Spätzle: Euro Market Cafe

Roast Chicken Sausage (Php 295.00)

Since I take the Shangri-la route to get to the MRT, I pass by Spätzle 90% of the time, and it has always been on my radar to dine in the resto because I've been seeing it almost every day for the past few months. I calls itself Spätzle: Euro Market Cafe...not sure why, but I saw spätzle on their menu...so I gave it a go. Turns out I'm not a big fan of spätzle, the dish, the cafe was fine. 



My Wikipedia friend says spätzle is a type of egg noodle of soft texture found in the cuisines of southern Germany and of Austria, Switzerland, Hungary, Alsace and South Tyrol. 

To me, it tastes pretty bland and boring and porous that makes it a less interesting substitute for either pasta, rice, noodles, or potatoes. In other words, it's an accompany dish to an entree and needs a lot of flavor for you to appreciate...thus gravy is always a good start. They lacked generosity on the gravy though which made the whole dish quite dry and sad.

A nice open space, and just enough distance to hear the conversation on the next table.

I like this cabinet. Their water bottles were unappealing though.

I really like their wallpaper.

Their Today's Cake List and Featured Drink don't change much on a daily basis.

I love the interior of the place, the layout and the overall ambiance. They used textured wallpaper all the way to the ceiling and used a lot of wood with varying wood grains in furnishing the place. They were even happy enough to label their spoon holder Made for Recycled Wood. This is one of the few new restaurants where casual conversations don't bounce of the wall and annoy you with unnecessary mumbling. I like their open kitchen because you can see chefs busy at work, a necessary means to make slackers self-conscious. It's also a good source of information to seeing their ingredients such as bottles of McCormick and cans of Capri. Their focal wall was also pretty to look at with random knickknacks from plant boxes to empty wine bottles and mason jars...just pretty. My favorite part of the whole scene was their table, a nice concrete-texture laminate that looks incredibly good on camera if you do an underexposure with warm lighting. No, I did not achieve that on my pictures. I was hungry. I suppose they know a lot of people will be taking photos of their food and posting it as free advertising, so it's a smart move on their part to make it go well with a white plate and is a perfect contrast with wooden boards.

They had such small glasses that I had to refill it after two gulp-fulls. But look at the table! <3 

Cake Trio (Php290) Nutella Cheesecake, Zucchini w/ Cream, Sticky Toffee Pudding

Yes, I loved their interior more than their food...but of course, I only tried five dishes from their menu and I loved two out of five. My favorite being their Zucchini with Cream. It was the orgasmic moment of the meal as I unconsciously close my eyes when it came in contact with my tongue. The zucchini with cream is a cake much like carrot cake except that there's zucchini in it. It was soooooooo gooooood...the cake itself was perfect, add to that the cream cheese frosting that is chillingly tangy...oh bliss. Their sticky toffee pudding didn't taste like pudding and wasn't sticky at all. Their nutella cheesecake was the other thing that I loved. It has a really good texture and it has a really nutella taste, but has a good balance between the nutella and the cheese. 

The main entree was an okay thing to chew and swallow. I mean the chicken was cooked right, but the taste was just so-so. Maybe it lacked gravy...or actual taste. My order was a roasted chicken wrapping a sausage on a bed of spatzle and mushroom and gravy. There was literally a single 1mm-thin slice of mushroom on my plate. If you look at the top photo, you will see it located on the bottom right of the plate...that's it. Reminds of those times when the call a certain thing such as chocolate pecan pie and see a single piece of pecan on top of the pie and everything else is lost in translation. Oh how I hate that sneaky thing--and I should know, I'm in the sinister business of advertising. On a side note, if you look at it from a far it looks like deep fried p...uhmmm...controversy. 

A nice case for the bill just to make you smile before you frown.

The servers were friendly, but the service was slow. I don't blame the servers, there were around three of four of them out of a forty something-seater restaurant and the customers just kept on coming one after another. Oh well, I'd probably be back just for that Zucchini with Cream dish...and the table. 


5F East Wing
Shangri-la Plaza Mall
Mandaluyong City