The TINY KITCHEN

Little gems can come in small packages and can be found in unexpected places.  Everytime I am on-the-road for business travel, vacation or travel & adventure, I am always on the look out for good local food and food outlets that serve very good food but won’t cost you an arm and a leg.  We want to have that dining experience that we can include in our bucket memory of the places we visited.

When we were in Davao City, a friend of mine took us to The Tiny Kitchen.  The place is a small coffee shop that serves pastries, merienda and dinner.  It lives up to its name since it is an eatery that can accommodate only around 16 dinners at a time.  It is always full on dinnertime for which you have to wait for your table if you are not yet hungry or in a hurry.  The Tiny Kitchen serves good tasting Spanish food like callos, tapas, paella, etc.  On my first visit, we went there have dessert and coffee.  Dulce RODRIGUEZ, of Dulce Vida creations and owner of The Tiny Kitchen recommended concord cake, lemon walnut torte and vanilla overload.  All of these were very tasteful desserts and we went home satisfied.  We at the same time took home one of their signature products, bottled tuyo in olive oil.

The next time I was in Davao, I invited my friend to have dinner with me in The Tiny Kitchen.  We had a good dinner of paella, salpicao and caldereta.  It was a good and we ordered their acclaimed dessert, frozen chocolate brazo de mercedez to finish off a wonderful dining event.  We were disappointed when we were told that the smallest size available was half of the cake, which we know we couldn’t consume ourselves.    Since we told them that we came specifically for that, we just decided to order the last half of the cake available, as we do not know when we can come back.   Vincent RODRIGUEZ, the other half of the husband & wife owner-team, was too kind to entertain us and talked to us about their famous desserts and their business.  He got curious when we told him that we go around looking for good dining outlets in places we visit, and that we specifically came in to have a taste of their acclaimed frozen choco dessert. He tried to convince us to try Sweet Indulgence the reason why he threw in a bonus slice of this dessert over and above our order of frozen choco.  He said this was a newer creation, which is as good as the frozen choco itself.

Frozen chocolate brazo de mercedez

It is a 2 layer soft cake which when you see it and have a taste of it, you would say it is chocolate cake meets brazo de mercedes.  The first layer at the bottom is a soft choco cake topped with ice cream layer that tastes not too rich but blends well with the brazo.  The brazo on top of it is wonderful in its softness.  It doesn’t have the overwhelming taste of yema or merengue but rather a good compliment of the soft choco cake.  This dessert tastes well when served fresh as chilled from the ref.  It has been rated as one of the '25 Best Desserts in the Philippines for 2010'.

Vincent RODRIGUEZ said that they were surprised that this particular dessert was chosen this year as one of the best.  He said that this is a 2-year-old recipe and at that time they were trying to recommend to the culinary expert and food critic who visited them their latest creation, Sweet Indulgence.

Sweet Indulgence

Sweet Indulgence is another wonderful dessert coming out from this gem of a bistro.  It is a layered chocolate creation with very rich chocolate icing topping.  It has a unique taste but I can understand where the reviewers were coming when they selected the frozen chocolate brazo de mercedes.  Although Sweet Indulgence is a wonderful dessert, it is almost like other chocolate indulgent or decadent desserts.

The Tiny Kitchen is a place we highly recommend to visit if ever you come to Davao City.  It is a simple, no frills eating place that serves excellent food.  What works well with them is that both husband & wife as owners take time out to entertain and touch base with their customers.  This is something that you rarely see in other food establishments—simple, personalised customer service.

• The Tiny Kitchen, F. Torres and Mabini Streets, Davao City; telephone numbers (082) 3059232, (082) 2346095; e-mail:  tinykitchencreations@yahoo.com