food trip buddy: Beraldi and how they make coffee

Another food trip, a coffee sojourn.

After a floppy lunch at a local food chain that offer pizza and pasta, food buddy (foobu)Aida Desalisa and me decided to have coffee at Beraldi, an open-air coffee shop located at the 2nd level of SM Southmall. Its open-air feature allows customers to smoke while drinking coffee and attending to multitude of stuff.

I prefer frappuccino than brewed coffee and other types of coffee drinks. I like milk and choco-based frappes. But this time, the latteccino (coffee and milk frappe) caught my attention.

I ordered a grande latteccino caramel while foobu Aida, who prefers brewed ordered...uhhm ahh-brewed coffee, again. We also tried their Blackout cake and a piece each of choco chip cookie and oatmeal cookie.

The Blackout cake is a stunner-from the icing to the dough and up to its toppings. It is thickly covered with moist black chocolate icing and notably less bitter than normal black chocolates. The cake's dough is packed (not like regular cakes that has sponge-like doughs-lot of air holes) and its moist and also chocolatey.

The latteccino caramel is served and topped with cream like any other frappes. But unlike the cake, its quite a disappointment. The flavor was too mild that you'll wonder where the caramel went, aside from the drizzle on the cream topping. The mildness of the flavor was close to being bland. I've had frappes and lattes before, and this never came close to comparison. Its a forgettable drink.

I wanted to compare it with other coffee blends from other coffee specialty stores, and I'm thinking, perhaps this is how Beraldi makes coffee. Foobu Aida said her brewed coffee is just 'ok', so I assume she didn't like it much either.

As for the choco-chip and oatmeal cookies, it tasted nothing really special. There are better and cheaper cookies in a grocery store.

Beraldi failed to impress but I want to try it again sometime. I want my other foobus to try it out. I believe on first impressions that last in as much as I also believe on giving second chances.