But this time it is about dessert.
"Turon" does not turn me on. (yes, I rhyme.) It is one of the things that you would see on the menu that you would not consider to be anything special. I only ordered it because the waitress hinted it was good.
I was totally expecting conventional fried plantain wrapped in lumpia wrapper, topped with a scoop of ice cream and drizzled with chocolate, and sprinkled with chopped nuts. This is done all the time by many restaurants in an effort entice us with a regular plain turon. All these toppings really do not make it any special. I feel that we can all do this at home. Why do we have to pay for an overprice dessert that we can do so much better at home?
Turon de Aleisa was not what I thought it would be.
The magic word that the waitress utter that made me order this dessert was "ube". This is jam made from yam. I was only trying to explain what it is as most of the ingredients of this dessert is produced locally. The rhyme was totally unintentional.
She mentioned, the turon had ube filling. And this made me curious...
If you look at the picture, I am pretty sure you would start drooling inside your mouth. The plating does look good. Triangular turon is really cute. You would see that compared to the regular turon, this use very minimal wrapper. You can see this from the transparency of the lumpia wrapper hinting the color of ube or yam.
I would no longer describe how this was plated as this would be redundant, you can already see this from the picture. And, I cannot stand writing about this without anything as delicious to eat. My mouth is still watering as I am writing this.
I took the small dessert spoon and cut half of one of the turon and took a little bit of vanilla ice cream that is served with it. It think it is important to take a little bit of everything on the first bite. The first bite gives you a crunch from the deep-fried lumpia wrapper. It was crisp because it was really thin and cooked well. If you overcook or undercook lumpia, it has the tendency to be gummy; a bit would be tough. But this was cooked perfectly. I also tasted the vanilla ice cream with blended well with the chocolate syrup. The flavor of chocolate slightly introduces the creamy taste of ube. You would then taste the sweetness of the ube which introduces another sweet fruit. It was candied "langka" or jackfruit. This would then introduce another sweet taste that would come from "macapuno".
Macapuno is a mutant coconut. The meat is sweeter and makes a delicious dessert. It is tasty to eat it as it is. The coconut-y taste of macapuno goes really well with the taste of ube here. I just kept my mouth shut to masticate.
I was not able to talk for minutes after taking a bite. It was a lot to take in. It was crunchy to creamy to sweet. This was a lot of different elements added together but really created a somewhat seamless transition to each flavors as you eat it. You would be able to taste the distinct flavors as you eat it but it would feel like a really great marriage of different tastes
This is (by far/probably/so far) the best dessert i ever tasted. And probably the best turon I ever tasted. This is one dining experience that you are not suppose to read about on blogs; but rather, experience for yourself. If you still haven't planned on going to Cocina de Aleisa, you would end up missing a lot.
You can visit their Facebook account through here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cocina-de-Aleisa/162187057204351
Consider going there on a Friday as they have barbecue nights. This only adds more variety to their already oh-so-delicious entrees. The menu choices are made thoughtfully, I don't think you can make mistakes in choosing any dish.
I once read that Pampanga is the Culinary Capital of the Philippines; I am beginning to understand why.
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