I'd been eyeing this cafe ever since the banners went up their then-being-renovated space in the…read moreFashion Hall. I missed their grand opening but at least the cafe was there for every one to enjoy! This is one of those places where I would like to stay for hours, ordering food after food after food (or maybe even drink), and just paint with my watercolors. They really have good fixtures and the lighting in there is great, so snap away! The highlight of my stay: I got to taste their famous Chococro. Well they're just basically tiny croissants BUT they're tiny and flaky and soft and I don't know. I really love it. It only costs Php 55 apiece. Some basic Chococro flavors are only there for a limited time, though. During our visit, my boyfriend got the chocolate almond (which I never got to taste because ugh allergies), and I think I got the matcha one. I can't remember because I gobbled mine in one bite.

Love the ambience. Perfect place to wait while your gf or bf goes shopping while u rest and relax w…read moreWiFi

Delicious! I got the small cup with Nutella, coffee & pistachio. I enjoyed every flavor and they…read moreall tasted good together. Ice cream here comes in cup sizes not per scoop. So for a small you can get upto 3 flavors. They also give samples which is a plus! A little pricey but really good! You can find this ice cream shop inside the Venice Grand Canals Mall which is beautiful. The mall has a parking lot.

Chiara Gelato is a new Italian inspired gelato cafe beside Rustans supermarket at Century. It is a…read morehomegrown brand that has the 'Italian' feel and taste. So we just got random pastries from the display and some gelato. What's a good thing about their gelato is that you can choose 1-3 flavors even for a small cup. Which is normally a large cup for 3 flavors. Apple Streusel was too soft. The apple filling was good, but I was expecting a flakier, buttery pastry from the soft ones they have. Cannoli was too hard. It is a rolled puff pastry with a stick of chocolate in the middle. The pastry was tough or too crisp that fails the texture of a cannoli, sweet, soft, flaky, buttery. Meringue. 2 meringue disc that sandwiches chocolate. The meringue was light, sweet, and has a powdery finish. It doesn't have the rough, sugary feel like what the usual bakery fair. Crostatine Raspberry is a flaky raspberry filled tart that has a buttery, flaky weaved crust on top. The tart was a bit hard, but it was perfectly sweet, fruity raspberry with a flaky crust on top. Begne was their version of cream puff. It was soft and filled with creamy custard and was coated with chocolate. It was nice, soft, cream puff, but was expecting a fresher one. Gelatos was smooth & milky. Just right for a gelato. I loved their pistacchio and blackberry flavor. The tiramisu was too liquorish for me. Chiara can improved on most of their pastries and do promotions before closing to prevent pastries from being taken over the next day. The choices of their pastries was good and reminds you of an Italian pastry shop. I hope they can improve on the freshness of their offering. #TheFoodCrawlers #OngsFoodprints

Okay, I think I've found a rival to Jamba Juice…read more I needed a quiet place to work one afternoon and decided to park myself at Mondo Juice, a cozy juice bar along Rada Street that I always pass by. I was so glad I did, because I believe I've found the perfect work station. Coffee. Smoothies. Milk tea. Cakes. Pasta. Sandwiches. Pastries. Free Wifi. Peace and quiet. It's PERFECT. Because I was such a noob, I asked the guy at the counter for recommendations, and wow, he went through each item on the menu and described it in great detail. He said he's tried everything on the menu precisely so that he can guide new comers to the right stuff for their taste palettes. That's awesome. This leads me to a drink called Quench - a mix of watermelon, cranberry, and I forgot - which was the best thing on such a humid day. What I love about Mondo Juice is that it's got such a laid back atmosphere. It's quite spacious so you don't feel cramped at all. It's got lots of outlets so you can charge your gadgets while working. It's got jazz music playing in the background to relax you. Heaven, I tell you. Heaven! This particular branch also shares its space with Sip, a milk tea joint with some merchandise for sale. See? I don't think you'll find another smoothie spot that sells both fruit shakes AND milk tea, right?

Never tried this coffee spot before so we thought why not. Its a small standalone in Estancia…read more They have coffee, non-espresso drinks and cakes. Theres some seating but we bought to go. Jasmine helped us out and was very friendly. I ordered a Coconut latte (hot). Really good! Love how the coconut flavor really shines through. Thank you!

Not bad - cute presentation and yummy ice cream!…read more I ordered the Tres Leche waffle dish. I do think the waffle could have wowed me more, but the black sesame ice cream was good. Also, I love the bits of cereal and flowers as a topping. (Although, you don't really taste the flowers.) It also came with a tiny jar of milk to pour. It tasted great, but it was honestly more worth it for the photo op than the taste? They def get props for the beautiful presentation! I would come back to try the other ice cream flavors. My only gripe is that the waffle is kinda basic. I've had much better Belgian style waffles elsewhere.

