The shop with the pink door
The door is inside the shop.
We spend so much time in shopping malls that during last week’s holiday, we decided to take a holiday from the malls as well. First we had lunch at Seryna in Little Tokyo. The food was good, as always, but the usually reliable service failed and Victor’s order (bento) took an hour to arrive. Well, maybe they just hated him. Happy Birthday, Victor!
From our experience, Japanese restaurants tend to have limited dessert options. After they’ve served your wee portions of fresh fruit, what else is there? We racked our brains for non-mall coffee-and-dessert options in Makati. Chocolatier on Jupiter? Happy Cream Puff on Malugay? Purple Oven on Metropolitan Avenue— excellent cakes, but not enough seats for our group.
Juan suggested Bebe Rouge on the corner of Sacred Heart Street and Metropolitan Avenue in San Antonio Village, outside the New Hatchin Japanese grocery. We’d heard of Bebe Rouge, a Japanese-owned French patisserie that makes madeleines, but being a mall creature we hadn’t figured out where it is.
Unlike those self-consciously swanky tea places where the tables are so close together that you’re practically sitting on each other’s laps and you can hear the most private details of strangers’ lives whether you care to or not, Bebe Rouge has lots and lots of room. (Even the gleaming washroom is huge.)
We love Japanese bakeries because the cakes are exquisite and light. Hey, we’re self-indulgent, not suicidal. We had the matcha roll, which was lovely—the green tea taste is not overwhelmed by the sweetness. The word “double” next to “fromage” suggests that when you finish eating it, you’re ready to get shot out into space as a satellite. But Bebe Rouge’s Double Fromage, a two-layered cheesecake with mascarpone cheese mousse, is surprisingly delicate. And the madeleines are dreamy.
The coffee is excellent, the service brisk and unobtrusive. We took home several packages of the anpan—bread with red bean filling. Think of hopiang mongo, but not lardy. Delightful.
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