When the news broke that Karen Yang opened a bakery in Serendra, we were very excited to see what it had to offer. Yang hails from the family that brought McDonald's to the Philippines. A computer science graduate from Stanford who eventually went to Cordon Bleu to take up Pastry Arts, Yang's experience is nothing to sneeze at: she interned with Pierre Herme, a pastry genius widely known for his macarons as well as the unusual flavors he creates for them.
We caught a glimpse of her dessert creations last year at a Japanese-themed dinner by Pinoy Eats World where she prepared a matcha (green tea powder) white chocolate cake with red bean creme fraiche, and sesame tuile. Karen added some wasabi sesame ginger truffles after the meal as well. All the guests happily polished off their desserts.
Recently, the Juice team made a quick trip to Chez Karine and purchased some goodies for "research".
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The Royal Pudding: Vanilla, Muscovado, and Chocolate
All three puddings were smooth and silky. The amber colored caramel was a bittersweet surprise at the bottom of the gorgeous bottle, and offered a delicious contrast to the rich flavor of the pudding. The Vanilla closely resembled a luxurious egg pudding; the Muscovado was a crowd-pleaser minus the overwhelming flavor of muscovado sugar in the pudding and provided the smoothest texture; and the Chocolate was thick, dark and the richest of them all.
A box of macarons
We purchased all the flavors available: Dark chocolate, Earl Grey, lemon, passion fruit, pistachio, salted caramel and strawberry. It's funny how we took little bites to make sure everybody got a taste of every macaron. The ones we liked the most were the salted caramel, lemon, Earl Grey and passion fruit. The rest seemed to have lacked a bit in flavor but it could also be from the amount of sugar we consumed that day!
Strawberry Gourmandise
We kept this lovely puff for last but sadly, we were disappointed. The cream puff pastry was on the dry side and we left it out a little too long so the cream melted. Despite its melted state, the cream was very good and the sliced strawberries were fresh.
Did we mention the adorable packaging of Chez Karine?
Despite a few misses, we're still willing to try the other sweets and drinks offered at Chez Karine.
Have you been to Chez Karine? What did you think?
