Manila Creamery: A Smorgasbord of Flavors

Virginia Woolf once said that, “One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.” This is especially true for me as I am passionately, truly, inexplicably in love with food since the day I was born. Sweets are my greatest weakness. After all who would say no to food in all its mouthwatering, jaw-dropping, eye-popping, heart-stopping glory? Not me.

Adventurous as I am with food, my boyfriend and I decided to check the Manila Creamery at the U.P. Town Center in Quezon City, which is one of my favorite commercial & shopping establishments given its proximity to my home and to my school (Hi fellow Maroons).  It has been featured by numerous food and lifestyle sites here in the Philippines such as Spot and Booky and has garnered mostly positive reviews. According to the said sites, Manila Creamery aims to create world-class gelato that is at par with authentic Italian gelato. Just typing the word gelato makes me hungry already. What more if I tasted it? And that is what I discovered with a scoop of Manila Creamery’s gelato.

The facade of Manila Creamery at the U.P. Town Center

The first thing that greeted us upon entering their stall is the beautiful tagline, “Made the Manila Way”. Their tagline truly embodies their goal which is to offer authentic gelato that suits the Filipino palate.

Made the Manila way! How about Quezon City way? LOL

The pig (oink oink) in me cannot contain my excitement when I finally saw the tubs of gelato. And the great thing is, they offer various gelato flavors with a Filipino touch. Tinutong na Kanin, anyone? They have two sets of gelato flavors – the classic flavors and the premium ones. The premium ones can be easily distinguished from the classic ones as they have those yellow circles on their labels. They currently offer three premium flavors namely, Mindanao Milk, Salted Egg Cheesecake and Kinder Bueno which we tasted for free. Usually gelato/ice cream stores in the city use plastic spoons for customers to have a free taste but for Manila Creamery, it is not the case. They use actual spoons for free tasting which is definitely a plus. Environment-friendly? Check.

My boyfriend and I decided to taste two premium flavors – Salted Egg Cheesecake, Kinder Bueno – and two classic flavors – Leche Flan and Thai MilkTea. If I were to rank them from my least favorite to my most favorite. It would be Kinder Bueno, Salted Egg Cheesecake, Leche Flan and Thai Milktea. I have never been a fan of Kinder chocolate so I am quite biased. But the great thing with their Kinder Bueno flavor is you can really taste the Kinder Bueno bits in a single spoon of gelato. The Salted Egg Cheesecake on the other hand is something that I might order if there are no other flavors available. Simply because I cannot fully taste the salted egg flavor. It seems like it was overpowered by the cheesecake. But then again, it might be because we only had a single spoon.

Their premium flavors – Mindanao Milk, Salted Egg Cheesecake & Kinder Bueno

Their classic flavors – Ube Langka, Popcorn Caramel, Leche Flan, Thai Milk Tea, Cookies & Dream

Their classic flavors part 2 – Suman, Guyabano, Davao Chocolate, Tinutong na Kanin, Ricotta Orange and one other flavor which I was not able to capture (I don’t know how to use panorama mode hahaha)

Now, my top two favorites and what we finally ordered. Drumroll please….

Leche flan and Thai milktea.

Let us start first with their classic Leche flan gelato. Those leche flan chunks sealed the deal for me. You can easily distinguish that leche flan flavor which Filipinos love in a single scoop of gelato. And lastly, my ultimate favorite among the four, the Thai milktea gelato!

The taste was perfect. It was pure sweetness & goodness in a single scoop. It has that creamy, milky taste reminiscent of milk teas in authentic Thai restaurants which is not too sweet but just right.Not to mention, the color itself was appetizing enough for you to buy one. It was the first flavor that caught my eye and it was the best choice I had.

Front view – Thai milktea & Leche flan gelato

Top view. I also had a side view & a back view of these gelatos. Lol

Overall, it was a sweet experience. I love how Manila Creamery truly embodies their goal which is to make world-class gelatos the Filipino way with their unique flavors. Although, there is still a few “foreign-sounding” flavors such as the Ricotta Orange & the Cookies & Dream, I hope they continue to discover more uniquely Filipino flavors (Iloilo’s butterscotch, puto bumbong flavor, bibingka flavor, kesong puti – this is what I can think of so far) and transform it into a mouthwatering scoop of world-class gelato which is proudly Pinoy.

With all my love for food,

Mara

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**P.S. For more information on how Manila Creamery was started, you may check these helpful links below:

•  http://ph.phonebooky.com/blog/manila-creamery-gelato/ (Booky, 2016)
• http://www.spot.ph/eatdrink/the-latest-eat-drink/62262/manila-creamery-gelato (Spot.ph, 2015)