a bite of brownie

Among the restaurants that we have not eaten yet in Ayala, Maitré Chocolatier is probably one of the most curious of them all. Situated beside the old space of Healthy Options and below Hukad in Ayala Terraces, this restaurant boasts its use of chocolate in dishes listed in their menu.

Curious as to how they would add the "secret" ingredient to dishes like pork chops and pizza, we checked out the place while there was still very little people inside.

The ambiance was that of a cozy cafe decorated with quotes and facts about chocolates. Not to mention several boxes of imported cocoa products by the far wall of the establishment. The seats were cozy, and were clearly aimed for dating individuals or married mates.

We got the answer to our question when we did get our orders on the table. My sister had a serving of grilled pork chop with dark chocolate drizzles while I got myself a plateful of vegetarian pizza with white chocolate and a bowl of hot chocolate for the cool afternoon.

The service was quick and we enjoyed the ambiance altogether. We spent the remainder of the rainy afternoon to wait it out and chill.

The hot chocolate was good, in my opinion. A bit thick for my tastes, but it sufficed. I'll give them brownie points for the added chocolate chip cookie~!

 The pork chop wasn't that exceptional because it didn't even have a distinctive chocolate taste on it.

Oh, I forgot to add. This is where this restaurant shines: dessert. We both had a lava cake to share. It was sweet and somewhat bitter; understandable because of the dark chocolate used in it. It was a balance between hot and cold with a scoopful of vanilla ice cream on top of a biscuit. It also had this screen-like layer of hardened chocolate while there was a generous amount of chocolate all around it. It was really good!


Maitré Chocolatier
Ayala Terraces, Cebu


Verdict:
A: 3.5/5

The food is still hit and miss. There are some that tastes great, and some that tastes mediocre. I like the concept though!

My first post! :D

So... since I had to work over night Saturday into Sunday it seemed like a perfect time to indulge in the chocolate buffet. (I figure I can burn off some of the calories over night!) We arrived at the Sutton Place Hotel to a gaggle of teen and tween girls trying to snap photos of who they thought was Justin Beiber... (turns out it wasn't him though!)

First round:


From left to right, chocolate pecan torte, white chocolate raspberry crumble bar, triple chocolate croissant pudding (essentially bread pudding gone mad!)

The chocolate pecan torte was tasty, the crumble bar - ok, but not my favourite... but ooooo that chocolate croissant pudding... OMG! I almost went back and took seconds of this - but there was still too much to peruse.

Round 2:


From left to right: chocolate cheese cake, white chocolate mousse cake, not sure what the third thing was - there was no label!

The unknown bar was the best of these 3 followed by the cheese cake. The white chocolate mousse cake I could have passed on. I needed a break after these 2 rounds!


Chocolate Profiterole - I think I actually prefer regular profiteroles - Fairmont Hotel Vancouver's are better.

Raspberry White chocolate moussey thing. I can't remember what it was called. :P I was expecting it to be a more solid chocolate rather than mousse. But the raspberry was delicious (I think I was starting to get chocolate exhaustion at this point!) Hence the crepe next:




This was a Grand Marnier crepe with mango passion fruit sauce and Grand Marnier pastry creme on one side and regular whipped cream on the other. This was heaven. The mango passion fruit sauce was divine. I wanted a vat of the stuff.

Next up - can you believe I was still up for more?

Standard chocolate fountain with fruit. I dropped a strawberry in the fountain - but I SWEAR it was intentional - I wanted full chocolate coverage! :D

After the fruit... it was time for dessert!

This was a chocolate truffle cake - at this point it was almost too much chocolate. The side dish to the truffle cake was the dream bar below.

This was a crunchy bar with loads of chocolate and fudge.

It didn't end there.

Banana chocolate cream pie. This one was a bit of a miss. Too much banana, not enough chocolate.

Giving up on the banana chocolate cream pie after a couple bites I moved on to the mocha bar.


Who thought I would need more caffeine after all that chocolate?

So at this point, having tasted (if not finished) all of the above... I needed something to cut all of that chocolate so my final "petite four" portion of my meal was lemon sorbet with more of that delicious mango passion fruit sauce.



And at this point... I am in sugar shock and will not be able to eat sugar for a long long while. (Maybe Monday I can have another piece of chocolate!)

Cost: $26 + tax & tip
Rating: 4/5 not 5 of 5 because it would have been nice to have more dark chocolate, and there was no standard chocolate cake!!! Only a bunch of mousse cakes/tortes/bars!