Cookie Dough Cheesecake

By: The Moody Critic

Who needs plating when the plating is the dessert itself?

One look and I know that I wouldn't be disappointed with this dessert. Superficially, it does have this solid and compact appeal. Those little cookie toppings simply couldn't hide the dessert's obvious theme and that appetizing property.

Matching its appearance, every succeeding mouthful could attest that this dessert followed the dogma of making the perfectly baked cheesecake. Compactness, check! Even consistency, check! Appropriate density, check! and the ideal cheesecake texture, check! The only element lacking from this dessert however, was its thickness. To the very least, it should have been made an inch higher for that chunkiness appeal to surface.

Ingenious base! As the name suggests, cookie dough, a becomingly popular component of desserts nowadays was used for its base. An ordinary or perhaps a traditional chef would use it as a ganache but not those at Chelsea Kitchen. Not only did it give that appropriate contrast in color, but it also rescued the moderately bland cheesecake matrix through its sweet and salty creaminess giving me the contrast in taste I was looking for. This is the first time I ever considered the base almost as significant as the matrix. Well done!

Presentation: 8.1
Taste: 8.0
Texture and consistency: 8.4
Complexity: 7.8
Value for money: 7.0

Overall rating: 8.0/10
Mood: SATISFIED

Resto: Chelsea Kitchen
Address: G/F SM Megamall, Mega Fashion Hall, EDSA cor. Julia Vargas Ave., Ortigas Center, Mandaluyong, Metro Manila
Full food name: Cookie Dough Cheesecake
Price: P250.00

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Slice's Red Velvet Cheesecake

By: The Moody Critic

"Massively and enticingly made!"

While other desserts fail to show harmony with the color schematics, this one followed the correct theme with respect to the concept of red velvet desserts: a black base, a white frosting layer, on top and a sea of crimson that manifests a paradox of firmness and velvety consistency intertwined.

The cream cheese frosting layer, though having had a good ratio of thickness with its cheesecake matrix, lacked that penetrating saccharine property. This only made a partial synergism of tastes causing the marked bitterness of the Oreo crust to surface.

Without a shadow of a doubt, this dessert wins the serving size award. Having an approximately 4-inch thickness, you would really surrender consuming this dessert in one shot thus necessitating the helping hand of your friends. However, sharing this ecstasy with others suggests sharing the bill as well. You would be a little surprised that a slice of this dessert will cost you a fortune. Never again will you undermine the meaning of the word "slice".

Presentation: 8.2
Taste: 8.1
Texture and consistency: 8.5
Complexity: 7.8
Value for money: 7.0

Overall rating: 8.1/10
Mood: SATISFIED

Resto: Slice
Address: G/F Southeast block, Bonifacio High Street Central, 7th Avenue corner 29th Street, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City
Full food name: Red Velvet Cheesecake
Price: P290.00
Serving: 1-2 person/s

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Spaghetti Bolognese

By: The Moody Critic

What a delicious-looking dish! The shape of the plate and the parsley really stirred up my appetite. As expected, the parsley gave the effective color contrast on the plate. However, the pasta was undercooked; it needed five more minutes. The bolognese sauce was lacking an effective flavor. All I could taste were the sourness and the metallic "canny" taste from the canned mushrooms.

How about the bread? In one look, you can say that it is inferior. The bread did not have an interesting personality (e.g. garlic bread). Though you can see minute amounts of an unknown herb, it was still very bland. I'm sure a little spread of butter will go a long way! This bread also seemed out of place on the plate due to its elephantine size, its paleness, and the way it was sliced. Lastly, it was moderately rubbery in consistency so a little precaution to those with brittle or loose teeth. Considering the price of this dish, is quality bread too much too ask?

Whenever I would see meat sauce in the food description, I find it exasperating to ask the fastfood chain or restaurant what their meat sauce was made of (I can't eat pork). There are two reasons behind this: (1) just the act of asking the person who cooked it takes a lot of time, and (2) some establishments don't actually know what it is made of. Consequently, I would usually shy away and would not order the dish that has "meat sauce" in it. But thank you Dolcelatte for specifying in the menu that this dish has an all-beef meat sauce.

Presentation: 8.0
Taste: 6.4
Texture and consistency: 6.2
Serving size: 8.5
Value for money: 6.5

Overall rating: 6.9/10
Mood: DISAPPOINTED

Resto: Dolcelatte
Address: 1616 Quezon Ave., South Triangle, Quezon City
Full food name: Spaghetti Bolognese
Price: P295.00

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Déjà vu

By: The Moody Critic

I really do hope I will never have a Déjà vu of eating this dessert. The crepe was undercooked as evidenced by its stickiness to the plate and my knife. It was also made too thick due to the redundant folding thus accentuating its eggy blandness. This thickness also disturbed the ratio of the crepe to its overripe mango filling by around 30%. Instead of the crepe claiming the spotlight with its potent flavor, the hero of the day was the vanilla ice cream embellished with whipped cream and caramel sauce. It saved the crepe from uttermost disaster. However, it would have been better if it was placed on top of the crepe.

Presentation: 6.5
Taste: 7.0
Texture and consistency: 6.0
Serving size: 6.4
Value for money: 3.6

Overall rating: 6.3/10
Mood: DISAPPOINTED

Resto: Cafe Breton 
Address: Robinson's Place, Ermita, Manila
Full food name: Déjà vu
Price: P228.00

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Strawberry Shortcake

By: The Moody Critic

This is a dessert for those who haven't eaten strawberries for a decade. Almost everything from top to bottom is made up of strawberry. The strawberry toppings though showing some signs of aging already, are still succulent. However, it was very intriguing that they used an overripe mother strawberry and unripe daughter berries around it.

The cake is enclosed by a rich and delicious strawberry cream. There were frozen strawberry slices embedded in the cake which were quite hard to extract. If you force to get these adherent strawberries, the cake has this tendency to collapse.

The cake's overall presentation was very commendable especially the intricate detail of a Mayan-like or Aztec-like carvings of the base layer. However, I don't get the wisdom of placing the butterfly at the side because it seemed to me that the insect was flying with decreased sensorium so it crash-landed into the cake.

Presentation: 9.3
Taste: 8.2
Texture and consistency: 8.5
Serving size: 8.3
Value for money: 8.2

Overall rating: 8.5/10
Mood: SATISFIED

Resto: Sweet Bella Cafe
Address: Greenbelt 5, Ayala Center, Makati City
Full food name: Strawberry Shortcake
Price: P275

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