It was actually my first time at Fiesta Barbecue and Seafoods at Robinsosn's Place Iloilo. The fastfood restaurant serves Filipino specialties that comes grilled, fried and in soup, among others. But we had our eyes and appetites set on one of their desserts marketed as the forst in Iloilo - fried ice creams. After almost 15 minutes of waiting (we had fun discussing what we saw around the place), our order arrived ready to be snapped at. I had to do it fast as it was ice cream and fried so it tends to melt fast. It was like ice cream wrapped in bread then deep fried. Brings back the memories of having ice cream as the palaman (filling) of pan de sal. For PhP49 per order, it was curiosity satisfied, the least.
It was just an impromptu food trip in and around Lapaz market a few months ago when I discovered this ube brazo de mercedes from the Lapaz Bakeshop. I got to taste and take home this ube dessert that later on became a staple at home. Lapaz Bakeshop sits on the corner of Tinda Lapaz right across Grand Dame Hotel. A restaurant named Lapaz Kitchenette was the previous locator of the space and it was famous for it's PhP59 buffet . The bakeshop is among the bigger "small town" bakeshops in the city with it's wide range of breads, pastries and cakes plus shorts snack items. It even has branches in some towns in Iloilo including one in my hometown, Sta. Barbara. It was a quick side trip made by Sir Eugene that time that introduced me to this ube variant of brazos. He bought a few slices of this dessert and brought it inside Madge Cafe inside the market. It was perfect with the cafe's native coffee and the filling is somewhat like ube halaya. The meringue is jus...
