Where enchanting coffee, sumptuous food and intoxicating jazz merge
The breakfast started with the lip-smacking, silky Crab Egg Scramble and Croissant and already my happiness quota for the day was achieved. Moist was the egg dish, with slivers of crabmeat and viscous aligue sauce. A slice of the airy croissant seemed to dance as it was being dipped in the scrambled dish, with classy jazz music playing in the pipeline.
Popping silently in the mouth was the ikura (salmon caviar). And a hint of aonori (dried “sea cabbage”) sealed the deal for a sumptuous breakfast coupled with a piping-hot cup of Blue Mountain coffee. What a delicious way to start the day.
Heaven.
And, indeed, dining (and sipping coffee) at Key Coffee Kissaten, on the ground floor of Mitsukoshi Mall in BGC, is heaven. If everything bright and beautiful — and delicious — is heaven, the restaurant is bliss, a rapture of heavenly delights. Key Coffee has impressive and intricately detailed interiors done by architects Noel Bernardo and Yolanda Bernardo.
Key Coffee is one of Japan’s oldest and most respected coffee roasters, with more than 100 years of history. The Philippine franchise is a modern take on the famous kissa, Japan’s traditional coffee shop.
The Key Coffee Kissaten in the Philippines is owned by “coffee crawlers” and restaurateurs Bryan Chua, his wife Kathleen, and his brother Marvin Chua, in collaboration with Key Coffee Japan, along with local chefs.
There’s revelry and reverence in drinking coffee at Key Coffee in Mitsukoshi Mall. For an improved coffee extraction, a hand-poured coffee technique from Japan is employed for every cup served. It is an experience because the coffee is served in a classic Aderia Retro cup or glass.
“Though Japan does not grow coffee, it has nevertheless the best craftsmen who roast coffee beans,” said Bryan, “the most flavorful coffee beans from all over the world, like Indonesia, Colombia, and Guatemala are brought to Japan for roasting.”
At the restaurant, the Toarco Toraja coffee, from Sulawesi, Indonesia, is one of the best that Key Coffee roasts.
Coffee lovers will find it an enticing experience to couple the brew with the many dishes the coffee shop offers. Classic kissa dishes are served in the restaurant from breakfast to dinner, like Kissa Scallop and Seafood Doria, a yummy concoction of classic white sauce, Japanese cheese, scallops and seafood and bacon rice pilaf.
Drool-worthy, too, are the modern kissa dishes like Crab Ikura Udon, which is a magical marriage of fresh, handmade udon noodles, crab-fat sauce, lumps of crab and ikura. It is a filling dish that tickles the taste buds with hints of the Filipino dish palabok.
“For our modern kissa dishes, we tapped some of the country’s award-winning chefs, like Thirdy Dolarte and George Mendez to reinterpret Japan’s Yoshoku cuisine using modern cooking techniques and locally sourced ingredients,” said Bryan. “Yoshoku dishes are Japanized, western-style food you commonly find in kissatens cafes in Japan.”
Here’s another delectable kissa creation: a sandwich called Chef Horje-San Truffle Egg Katsu Sando. Satisfying, yes. It’s a heavenly bite of silky tamago katsu with truffle cream, all inside a Japanese milk-bread loaf called shokupan toast.
The Mushroom Shoyu Bata Pasta is to die for, too. It’s a tasty, happy union of Shimeji and shiitake mushrooms, king oyster, shoyu butter and cream cheese in a pasta dish.
Meat lovers are in for a treat with the Kissa Wagyu Hambagu Steak and Rice: a lip-smacking dish of Japanese hamburger steak patty with demi-glazed sauce, greens and rice.
The Salmon Tinapa Ikura Dip is a great takeaway for sourdough Melba toast. (I scraped the platter.)
Oh, there’s another luscious appetizer called Air-flown Uni Tobiko French Toast. That’s sea urchin from Japan, French toast dunked in miso-milk, slathered with tobiko mayonnaise with citrus-shoyu glaze. It’s sweet and salty and in between is an exhilarating gustatory experience.
Even the French fries at Key Coffee are topnotch, with homemade, smoked bacon and Okonomiyaki sauce. And the Chia Ganola Bowl is a sumptuous reverie of strawberry, mango and coconut milk chia.
My palate still remembers the exquisite taste of Banana Caramel and Cream French Toast — thick shokupan vanilla French toast, a dollop of whipped cream and sweet, sweet banana made sweeter by caramel sauce. What a sweet ending to a full meal.
Key Coffee presents the best of both worlds: heritage and modernity. This experience will leave you wanting for more — long after your last sip of the perfect brew or the last bite of your crab egg scramble.
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Key Coffee Kissaten is located at 8th Ave. corner 36th St., Mitsukoshi Mall, BGC, Taguig City. Reservations are highly recommended at 0929-374-7890.
