Yoji and the Foodies

Not even a bad bad cold and a lung-crushing coughing fit can stop me from eating ice cream. We still have half a gallon of vanilla ice cream in the fridge. It’s leftover from day after Christmas when all the kids came devouring it with Smuckers Magic Shell caramel topping. I could have eaten the leftover without remorse, but I’ve already eaten the diabetes-inducing Swiss cake from Becky’s Kitchen. So, I waited a few more days. Of course, those days were food trip sessions with the family. While stuffing myself with Chinese food, I was already thinking of the vanilla ice cream at home. The trip home is 45 minutes. I could not wait that long. So we decided to go to Fruits in Ice Cream Summer Cafe over at the Alabang Town Center.

Let’s call the ice cream FIC. They are the ice cream people who used to work in Magnolia (or so I was told) and have since established an ice cream brand of their own. I can only imagine how tough it is to compete with Selecta or Nestle because, let’s face it, product differentiation in ice cream is about 90% marketing gimmick. It’s ice cream; how much differentiation do you need to set it apart from the competition? Not much, I say. You can just say “my ice cream brings all the boys in the yard, and they’re like, it’s better than yours, damn right, it’s better than yours. I can teach you but I have to charge…lalalala”  – There’s your product differentiation.

Given my skepticism over ice cream differentiation, I have to admit that FIC made the ice cream competition a little more interesting by introducing flavors that were not widely available (e.g. Durian, Black Sesame) and flavors that Filipinos can truly appreciate (e.g. Kape’t Gatas, Nangkasuy, Tsokonut). These are  not hard to do at home, but who has the time? Really.

FIC has so many flavors so the key is to stick to your first choice and stop oggling the other flavors.  There will be enough days in 2010 to try out every flavor  combination. The Godfather and the Shoppinger played it safe and ordered Mango and Avocado. I say, Avocado owns Mango! No competition. The Godfather does not agree.

I was keen on getting the Durian, but Shoppinger gave that “You’ll regret it later” look. So, I finally decided on the Caramel Pastillas (the exact name escapes me at the moment — memory fail moment). It was the best ice cream decision at that time. But I really am preparing myself for the Durian – maybe next year.

At 50 pesos per scoop (60 for the sugar-free), it is under the “affordable” ice cream pricing level. For comparison, Sebastian ice cream is 80 pesos; Haagen Daaz is 130 pesos, DippinDots is 50 pesos, Manong sorbetero’s “dirty” ice cream is 10 pesos.

I would recommend FIC if ordinary ice cream just doesn’t hit the spot anymore. It’s the best cure for ice cream-fatigue syndrome.

After a hearty meal at Food Choices Alabang, I had this sudden craving for something sweet. All I had to do was to turn my head a few degrees to the right to see the brazo mercedes with pistacchios and the ice cream station. They were desserts all right, but I was looking for something else. And as if by some divine intervention, there was this little boy who was trying to balance a box of churros and juice as he made his way to the table just a few feet away. That’s it! I want what he has! There was this urge to just grab the little boy’s churros box, but that’s one misdemeanor charge I can do away with.

After a few minutes of looking around, I finally found Churros City. The churros on display were not as appealing as the ones in the little boy’s churros box, but it must be the lighting. That, or the idea of stealing a churros box adds +10 to the appeal-meter. Anyway, the churros is 35 pesos — this includes 4 pieces of pretzel-shaped churros and 1 dip of your choice.  There were several dips to choose from but chocolate is the best bet. Of course, if you prefer mango and cheese, nobody’s stopping you.

The churros is too salty for my taste. The chocolate dip reminds me of old-fashioned hot chocolate made from blocks of cocoa powder. Even with the sweetness of the choco dip, the saltiness of the churros ruined the overall taste for me. The churros has the potential to be a mainstream food item (like doughnuts and french fries) but it needs a little tweaking – both in the taste and marketing aspects. They’re fun to eat though.