skip to main |
skip to sidebar
These chai latte cupcakes will make you sing.If you're craving for tasty, moist cupcakes that promise that no animals were harmed in their creation AND don't taste like sawdust, but you're kinda broke to buy a whole box from you-know-who, then please, step into Corner Tree Cafe on Jupiter Street in Makati.
That's right folks! I'm so pleased to blog that for the past few weeks, I've been supplying fabulous tasting cupcakes to this quaint vegetarian restaurant that is very vegan-friendly. It helps that the dishes are inexpensive and the place is easily accessible to both Northern and Southern Manilenyos alike.I was very fortunate to come across this opportunity when my good friend Pet and I had dinner here one Friday night. I had heard much about the restaurant from co-vegans and was encouraged to try their tofu-walnut burger and lemony brocolli pasta. After dinner, Chiqui the owner went up to me and introduced herself. Pet told her that I was vegan and that I made vegan cupcakes. She was the one I sent a sample box of cupcakes to mentioned in this post!
Lucky for me she liked 'em, and now I supply 'em. The usual available flavors this establishment orders include those in the picture and red velvet cupcakes. Who knows, maybe they'll order the other flavors.Just a heads up!
Corner Tree Cafe (Vegetarian Food) Francesca Mabanta 150 Jupiter Street Bel-Air, Makati, Metro Manila Cell: Chiqui 
+63917-8481004
or Leah +63916-6149927NB: Corner Tree is closed on Mondays.
If after eating in Corner Tree you decide to get out of Jupiter St. via Buendia, I highly recommend you watch out for those traffic guys in yellow that are just begging to catch you run the light when you turn left into Nicanor. I delivered some cupcakes to Corner Tree last Saturday and I almost got a ticket. I almost cried too, because Saturday just wasn't my day -- I had rushed making an apple pie beforehand and I was running late to Ateneo to watch a play. Anyway, the guy told me I ran a red light when I distinctly saw it was green. Apparently you had to wait for the green arrow to light up before turning left. I cordially argued with him and I even got down from my car and we walked to the light. I showed him that the arrow was not in fact red, that the arrow never lit up. I emerged unscathed and un-ticketed. Those fuckers caught a ton of cars "running the red arrow" when there was no red arrow! I told the guy that maybe he can tell his boss to put a sign on the traffic lightpost so drivers can follow the law more accordingly, or to have the light fixed so that the red light would light up. He just told me to go to the MMDA to file my complaint. He probably thought he'd get a bribe out of me, well tough! May they rot in the humid heat while trying to catch innocent motorists who run the non-existent red arrow.
Sorry blog, I neglected you once again. Here's what I've been up to since my last post:
Chocolate cupcake and almond rosewater cupcake.Tinkering around with rose-inspired frosting designs. I've been spying cupcakes frosted to look like roses 'round Flickr and it's been driving me crazy. I really couldn't figure out how those bakers did it! After a few experiments I finally broke the code. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a super baker's secret, but what the hell. You basically use a 5-point star tip, start frosting from the center and work your way out. So simple yet so stunning.
Missing old childhood food. I don't miss the dead animal flesh mind you, I just miss the familiarity of eating a burger sandwich, using an actual bun, filled with ketchup and mustard. I took this photo about 2 months ago and uploaded it in Flickr 3 weeks ago. As of this post it's received 99 views. Hmmm. I guess vegans do miss familiar food. This is a burger bun filled with 3 vegan burger patties, a couple of lettuce leaves, and a good dose of mango vinaigrette. I know, not conventional, but it went pretty well. The vinaigrette was a version of this recipe but with cane vinegar subbing for the calamansi juice and olive oil subbing for the sesame oil. The burger patties are a version of Vegan with a Vengeance's.
Promoting vegan cupcakes to mainstream media. I sent a box of these cupcakes to a well known local food magazine for a pictorial. They actually found me on Multiply! So so tickled. Anyway, the magazine edition with the cupcakes should come out sometime in the 4th quarter. This box has 6 flavors.Top, L-R: red velvet, chai latte, lemony.Bottom, L-R: banoffee, carrot cake, almond rosewater.I sent the same box to a vegetarian restaurant in the Makati CBD called Corner Tree Cafe. They seem to like 'em, they've been ordering every week for their customers. If any of you readers are around Jupiter St. in Makati, hit up Corner Tree Cafe! It's near Aristocrat.(I also sent another box of cupcakes to a lifestyle magazine targeted to Southern Manilenyos, not pictured. Well received too!)
