bean and Starbucks. I personally haven't tried the imported counterparts of Xocolat so I can't give a conclusive comparison between Xocolat Lava and the other brands yet aside from their prices.