The Crossing Cafe: Bringing Magic To Life

After the rise and success of Coffee Project, Dear Joe, Napa, Windmill Lausanne, another stylish and relaxing specialty coffee shop owned by the Villar family has attracted customers.

Equipped with warm lights, rustic colors and foliage that gives life to the interior, The Crossing Cafe is an Instagram-worthy three-storey coffee shop in a crossing between Cavite and Las Piñas, hence the name. It offers not just the typical cafe food but also heavy course such as rice meals, appetizers, salads and pizzas. It also has a Brew Bar, where you get to choose the brewing method, just like Starbucks Reserve.

However, a lot of people say that the coffee shop focused more on aesthetics, losing the quality of the coffee and food offered. Let’s go into detail and discuss this matter further with some of the food I’ve ordered here.

Hot Dark Chocolate Mocha | Matcha Frappe

The Hot Dark Chocolate Mocha tasted more like hot chocolate than coffee. Since the chocolate in this drink was dark, it became richer, which should be alright, but it covered the strength of caffeine. Its taste was good but I should have just ordered the plain mocha than this handcrafted one so I can enjoy the coffee part more. Meanwhile, I found the Matcha Frappe overly sweet. I mean Matcha is known to have earthy notes but I didn’t felt it in this frappe. This is creamy and sweet. But I enjoyed the thickness of the drink.

Caramel Latte | Chocolate Hazelnut Cronuts

Caramel Latte just tastes similarly to the Caramel Latte of other Villar’s coffee shops. I know because it’s always my husband’s go-to order. So let me just copy my review from them. It has intense flavors of coffee and a kick of caramel sweetness. The cronuts look aesthetically flaky, just like croissants. However, they were neither pillowy nor crispy. I’m satisfied with the flavor though. The toppings gave me both chocolate and hazelnut goodness. It blended well with the cream filling, which was generous and not too satiating.

Cold Brew OJ | Corned Beef Cabbage Grilled Cheese

The is the exact corned beef that we are looking for. We first tried the corned beef rice meal in Windmill Lausanne and they have the sandwich version here. It’s chunky and flavorful. It’s really good, especially with the melted cheese and caramelized onion. I just wonder where the cabbage is. The sweet potato fries are great, too. At first sip of Cold Brew OK, my mind was kinda in mess. Is it coffee? Is it juice? Is it wine? This cold brew perfectly depicts this phrase “Weird but okay”. You’ll eventually learn to get used to the flavor. But I will not try again the next time I visit. I was just after the gradience of black and orange. 

Smoked Salmon Benedict

The salmon looked fresher than I thought. I almost thought it was smoked in the house. Although it has this weird pink hue, I commend its briny and smoky flavors. The Hollandaise sauce was mixed with too much butter. I could sense not just in taste but, also, in color and texture because it was watery and not creamy. The poached egg became sunny-side up egg. But without being strict to the features of the egg, it was generally delicious. It was served with sweet potato fries, which was a great alternative to potato fries.

Wild Mushroom Soup

We thought that the amount of soup will only be good as a side dish. But with a big bowl and plenty mushroom toppings, it’s a dish on its own. I’m surprised that the soup doesn’t only have one variant of mushroom as I could also feel a different kind of crunch from mushroom bits, apart from the battered mushroom strands that look like chicken fillet. I just hope they made the chunks smaller because they’re hard to eat. But they taste delish. It definitely got the cream of mushroom my palate was looking for. Plus, there was some kind of mushroom essence added, which further intensified the flavor of mushroom. 

Two to Mango Fruit Smoothie | Cowboy Burger

 I don’t know but Two to Mango tastes different from the usual mango smoothie we tried. This is definitely better. There’s some kind of sweetness to it that made it fruitier. It’s also creamy like as if there’s mango ice cream added to it. I can’t explain it. All I know is it’s yummy. The Cowboy Burger evidently has a large serving. Aside from the thick patty, it is also filled with shredded corned beef. With a burger as good as this, I don’t mind if it would be messy to eat. After all, it got messy because of the juices and flavors it excretes.

New Orleans Pasta

Can someone explain how this pasta became New Orleans? I couldn’t grasp the flavor of New Orleans in this. I was expecting a pasta that is heavily spiced with Cajun because Cajun is the definition of New Orleans when it comes to food. But if I won’t be thinking about the name of the pasta, it was a nice sausage fettuccine marinara. It was strong in tomato flavors which I enjoy at first. But eventually, I could feel the intensity of tanginess. I felt like eating Sinigang already. It was generously served with chicken and sausage slices, though.

Memphis Chicken and Shrimp Skewer

We were expecting a bowl of rice topped with chicken and shrimp in skewers because that is how it is in the picture. It is named skewer, too, but I don’t see any sticks here. Nevertheless, the overall dish was not bad. It wasn’t on the excellent level either. The chicken meat on its own was underseasoned. It was just the barbecue sauce that gave it sweetness. There’s nothing special with the shrimp as well. The seafood wasn’t juicy and the batter wasn’t crispy. I was also wondering what they were thinking when they mixed brown and white rice.