Japanese dessert Mochiko closed to make way for Milkbox. Owners are still the same so you could…read morestill savor mochi and FIC flavors. It's cute hipster-ish interiors provide only 10 seats. So it gets cramped anytime of the day. They list their specialties as coffee, wonuts (love children of donut-waffles) and thick milkshakes. We only tried the Tres Leches waffles with 2 scoops of ice cream (Php 275) after seeing it on one of my fave food blogger's feed. I was skeptical on ordering since their waffles were just hanging out on the kitchen counter (no cover, looking dry). Anyway, it came out 10 minutes after looking pretty as a picture with a bottle of milk as a soak. Not sure where are the other 2 kinds of milk but I liked the crisp crumble on top of it. Kinda expensive and would instead get waffles at the ubiquitous Belgian Waffles. Ice cream is pretty good though. Overall, not a spectacular dessert. Good for sharing.

It was my first time in DolceLatte for Fozzy Dayrit's Calligraphy 2.0. I had signed up not even…read moreknowing where and what the place was. I assumed at the least that it's a coffee place. It's near the Skating Rink of SM Megamall Fashion Hall so when that place is busy, you can hear people cheering at the skaters from inside the coffee shop. Which kind of makes it not the quiet place to be, but then again, it's a mall after all. After about an hour and a half of calligraphy drills, we were given plates. I had assumed that we were going to be given sandwiches or light snacks plus a dessert because that's how it usually is with these workshops, but to my surprise they served us almost a full course meal! At first they put some chicken tenders on our table for sharing. With some kind of pimiento sauce which was okay, but if you put the sour cream dip it was really good. Even with just the sour cream dip it was good already. Then after a few minutes (by this time I had filled myself up cause I thought the next one was just going to be a piece of pizza, like they said), they put some nachos for sharing again. Same dips but with salsa this time. It's pretty okay, but again, I filled myself up cause I thought it was going to be just a slice of pizza next. To my surprise, the waitress put a plate of pasta (really good bolognese) in front of me. It was a tiny plate which I thought was going to be for sharing since the pizza was coming, but to my surprise we all were given a plate of spaghetti! After less than 5 minutes, they gave us a slice of pizza each. By this time, I was pretty full but hey I paid good money for this so I tried my best to finish both the pizza and pasta. See, I love pizza and they just had to top it with two of my favorites: prosciutto and arugula! We also had unlimited iced tea so I thought that was over. But guess what... NOPE! We still had one big slice of brownie each! Of course, I had to choose the one with marshmallows which I just stared at. I was so full that I asked if I could just take it home. I was actually so full that doing drills became difficult. Total food coma on my side. So after a cigarette and came back and finished my drills. In the middle of one of Fozzy's lectures, a plate of nachos was placed in front of me and I honestly had a two second heart attack. In my head I said, "MORE FOOD?!" Only to find out that they had just transferred the unfinished nachos to another plate. So phew! So basically my day was full of not only calligraphy but food. Although I wouldn't mind going back there just to have those chicken tenders and pizza again.

After having ramen for dinner in SM Megamall, we were looking for a place to hang out and talk the…read morenight away. We were done with chain coffee shops which are usually crowded and would have the same boring choices. So we decided to try Dolcelatte. PROS: Their interiors are quite inviting. It has a modern design but with a laid-back and comfortable vibe; We liked the caramel macchiato that we ordered. It was the right blend of sweet with a nice and creamy texture. CONS: There was a bit of an aftertaste that I didn't like in the cake that we ordered; There was a limited number of staff that night. It must've been because it was near closing time; An insect landed on our cake. When we had it returned, I think they just removed it from the icing. We didn't touch it after that. TL;DR: Good coffee and ambiance but mediocre cakes, which is a such a shame.

A value for money gelatos! For less than a P 100, you'll get a generous scoop of gelato and added…read morevalue of cookies, cakes or chocolates as toppings. They offer a different kinds of flavors than the usuals and change their flavors once in a while, so regularly check them out. Highly recommended flavors are the cheesecake, ube halaya and banofee gelatos.

No matter what the weather is, I love eating ice cream in all its forms as it is my favorite…read moredessert! I'm glad to have visited Sub Zero Gelato, along with my fellow Food Crawlers! We sampled six flavors, but my favorites would be the red velvet yogurt, banoffee, and New York Cheesecake! Each cup costs only P85, and that's such a steal in my book, especially since aside from the actual gelato, each serving is also topped with other sweet treats like cookies, chocolate balls, etc. I'm excited to try their future flavors!!!

Lucca's Nutella Snail…read more This was still pretty in tact given that it's been hours post-bake. They're Choco Chunk Cookie was good too. I would've grabbed a couple more of that if I weren't going to grub some more haha. They have their bake goods/pastries on sale, 30%-off after 9pm. Located across the ice skating rink, near the IMAX theatre. 3.5 stars for now. Will probably increase if I've gone earlier during the day, when everything is freshly baked. Can't wait to try their other pastries and cakes next time.

Reasons to love the Philippines? Merienda! This bakery/cafe is a nice spot for a lazy afternoon…read morechitchat. A bit dim inside with bad acoustics but everything is forgivable when you try their desserts and pastries. I love, love their 5-layer chocolate cake. Unbeatably decadent with moist cake and a nice velvety not fudgey milk chocolate frosting that even kids and adult would love. Very old fashioned like the ones you'd have as a child. It's a sure hit at any party- so big it can feed about 15!