六十八：Merienda en Dulcinea

Due to the colonization of Spain in our country, us Filipinos have been accustomed to eating snacks during afternoon or what they call in Spanish, merienda.

The Spaniards also introduced us to tsokolate and desserts made of milk, flour, sugar and those that require baking or frying since our ancestors would have been eating only steamed rice cakes for merienda.

Now we have a lot of choices for our merienda not just rice cakes. Now we have pansit, banana cues, breads, even western snacks such as cakes, pasta, burgers etc.

Clockwise L-R: Sans Rival, Creme Brulee and Brownie.

One day my friend and I decided to eat merienda and we were craving for something sweet so we decided to go for some pastries from Dulcinea.

Dulcinea is a restaurant that serves Filipino-Spanish foods such as paella, tapa, adobo etc. They also serve other western foods like pasta and sandwiches. Besides savory foods, they are also known for their cakes and pastries especially their churros.

I've heard great reviews about their churros and since I haven't tasted it yet, we ordered a set of churros con chocolate.

We also ordered their dessert sampler which has 3 desserts in one plate.

Thick Chocolate

Churros is actually a deep fried dessert made of flour, eggs, milk and sugar and is very similar to a funnel cake.

My first taste of churros was when we were grocery shopping at S&R in Taguig. They sell bavarian cream filled churros for 35Php for a foot long and it was one of the best thing that I tasted. But it wasn't long before it all got wasted because I remember while I was slowly eating and enjoying my churros, someone bumped me and I accidentally dropped my churros on the floor and I was totally shocked and was thinking of the 5 second rule but of course, I know I should let go of my dear churros because it was already swarmed by bacteria the first nanosecond it touched the cement... so much for my first time.

Crispy Churros

Moving forward and back to the present time, an order of Dulcinea's churros con chocolate has 4 churros and 1 dipping chocolate sauce.

The churros are very crunchy and also oily but tastes good. The chocolate is really thick and smooth and matches the churros well.

What I didn't like with their churros is that it is very oily mainly because it is deep fried. It's not as if it's dripping in oil but it's like my taste buds and body can sense that the food is indeed rich in fat.

The rest of the desserts in the dessert platter which were the Sans Rival, Brownie and Creme Brulee were also good. The Creme Brulee is like our leche flan or pannacotta which is smooth, milky, creamy and sweet. The brownie was fudgy and the Sans Rival was full of cashew nuts, rich, crunchy, buttery and not overly sweet.

We enjoyed our merienda well and I would definitely try their other desserts and maybe their dishes next time.

Dulcinea has numerous branches especially in SM Malls such as MOA, Megamall and North Edsa. The one in Sta. Lucia Mall is at Phase 3 Ground floor near the escalator. Budget would be around 200-500 per person.