Para sa mga bitter: Ampalaya ice cream for the love month
MANILA, Philippines — If you were to guess the flavors of an ice cream collection that’s been created for the love month of February, what would your three, maybe four, guesses be?
Strawberry? Caramel? Mango? How about ampalaya or bitter gourd? Yes, ampalaya!
The Valentine’s Day collection of four limited-time only ice cream from Sebastian’s is led by a bitter melon (ampalaya) ice cream called Unresolved Issues. It is a sorbet infused with fresh ampalaya and garnished with candied ampalaya bits. Bitter melon tea turned into a bitter melon sorbet, the sorbet base is actually sweet, but while you savor the sweet, you can feel the bitterness coming through.
Does the sweet bitterness work? Apparently so, because of all the limited-time only ice cream, this is the flavor that keeps returning every February. Unresolved Issues is the culinary embodiment of being unable to move on.
The other three flavors that make up this Love Month’s limited-edition collection are Closure (smooth, chunkless Chrysanthemum Tea ice cream infused with Chinese chrysanthemum tea blossoms); Matinong Boyfriend (Orange ice cream garnished with candied orange peel and chunks of orange almond butter cake); and Matinong Girlfriend (Dark Beer Caramel ice cream with dark beer caramel ripple and dark beer peanut brittle).
