Cafe Xocolat

January 31, 2013. Thursday.

 

Cafe Xocolat is a little restaurant located on a sidestreet in the Katipunan area. It's a chocolate themed cafe that provides traditional chocolate drinks and desserts, and creative chocolate infused meals. The place has a warm and homey vibe, well in part because it is an old home converted into a restaurant! It has managed to mostly retain parts of the house, which really exudes an 80's family home vibe. The inside is well lit with colorful artsy stuff adorning the walls. The al fresco on the other hand, is a little dim with soothing music setting the ambiance.

 

The menu is mostly made up of chocolate drinks, cakes and pastries. But there are also a few pasta dishes, sandwiches and rice meals on it. Some of them are actually chocolate infused and inspired.

We ordered the following dishes:

French Toast.

French Toast. 175php.

We ordered this to share as our appetizer. It tasted good but it was nothing like any French Toast I have ever had in my life. The bread is dipped in cacao batter instead of the normal egg-based batter. But even with that, this tasted more like brownies than bread. It came with country style sausages that were really cold.

Gamberetti Pasta.

Gamberetti Pasta.

This was my order. This is a pesto pasta with sauteed garlic shrimps. Although the taste of the pesto was a litte too mild for my taste, I really liked this. The shrimps had a nice garlic flavor that enhanced the taste of the pasta.

Xocolat Chicken Pasta.

Xocolat Chicken Pasta.

Kim wanted to try some of their chocolate infused dishes and ordered this. This is a creamy pasta with chicken strips rubbed in cacao topped off with chocolate shavings. The dish was really fragrant when it was served, you could really smell the chocolate wafting from it. The chicken strips were really tender, but the cacao rub didn't provide any different taste to it. The chocolate shavings though gave a nice, slight bitter taste to the creaminess of the pasta.

Churros Con Xocolat.

Churros Con Xocolat. 95php.

The real reason why we dined here was because Kim wanted some churros. Unfortunately she was disappointed with the churros. This has got to be the hardest churros we have ever tried! The sticks were so thin that there were no soft middle left at all. It was just rock hard from outside to the inside. The plate presentation was the only saving grace of this dish.

Dalandan Honey.

Dalandan Honey. 95php.

I wanted something refreshing so I ordered a Dalandan Honey from their fruit shakes. I loved how it had maintained a little sourness from the dalandan. The honey provided a a nice sweet taste to the ice cold drink that was served in a nice jar.

Overall, Cafe Xocolat is a nice, laid back place to hang out and have quiet conversation in. It provides some good quality food for a good price. Our one main qualm with this was the service was really slow. Our food made its way to our table a good 25- 30mins after we have ordered it. So if you are in a hurry, this might not be a good place for you. But if you have time to kill and have some good stories to share, the ambiance here is perfect.

Cafe Xocolat
Casa Xocolat, 172 B Gonzales St.,
Loyola Heights, Quezon City
http://xocolat.com.ph/