Cupcake-catering for my lolo's / grandfather's 95th birthday party. My dad asked me to make cupcakes for giveaways for guests. In the span of 7-8 hours I was able to come up with 100+ cupcakes, packaged in these beautiful silver cardboard-plastic boxes. They looked smashing, if I do say so myself. I just cringe when I think about the amount of waste these generated. I hate using plastic...Anyway, here are some closeups:
Red velvet cupcakes.
Banoffee cupcakes. Banana cupcakes topped with coffee buttercream and shaved dark chocolate.
Lemony cupcakes.I can't resist some cupcake porn:
Closeup of a red velvet cupcake.I'm really loving the foil cupcake liners. They're pretty costly but they look so professional. They go really well with the silver boxes, and they don't absorb moisture from the cake (vs. paper liners). I like that they hide cupcake batter spills too!I also can't resist a gratuitous photo of cute animals:
I found these guys trying to cross a major road in my village as I was heading out to Sunday lunch. I quickly snapped a photo of them before herding them back to the creek from whence they came. I'm glad to report that no one got hurt! Motorists actually halted for these cuties.That's about it, so I've been quite busy. Hopefully my next post won't be too far off.
Arghhh, sorry blog, the real world's been keeping me quite busy. For now the only update I can give you are the 2 marketing collaterals I've been working on in relation to Kitchen Revolution. Enjoy. More blogs to come. :)PS Just came back from a holiday in Boracay... I am in love with that place. I want to move there and run a cafe.
More vegan love in the local food magazine scene. I contributed some vegan baking tips to this month's Appetite Magazine. I also handed in an original oatmeal cookie recipe, fairly similar in taste to the old butter-and-egg laden version I used to make in my pre-vegetarian days.Pick up a copy of the June 2009 issue of Appetite Magazine!PS If you recall, my vegan baking business Kitchen Revolution was given a positive review in this magazine's pages last February 2009.Zoom in to check it out!
*************Finally a restaurant in the metro is showing some vegan love. Healthy Kitchen in Serendra, Bonifacio High Street offers some nice vegan options that don't rely on fake meat and Indian spices. Sorry, no offense to India -- I mean I love Indian food, I eat Indian probably once a week. In the past if I wanted some good vegan food, I'd have to go to an Indian restaurant; Indian food can get tiring though if you eat it all the time. So if you have the option to eat good vegan food in a non-Indian restaurant, you take it.Like Healthy Kitchen. I'll admit, at first I did not appreciate this restaurant's name. While health is certainly important, the word "healthy" tends to scare people away. Not sure if this is a manifestation of the scary H word, but the past 3 times I've been in the restaurant, majority if not all of the customers were female... I got 6 brothers and I know they aren't a fan of the H word.Anyway, I like that this restaurant actually displays the V word prominently. And I'm not even talking about vegetarian, but vegan. Such a big relief that a food establishment recognizes veganism!
Here's one of HK's dishes -- wholewheat spaghetti with vegan alfredo sauce and tofu. I honestly did not have any expectations because I've never tried to make a vegan cream sauce (okay once I made the pine nut sauce from Veganomicon (link to amazon), which frankly sucked. I think I added too much lemon juice). I was pleasantly surprised. It tastes nothing like traditional alfredo sauce, but it's got a nice savory taste which I think comes from mushroom broth and onions. The cubed tofu was seared and tasted great with the sauce.
The next time I was in HK was for a merienda thing and I ordered the edamame pate with tortilla chips. The chips were supposed to be a combination of blue and red but the restaurant only had blue, which I didn't mind at all. The pate was very hummus-esque, with only its green tinge separating it from it's tan cousin. Good merienda, however I think it would've been tastier if it was served with salsa.Healthy Kitchen also serves tofu adobo, vegetarian burrito wraps and Boca burgers.I caution you not to take any of the green tea frappes, even if you can have them made with soymilk -- the green tea mixes HK uses has milk.What the restaurant seriously lacks is vegan dessert. I miss being able to buy dessert...HEALTHY KITCHEN141C Serendra Place, Bonifacio High St,Global City, Taguig900.6514Check out their menu here.
Posts
