Oh boyoboyoboy! I lived for these cakes whenever I visited my old stomping grounds, the UP Diliman campus, right, Geraldine? Hoping The Chocolate Kiss Cafe will have a second reincarnation, maybe operate from the owners' house the way Estrel's Caramel Cakes does. Permanently closing it down sounds so final.
It was my late professor, Nieves Epistola, who introduced me to the campus cafe at the Bahay ng Alumni when I was scheduled to interview her on the occasion of her 75th birthday jubilee and 50th year of teaching for Daily Globe and Ang Pahayagang Malaya. She had a favorite table for two where she led and sat me and where we chatted over lunch, coffee and dessert for over an hour. The waiters knew her and took care of her every need.
My family of cake lovers, particularly daughter Ida and grandchild Kai, learned to love the cakes, too. Kai was partial to the Devil's Food Cake and has a picture somewhere with a moustache of white icing above her upper lip somewhere in her mother Kimi's phone camera. It would've illustrated my point well.
When I was a returning Fine Arts major in Diliman, the Kiss was where I'd hie off to meet up with Margarita Holmes and husband Jeremy or art prof Yasmin Almonte for friendly lunches. If I had enough allowance saved, I'd treat myself to breakfast there--coffee, daing na bangus with fried garlic rice, fried egg with the yolk well done and cake so early in the day.
During one of his fellowships with his Upsilonian brods, Rolly celebrated his birthday with a breakfast with Des Bautista, Guido Canero, Jo Salazar, Wawell Osorio. After we were done with our daing, Des, a Baguio restaurateur, called the waiter and asked him to collect the skin of the bangus left on our plates and to have them deep fried by the cook. The staff accommodated his request, and we enjoyed Des's version of bangus chicharon.
Reluctantly, I kiss the cafe goodbye!
