Herencia Artisanal Tablea Chocolate

We attended a surprise birthday party for an uncle on my wife's side. He is actually also a godfather/ninong in our wedding. The dinner party was held at a restaurant in Marikina. As we exited after the party, we passed by the regular part of the restaurant/cafe where on display were cakes, cookies and bottles of this chocolate drink. 

Herencia Artisanal Tablea Chocolate is based on the original chocolate drink prepared and served at homes in the "old" times. Tablea or tableya are cacao chips or cubes that are melted and transformed to a drink that is usually thick. Note in one of Rizal's novels where the thick version - tsokolate-eh is the thick, rich version of the drink often served to VIPs or guests of honor or close relatives and friends. Tsokolate-ah is the watered down version.

Nutrition information on this chocolate drink

This was definitely on the side of tsokolate-eh. I liked the richness of taste considering this was served cold and not hot. It's on the expensive side though as a bottle cost more than 200 pesos! Good perhaps for occasional purchases and drinks but not for daily consumption. The maker is from Quezon City (based on the quick research I did using Google) and specializes in chocolate among other products. 

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Special edition ice cream: Selecta Shoyu Caramel

I was buying some ice cream the other week and was browsing the available flavors at a convenience store. I spotted this limited edition flavor from Selecta (Wall's in other countries). It's a Japanese themed flavor that practically hints at a form of salted caramel. The salt being substituted by shoyu or soy sauce, which is a common ingredient in Japanese cooking or used as a dip for food like sashimi or sushi.

Selecta's limited edition Shoyu Caramel

The featured ingredients are caramel, shoyu and cashews. The base ice cream is vanilla.

The ice cream was okay. It is basically salted caramel. There was a hint of shoyu but it was not strong. I'm not sure what the maker's objective was when they made this and decided on the name. Perhaps more on the novelty side? 

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Mangoes galore!

Our mango tree yields a good number of mangoes every year. However, we noticed that we have an especially high yield and larger fruits around every other year. Sometimes, it took 2 years before a good yield. The best yield and harvest since we moved to our upper Antipolo home was in 2020 during the pandemic. We had fairly good yields the last two years so this year we expected to be an average harvest. The fruits this year were not as big as the previous years' but there were a lot that survived since the flowering days in March. Fortunately, the fruits grew before the late March rains that usually destroyed flowers. 

Part of this year's harvest from our tree

Our dog Boots usually sits near the pile as if guarding it from the cats and other animals roaming our garden at night.

Here's Boots again beside the mangoes we were sorting to give away to family and friends.

The skin was still green but they are ripening rapidly.

More mangoes to give away

Selected mangoes for our consumption were placed near the dining area

We suddenly had mangoes dominating the fruit table. We usually have bananas and citrus on this table.

More on mangoes in the next post! 

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