Chocolate Overload!

Caj had scheduled a snack date with our NSC (the CNU College of Nursing's student council which we were both a part of on our last 2 years at university) group of friends last Sunday, February 3, 2012 - the same day I went on the whale shark excursion. Good thing she had asked to meet between 3PM to 6PM, so I still had ample time to travel back to the city from Oslob.

Caj's chocolate from NZ - a prelude to the choco overload ahead!

I had warned her that I may be late, but it turned out I was way early. I headed straight to Ayala from the bus terminal and arrived at around 2:30PM. Having time to spare, I bought a shawarma for a late lunch (didn't get to eat before boarding the bus back to the city) and walked around some until I decided to head home to drop of my backpack (I was starting to look like I was lost at the mall or something). Our house is quite near Ayala, and I would go so far as to say that it's within walking distance, but of course, I took public transport to get home and back to Ayala again after haha. :P

When I arrived back at the mall, Ayel was already there and they were at Fully Booked to buy this (self help?) book that Ayel was looking for. Still deciding on where to go, we walked all around the Terraces until we settled on the Maitre Chocolatier.

I had only been here once with the gurls (Yza, Pat, and Riri) but I didn't get to try any of their dishes as I arrived really late and the gurls had finished their meals. So I was interested to see what sort of chocolate items they had on the menu.

Us three again??! Haha!

Some were the usual chocolate stuff you'd see at a cafe, but what caught my attention was the main course menu that had stuff like pasta that had chocolate in them. Huh. Weird. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), we were there just for snacks, so our taste buds were saved the possible horrors of food experimentation gone bad. :P

Here's what we ordered:

Golden Euphoria

Roast Beef Panini

Churros

Dark Chocolate (hot)

Mint Chocolate (to go)

Kahlua Chocolate

Talk about chocolate overload! Price-wise, it's not your everyday cafe, that's for sure. I can't remember the exact pricing (and don't have the receipt since Caj paid for it XP ahaha thanks, Caj! :D), but if memory serves me right, the Golden Euphoria was around Php 215, the panini at Php 168, and the drinks ranging from Php 150 to Php 160. Don't know about the churros. :P

Partial orders? :P

Now the important question would be: How did it all go together?

Individually, each dish was delicious in its own right, though the roast beef panini was a bit too dry for my taste. This was basically a thick sandwich with roast beef strips that were coated in chocolate, veggies, and melted cheese. One serving had 2 thick pieces on a big plate, and it might have been because I was not hungry that time or I really didn't like it, but I was only able to finish one of the paninis. Haha.

The churros were the crowd favorite - or it could have just been because it was easy to pick up and eat. I liked it better than the churros served at Tablea because it wasn't too oily.

The Golden Euphoria, on the other hand, would be a great dessert, but unless you were a big chocolate fan, would be too much to finish all by yourself. If you did love chocolate a lot, then you would find yourself in a euphoric state with this dessert. LOL. And yes, that's a Ferrero Rocher chocolate ball on top. :P

Ariel's mint chocolate drink was nothing special, though. It could just as easily have been any mint chocolate drinks from any of the cafes in Cebu. And I swear I couldn't tell if my Kahlua chocolate drink even had any liquor in it. Or maybe that's just me. If you have very low tolerance for alcohol, it might be a different story. But taste-wise, I loved it. :)

Finally, we come to Caj's dark chocolate drink, which she ordered hot. It came in this big cup that was more like a soup bowl than a chocolate cup, really. You could tell it was so chocolatey just by looking at it as it was both thick in consistency and dark brown in color. Personally, though, it kind of looked like dinuguan to me hahaha! :)) And it was soooo bitter that Caj took to taking out the whipped cream topping from Ayel's drink (and mine later on) to lessen the bitterness. It proved to be insufficient, so she asked for a shot of milk from one of the waitresses - but it didn't really make any difference! Hahaha!

This is what happens when you order dark chocolate but add in dollops of whipped cream and milk :P

All in all, it had too much chocolate that I could handle in one sitting! But the ambiance was perfect for us, and we were sitting on these cushioned couches that made talking and catching up extremely comfortable.

We couldn't finish it all! :(

Now I mentioned above that this was supposed to be an NSC friends date. Unfortunately, the others either didn't get the memo, or were too busy to make it. Lizzie, where were you, though?! :/

We missed everyone! Hopefully we get another chance to meet and catch up in the future. :)

While the NSC peeps did not arrive (and Ayel had to leave, like, 30 minutes later), a couple of our other college schoolmates did, and I was pleasantly surprised to see Jayson again. Oh, alright, it was great seeing you as well, you crazy gurl Stella! You still don't fool me, though, I still think that crazy gurl I knew back in college lies somewhere underneath your grown up/sober/semi-formal ensembles! Hahaha! :D

Nilimpyo jud imong nawng, Yot! :O

Together again :)

Trying to get first dibs on "inappropriate touching" hahaha!

Mother and (crazy) child. The child looks psycho! Hahahaaha! :D

Can you tell we were at the Maitre Chocolatier? LOL :P

Group shot

This wasn't supposed to be wacky :P

And right before I left to get some sleep, Andrea arrived!

Still camera-shy after all these years

Is it obvious that Andrea hated smiling for this? Ahaha!

It was great catching up, guys! :))