Secret Recipe

No, I'm not giving away any secret recipe, but rather, thoughts on my eating experience in a relatively new restaurant in The Fort (note that the parking space is along 32nd and 6Th) that is interestingly named Secret Recipe. When I first heard of the name, it sounded off and somewhat unhinged, like that eponymous television series Desperate Housewives. However, I soon regarded the chic-ness of the name that was also marked with a conspicuous lazy script that anybody could construe to be a sign of modernity and comfort. In all likelihood, the bright welcoming view of the restaurant from the outside, not to mention the name, could very well say that the food is just as wonderful, to say the least. So, Bee and I, along with my sister A trotted inside, with me going straight to the wide array of cakes and pastry display. Two big chillers, forming an L-counter filled with cakes of different kinds and brownies and prune slices (!) greeted my roving eyes and I might as well have declared that I've found my oasis of sweets, becoming the reprieve I use to reserve only for the UCC cake chiller.

With such exhilaration over the extensive cake menu, I actually felt restricted with the food menu; there wasn't really a lot to choose from that I find myself checking the fronts and backs, determined that I might have missed a page. We ordered Pumpkin Soup, Grilled Chicken in Pepper Sauce (P180++), Tom Yum Pasta and Grilled Chicken in Mushroom Sauce (P180++). The pumpkin soup was spicy, but more than that, had a distinctly strong curry taste. Although the consistency was right, I felt that the curry masked the flavor of the pumpkin, becoming just too spicy and too curry a soup for my taste. The rest of the meal came quickly, which is saying something, given that it was a full house with every just-available table immediately being snatched up. My grilled chicken in pepper sauce was tender and succulent and very spicy, almost masking my taste buds, but I love my food spicy, so this was a champion for me.

Now off to dessert (Yay!), I ordered (not without much deliberation, of course!) the Mocha Cocoa Cake (P100). I was curious as to how a stacked cake, with clearly a division of flavor would taste together; would their respective flavor overwhelm the other? how would one add to the dimension of the other given that they're not exactly "intertwined"? I can't help it, so I tasted them separately at first, before proceeding to an overall taste, just as soon as my sister commented that "shouldn't you be eating them in one forkful?" I liked the general mocha taste it gave, it is tamed and creamy; both chiffon was a bit dry, but the copious layers of cream were enough to make anybody not notice any lack of moisture and revel rather in the creaminess you feel playing in the tongue. Bee liked it, he's not into fancy-pancy desserts, he goes for the clean taste of simplicity. My sister, on the other hand, didn't find anything special with it, it was "...just like any other dessert". As for me, I give credit to the aesthetic aspect of the cake for some of us do eat with their eyes, y'know; and I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed the cake, it wasn't too sweet at all and being a person who knows how to bake, I was somewhat astonished to find something so simple be memorable, to say the least. So, really, to me, it is a cake worth mentioning and ordering again.