ICE CREAM INDULGENCE

Seventh Heaven.jpg
Originally uploaded by margauxlicious.

By Margaux Salcedo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 08:19:00 07/27/2008

MANILA, Philippines - I remember our teachers discussing the Greenhouse Effect way back in early high school. Back then it was just a theory. Today it’s reality. If your house isn’t air conditioned, you start sweating just as you towel off from the shower, making you wonder if you’re getting anywhere drying yourself. Your car feels like an oven as you get in. And nowadays, with commuting being in style because of with the high price of gas, an umbrella has become a must-bring.

Which makes me look for ice cream all the time. Fruits In Ice Cream is my go-to brand at the mall (unless you’re at Podium or in Alabang Town Center, in which case Sebastian’s is a must) because it’s reasonably priced, light, and the fruity flavors are, oh so tart. For a rich chocolate ice cream indulgence, I love Haagen Dazs Belgian Chocolate, my cure for depression. But my favorite ice cream memories include the chocolate and cheese dirty ice cream combo from the Mamang Sorbetero outside our school campus; post-dinner ice cream at the Pen on Prom Night, and cooling down from patintero games with Magnolia Twin Popsies—whether orange or chocolate.

Nowadays though, enjoying ice cream doesn’t mean just bringing a cold mash of milk and sugar to your mouth; it is an entire event that includes skimming through a dizzying menu of combinations, sitting at the ice cream parlor and simply indulging in the bliss of ice cream.

Haagen Dazs, whose brilliant ad campaigners successfully delivered in making ice cream sexy (remember the black and white posters on the Haagen Dazs walls with a very sexy couple indulging supposedly in ice cream but actually in each other?), has perfected the concept of an ice cream salon. I still remember the very first Haagen Dazs parlor in Makati, which still exists, at that Glorietta corner facing Landmark. As bright-eyed pre-Starbucks college kids, we used to go there and splurge our parents’ hard earned money on banana splits to share with our dates... because a trip to the Haagen Dazs shop was considered cool.

Today, they’ve expanded into the Mall of Asia with the first non-franchise Haagen-Dazs store in the country. This ice cream parlor takes indulgence to the next level: ice cream is flown in from France, vanilla from Madagascar, strawberries from Poland, chocolate from Belgium, macadamia nuts from Hawaii and green tea from Kyoto. All this effort to bring you the Haagen Dazs experience through their extremely creative ice cream presentations.

Like other ice cream parlors, they have a “flavor of the month” too. Like this July you can go on a Chocolate Journey with a plate of three of their best chocolate flavors: the classic Chocolate, Chocolate Chocolate Chip, and Midnight Cookies and Cream. Plus a little twist that is perfect for stormy weather: a cup of hot chocolate that is in fact Belgian Chocolate ice cream but melted and heated to become hot choco! Come August the spotlight will be on coffee flavors, the flavor of the month being Affogato: a scoop of vanilla ice cream drowned in espresso. In November, maybe thinking of All Soul’s Day, the month’s flavor is called Seventh Heaven: seven scoops of ice cream dramatically served in a mist of dry ice.

Asserting its own flair is the old Magnolia House near New Manila, which, I am happy to share, is still alive and kicking—except it’s no longer The Magnolia House but The Nestlé Creamery. Although my first love for Magnolia Ice Cream will never die (Magnolia Strawberry Ice Cream forever!), Nestlé, I must admit, has done a very good job in maintaining this ice cream institution. My ice cream buddy Nana Banana observed that in just two hours, the table behind us already had three turnovers; and this was on a weekday.

The menu is massive and the choices, like at Haagen, are dizzying. I went for the first choice that caught my eye: Vanilla Rocher Crunch, whose picture screamed for attention. Three scoops of vanilla ice cream mixed with crunchy chocolate in a cone, inverted and dunked into an ice cream cup. It’s a wonderfully cheap sugar high. Nana Banana went for the Reese’s Choco Peanut Butter Cake. The key to this ice cream cake is to completely dig in to make sure you scoop out the peanut butter. If you hit the peanut butter, it’s heaven; otherwise it’s plain vanilla ice cream cake.

Although it’s no longer the Magnolia House, I still found myself ordering a separate scoop of strawberry ice cream, an ode to Magnolia. (Yes, I know, this dessert trip was diabetes waiting to happen.) Nestlé's is less creamy and less tart in pronouncing the strawberry flavor but you can never go wrong with a cup of strawberry ice cream. If you are that particular though, there is actually a much smaller Magnolia ice cream parlor just across the street!

For FIC fanatics, there's The Ice Cream Bar in Rockwell (not in Power Plant but at the Joya Building across the exit where the taxi stand is). They have a to-die-for chocolate chip ice cream sandwich! For the gelato lovers, Pazzo at the Power Plant in Rockwell can become a pre-movie ritual; and the bazaar baby Angelati Italia has also opened a gelateria in SM Megamall.

Otherwise, nothing beats a cone of dirty ice cream from the Mamang Sorbetero on the street!

Haagen Dazs, 2/F Mall of Asia. Nestlé Creamery, Aurora Blvd. cor. Gilmore, Quezon City. Ice Cream Bar, Joya Tower, Joya Drive (beside Power Plant Mall), Rockwell Center, Makati. Angelati Italia, G/F Building A, SM Megamall. Sebastian's Ice Cream Studio, Cinema Level, Alabang Town Center.