Almost-Free Cakes at Tamp Cafe & Co.

Hello Foodie Hiveians! It's been a while since I last met with my college friends. I can just remember before in school where we used to have lunch together almost everyday. Even though we did not belong to the same group during our thesis days, we still tried to meet up. Now that we are working, and since one of us is based in Luzon, we try to catch up during occasions or long vacations as much as possible. During the holy week’s long holidays, it was our chance to catch up. We chose Tamp Cafe & Co. as our meeting place. Other than being curious about this new cafe, we were enticed with the Cafe's 1-peso cake promo and did not hesitate to make our reservations.

Since it was a day before the long weekend, I noticed a lot of people were coming to the cafe. All tables were occupied. It's as if everything came back from pre-pandemic days. The only difference was the wearing of face masks and face shields by the crew. Most of the customers were no longer wearing their masks (since everyone had to eat or drink). Though I could hear the chitchats of the neighboring tables, they didn't distract us from having some of our own.

We each ordered different dishes. My friends chose Chicken Parmigiana and Shrimps in Thai Street Cilantro Sauce, while I ordered Korean Sticky Chicken Bibimbap. The meals we had were around 300 pesos ($6) each, and were quite worth it in terms of quantity and taste.

The Chicken Parmigiana is one of their best sellers in the café. It is breaded chicken with marinara sauce over garlic olive oil pasta. The tomato sauce and parmesan cheese were topped generously and made the dish very flavorful.

When my friend was served with the Shrimps in Thai Street Cilantro Sauce, he was worried that it would be a bit messy since the shrimp's head and skin were still intact. We didn't notice that it was emphasized in the menu that the shrimp was not skinned to add flavor to the dish. Indeed, the unskinned shrimp helped in enriching the sauce. Eating the shrimp with the sauce and putting some on the steamed rice (might be a bit sinful) was just the right combination.

I have always been fond of Korean food because of its mixture of all flavors like sweet, sour, salty, spicy, and even a tad of bitterness. For my order, I had a bowl of Korean Sticky Chicken Bibimbap. Just by looking at the bowl, I was overwhelmed and asked myself if I could eat all of it. I actually didn't mix the chicken with the rice and veggies at first but then I eventually mixed everything. And it turned out to be a good decision since the chicken itself was not spicy. The spicy sauce was glazed on the egg and rice, and it was really better to include the chicken in the mixture. The bibimbap is a complete meal with all the veggies such as cucumber and carrots, with corn and sunny-side up egg. It won't be complete without the shredded dried seaweed. I really like the crispy chicken with the sweet sauce.

Before dashing to our one-peso cakes, we continued our conversation for a while with our cool beverages, giving our tummies some time to digest the delectable food we had earlier. Each of us tried different coolers. I had a large Cucumber Mint Brewed Iced Tea, while the others had blended fruit drinks, Mango Passionfruit and Pink Lemonade. I haven't tasted their drinks but they looked satisfied and refreshed. As for mine, the iced tea was not as sweet as I was expecting, which was really fit for the cakes that we were about to devour. The cucumber and mint just made it quite refreshing.

After giving some more time to regain space in our full stomachs, we asked for our almost-free cakes. The one-peso cake can be availed for every dish and drink ordered. I can't remember the full names of the cake but we had a mango cake, another with blueberry, and then a slice of carrot cake.

Both the mango and blueberry cakes were light and fluffy. The base cake gave way to the sweetness of the frosting and fillings. So you won't be having a sore throat eating more than a slice of the cake. 😁

Compared to the other cakes, the carrot cake was the most dense. It had more texture with the added raisins, nuts, and tiny bits of carrots. If I were to reorder and choose from those 3 cakes, I would definitely choose the carrot cake.

After eating so much that day, we felt guilty since we were supposedly fasting for the Holy Week. Then one of us said a verse from the Bible, that what makes a man unclean is what comes out of the mouth from the heart and not from what we eat (Matthew 15:17-19). We shared a little laugh and felt less guilty about ourselves. But it definitely was true, and so we promised ourselves to do fasting not just in food intake, but in other ways as well.