ITO

Welcome Drink

I expected fermented mango to be sour. Instead, I got the sweetness of childhood summers and the ripest mangoes I used to wait months for. Sold in an abundance of rattan baskets. Those days are long gone now with climate change challenging the calendars of such formative years.

There was the clinking of ice, the cold cup, fermented mango, lemongrass. Somehow Yakult entered my mind perhaps because of the fermentation.

Hwachae

It looked like flowers and dots scattered everywhere, which immediately made me think of Yayoi Kusama. Interestingly enough, the “Hwa” in “Hwachae” actually means “flower” in Mandarin. How beautiful it was that the vision itself was communicated so well despite language barriers.

Almost teared up realizing the idea of it came from Yujung’s decision to transform her Korean canned fruit-cocktail childhood because of the limitations of geography through creating something new with tropical fruits from someone else’s summers and somebody else’s geography.

Red Diamond Soda

Don’t even get me started in explaining how the coffee from Nana Roasters and Bugnay just went so well together, so let’s just keep the long story short for now with direct quotations from my notes namely: “WOW”, “Txxxxx.”

To explain further: The CO₂ made everything feel alive. Not just the taste. The sound of the fizz, the texture, the tingling on my tongue.

I then realized how rarely I think about what food and drinks sound like, or how much a drink can make you physically aware of being inside your own mouth.

Pan de Sal + Vegetable Salad

The bread smelled like a pandesal bakery in the morning. The taste somehow brought me back to the dinner rolls from Insular Bakery in Poblacion that my grandma would bring home along with Kabayan, Taisan, and brown bags of hot pandesal.

Then I tried it with the Vegetable Salad cocktail (imagine the smokiness along with lambanog, some veggies, long peppercorn for a slight brightness) and wrote: “A dance between two lovers complete on their own.”

They were both already good separately. Together, nothing was competing and nothing needed to complete the other.

It reminded me of two people I once watched dancing in Spain. I assumed they had been together forever. Turns out they were exes turned friends dancing their last night away. They didn’t try to own the other. You could see it with how they held each other with joy, presence, and care.

Beet + Hōjicha

My note literally says: “It’s like a soft hello.” Which honestly still feels accurate.

Nothing screamed. It just greeted me, and lingered long enough for me to notice it twice and thrice after the first sip.

Pineapple Jeonggwa

The sweetness reminded me of perfume after it has already dried down to its base notes. Not the first blast, but that lingering sweetness left much later.

And the longer I chewed, the more things appeared.

Different textures. Different flavors. Different versions of the same bite depending on when I noticed it.

The spiced cream also felt like its own dessert.

Turon Roasted Tea Latte

Listening to Nikko explain the ingredients and processes felt like listening to a live poetry reading.

Every ingredient opened another little world. Banana. Langka. Hōjicha. Iribancha. Cacao. Japan. The Philippines. Technique after technique after technique.

The final dessert was going to be cold, so they wanted us to have something warm and comforting first.

My brain immediately compared it to putting a towel in a towel warmer for someone you love before they step out of the shower in winter.

Banoffee Bingsu

My first incoherent coherent thought: “I want to cry because the banana understands me.”