Sans Rival Cakes & Pastries, Dumaguete

My Negros Oriental Tour: Dumaguete City

Okay, I have professed many times that I really don’t go for sweet desserts and fancy pastries as to crave for them. But when am in the situation… heaven knows what may happen hehehe! From Sidlakan and PAO areas, decided to walk around the boulevard and university areas. Doing so, I thought I was a bit famished but it was just a rainy afternoon (still far from dinner) so I said I must eat, but only lightly. Hah, I remembered ‘Sans Rival’, so I went for it. Let’s clarify that, “Sans Rival Cakes & Pastries” is the name of the food joint. It sometimes gets confusing, as we all know that ‘sans rival’ is the name of that sweet buttery nutty chewy bar that this eatery does well.

Not that it was my first time… been in this sweet tooth haven a number of times, but I could imagine I would find something light to the stomach in there, reminiscent of Dumaguete instead of the ‘national fastfood’ that is the bee hehe! Do your litanies of what to find at Sans Rival, but for me, I remember this store for nothing but Brazo De Mercedes! Don’t even know how to describe food, much more that spongy mushy slice of heaven called brazo de Mercedes which (because I come from the Kaluskos era), I usually refer to as Mercedes De Brazo hehe. Give me one of those and it will disappear in no time! Well yes, I ordered their ‘spaghetti for a single person’ when the girl started asking “how about blah blah blah sir?!” and so on!

I am a Filipino but I do wonder how ‘spaghetti’ has evolved in this country. I must say that the dish has been bastardized quite a number of ways – and lucky for me, I like them all hehehe. For example… spaghetti from the five star hotels would be different from the spag at Italiani’s or Don Henrico’s or Alba’s or La Tegola and so on. Ah yes, some would come with white sauce while some like the ‘Pomodoro’ would be quite bare tomato in taste. But in the provinces (and at your mom’s kitchen, aminin yan) spaghetti is yet another twist. The sprinkling is melt-cheese instead of parmesan, tomato sauce many times disappear in favor of ‘spaghetti meat sauce’ from a can AND there is always a scattering of diagonally sliced “Purefoods Hotdog”, right?! Very much so. Now at ‘sans rival’, your spaghetti is this latter description and sprayed with catsup! The ketchup dispenser even comes with the tray (plus hot sauce usually Tabasco) so you can pump more in case you want to. And that, is the spaghetti of ‘sans rival’. Truly pambahay! My only eyeball-rolling comment is the toast that comes with it - should be crispy brownish toasted bread and not microwave heated pale and limp slices of white bread. Jusko!

Anyway… there is one other thing I like in this joint… there are two or three tables just outside the main saloon so that you can smoke while slowly sipping your coca cola (or coffee for those who like it) and taking a breath after a binge! That way, you don’t have to rush out of the place and leave for the streets just to light up a cigarette hehe! And mind you, at Sans Rival, since there are just 2 or sometimes 3 of them al fresco tables, those too are a prime thing that you must grab on sight – otherwise you suffer eating your food inside the cozy air-conditioned non-smoking restaurant hehehe! I observed that not all who want to grab those outside tables are smokers per se. Some are girls who just want to watch people passing by or girls who want to be seen by people passing by hehehe! Asuuuu!

So there… I was able to satisfy a grumbling tummy with ‘stapegi’ and mercedes de brazo which also afforded me to while away a pesky little rainy afternoon!

Dinner is next!


If you want to read the chronology of all stories on this tour, click the following:
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36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

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