During my summer trip to the Philippines, we spent a few days staying in the BGC area in Metro Manila.
I absolutely love a cute cafe (and cannot survive a day without some coffee), so I’m always on the lookout for some places to try! There were so many nice and aesthetic coffee shops to explore, and of course, we didn’t have the time or the stomach space to try them all, but here a few of the ones I visited during our short stay here!
(Actually, we only had one free day to visit cafes, so we hit up all these spots in one day!)
Baristart Coffee
Baristart Coffee is a Hokkaido-based cafe that offers products using their Biei Jersey milk. After our trip to Hokkaido, my partner and I have been in search of Hokkaido-based products that remind of us our trip, so we were excited to try this spot!
The cafe itself had a really nice and clean aesthetic. There was a slight hiccup with our experience because we ended up waiting almost 20 minutes for our drinks even though we were only one of two parties there and the other party had come in after us and got their drinks long before we had. I didn’t want to “be a burden” so we waited, but after about 15 minutes it was a little odd since we only ordered two drinks and a cream puff. I guess they lost our order ticket or something and that’s why they didn’t prepare our drinks until we followed up with them, but it was a little odd to me that nobody noticed despite the fact that they weren’t busy.
As far as the drinks went, the signature dairy flavor that I expect from Hokkaido milk wasn’t really there, and while it was a decent latte, it didn’t really stand out to me. My partner got a matcha latte and neither the matcha nor the milk were particularly distinct either, unfortunately. The cream puff was tasty though and we did enjoy that!
Auro Chocolate Cafe
Our next stop of the day was Auro Chocolate Cafe! (Yes, we literally went to Auro right after Baristart).
They have a pretty big breakfast menu and I was curious to see how they incorporated their chocolate into their coffee drinks.
Here, we tried their chicken and ube waffles and their adobo flakes popcorn, and we shared the white chocolate cold brew.
I really enjoyed this cold brew. The white chocolate flavor is subtle, but it adds a nice little creaminess to their cold brew which also had a nice flavor profile and wasn’t too acidic.
The adobo flakes popcorn was really flavorful and savory. The ube waffle was on the dry side but the fried chicken was super juicy and delicious!
Wildflour Bakery + Cafe
I took a little break from the coffee and tried the Green Tea Mojito at Wildflour Bakery + Cafe, which is a calamansi, pineapple, lime, and basil green tea. In the extremely hot and humid weather, this drink was incredibly refreshing! I think it was a bit on the sweet side for my liking and I would have liked it just a little less sweet, but it was delicious nonetheless!
We didn’t get a chance to try any of their pastries this time around, but they looked really tasty! They also have a full cafe menu as well, but we just did a quick grab and go.
Yardstick Coffee
One of my all-time favorite coffees of the trip!
This coffee shop is located inside the SM Aura mall right next to the cinema. I just stumbled upon it while we were mall-crawling, and I’m so glad I gave it a try.
The theme is very cute since it’s cinema-themed. They rotate out drinks based on different movies that have been released, which I thought was a very fun and cute idea. I tried one of their signature drinks the Popcorn Latte, and oh my goodness, it was so good! It genuinely tastes like buttery popcorn in a drink! And the coffee flavor was still prominent too. If I could pick a favorite drink and a favorite cafe, this spot was definitely it!
Even though there were so many good-looking cafes in the area that I wanted to try, we didn’t get a chance to visit them all, but I’m definitely keeping them on my list for next time (and I’ll be back for you, Yardstick Coffee).
If you’ve been to the area and have a favorite cafe of your own that I didn’t try, please leave a recommendation! I’d love to add more spots to the list!
