Davao: Food Trip Part 2: Blugré Coffee

This is part two of a running series on Davao. Part one is here.

Blugré Coffee

Specialty: Coffee and pastries
Price range: php 90-120 for beverages, 40-100 for pastries
Location: Matina town square; Landco Corporate Center, Davao City
Rating: ★★★★
Espresso, latte, mocha, durian, cappuccino. Yep you got that right. Durian along with our usual coffee favorites. Blugré coffee's signature drink is the durian cappuccino. Hot cappucino with the durian fruit bits. It also available in iced form called durian larcepuccino. Aside from the usual espresso, latte, mocha and cappuccino, this place also serves ice-blended coffee drink which they call larcepuccino coffee. They also have larcepuccino cream and Blugré shakers for non-coffee drinkers. This chic cafe is similar to those found in Manila with their concept and designer coffees.

Hazelnut Caramel Mocha
Price: php 110
Rating: ★★★★★
It fills your senses with a delicious blend of hazelnut and caramel syrup, chocolate and coffee. a classic combination that never fails the sweet tooth. The cup comes with an unmistakable scent of hazelnut accompanied by the sweet taste of caramel. As you drink, you encounter the warm froth of mocha followed by a lingering bitter coffee flavor.




Caramel Macchiato
Price: php 1XX
Rating: ★★★
A signature Starbucks beverage found its way to this unique cafe in Davao. Creamy and foamy with a hint of caramel. It is not so different from the more popular creator of this drink but still addicting and good with any pastry.






Choco Oatmeal Bar
Price: php 45?
Rating: ★★★
Oatmeal bar smothered with generous helping of chocolate. This sweet pastry may pass for a granola bar except that it has more calories. This is normally one of my favorite sweet treats. Unfortunately, this one may have been left on the shelf for some time already because the oatmeal is a little hard to chew and the chocolate is no longer gooey.




Dark Chocolate Cake
Price: php 9X
Rating: ★★★★
This dark chocolate treat lived up to its name. The cake is rich and heavy and mildly sweet with a strong heart-attack-inducing, calorie-laden chocolate flavor. Delicious and sinful to the last bite.

Conclusion
Blugré also sells their coffee beans and they grind it free of charge. On one side of the cafe are mugs and souvenir shirts for sale. a place to hang out, catch up on stories or simply read today's news this place is not much different from the usual cafe in terms of ambiance. For the not-so-daring enough to try the durian cappuccino/larcepuccino, this place offers decent coffee and pastries that are a little less expensive than the usual cafes found in Manila. But definitely try the durian cappuccino/larcepuccino for an authentic Blugré experience.

Conti's Pastry Shop and Restaurant

Specialty: Pastries, International, Filipino, Pasta
Location: unit 1c-17 Serendra Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City
Phone Number: 8562352 to 53
Price Range (Meals): php 135 - 265
Rating: ★★★★

Conti's is one of the relatively affordable places to eat at Serendra. Hence, it will probably be full and would be best if you reserved a seat or arrive early. Their specialty are mainly pastries and cakes but they are also a restaurant and they do serve other things than cake and pastries.

Menu
A little too varied here. Entrees, pastries, pasta, sandwiches... they probably have a little bit of the more popular menu entries.

Frothy Iced Tea
Price: 45 Rating: ★★
Take some regular iced tea, add some shaved ice, put both in a blender and blend away. Not much difference from your regular iced tea. Just get the bottomless iced tea (php 60).











Chicken Roulade + Saffron Mushroom Risotto
Price: php 145 + 25 Rating: ★★★
I was craving for a bit of chicken and I had my eyes set on the first item on the Entree section but alas, it was not available. So I settled on another one of their most popular dishes (or so the waiter says). And with that, the chicken roulade was chosen. Roulade of chicken with spinach, cheese and caramelized onion served with either garlic rice or with saffron mushroom risotto (additional php 25). Do NOT get the saffron mushroom risotto. You are better off with their garlic rice. The saffron mushroom risotto was as boring as rice with star margarine. That was truly a sorry excuse for a risotto. But given the price of the rice, it was (I hope I'm right), forgivable. The veggies on the side wasn't too smashing either. But, as if to redeem itself, the chicken was definitely scrumptious. The spinach was embedded into slices of chicken meat and it was topped with a mouth-watering sauce. I'm a bit confused on how to rate this one. The meat was good while the risotto, abysmal. It wasn't that filling either. 3 stars. Get the garlic rice when you order this one.

Parmesan Fish Fillet with Parsley Sauce
Price: 195 Rating: ★★★★
Fish fillet served with buttered vegetables and garlic rice. The fish was the melt-in-your-mouth kind. Very delicious and soft. The parsley sauce was great on fish. The side dish, however, was about the same as on the chicken roulade. Not bad; Not good either. Plain buttered vegetables. Having tasted the risotto, I was half expecting this to be better than the risotto. I wasn't disappointed. At least this garlic rice tasted like garlic, although a bit on the oily side. The rice cup was shinier than a Florsheim after emptying the cup. Muchos grasa senor.




Linguine in Pesto
Price: 135 Rating: ★★★★
After having eaten the chicken roulade, I was stilling feeling a bit empty. So I opted for some pasta. It looked interesting enough and sure enough, I had my fill after having that dish. Famous rich green basil sauce served with linguine. You also have an option of having it served with seafood (additional 180).








Mango Bravo
Price: 85 Rating: ★★★★★
The place is called Conti's Pastry Shop and Restaurant. Pastry did come first there, so it seems imperative that we eat some form of pastry. Mango Bravo is the cake pictured in front of the menu so we opted for that one. It was HUGE! 4 layers of cake. 2 of which are embedded with mango bits and 1 layer with dark chocolate tasting stuff. I couldn't figure out what that last layer was. It was devoured before I got to it. Delicious!

Conclusion:
The place is indeed a pastry shop first then a restaurant, second. There are LAN ports underneath the tables but I didn't ask if they were functional. Good for the geek heads out there. It could seat around 35 people comfortably but if you want to take a group there, better call before hand. The place is usually crowded since it's one of the few affordable places at Serendra. The others are just plain overpriced. The ones where you think the food should taste great because it's so damn expensive. Going back to the topic, the food is good but it seems that at Conti's, rice was an afterthought. Putting a lot of attention to the viand and almost none to the rice. An option of plain rice would have been nice if they don't pay much attention to it anyway.