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New Arrivals & Store Recommendations
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April 23, 2007
Bookworm Cafe
I fell in love with Bookworm Café the minute I stepped in. I am a self-confessed book addict, so you can just imagine my delight upon entering this café mecca for book lovers. Everything just shouted 'Welcome, bookworm!' at me, from their welcome mat that says 'Read!!! Read!!! Read!!!', the countless book displays surrounding the tables, the piles of Reader’s Copies books begging to be read on the shelves and their oh-so-inviting couches that seduce you to sit and read and drink coffee and not get up for hours on end. It was exactly everything I imagined a bookworm's sanctuary to be (just in a more chic, commercial kind of setting which isn’t always a bad thing).
Housed in A Different Bookstore’s newest branch in Serendra, Bookworm Café is a relaxing café within a bookstore where, according to Cat Landicho, Assitant Manager, guests can "read, relax, have coffee and pastries at the same time". I’ve always loved A Different Bookstore for its very personal approach of bringing books to its clientele, its knowledgeable staff, intimate stores, not to mention its wide selection of fantasy and sci-fi books for me to browse through! All of the staples you’ll find in every A Different Bookstore branch in the city can be found here, too, including the blackboard where their staff’s recommended reads of the week are written and the folders where they compile upcoming titles and new releases so you can check out what's new in the world of books.
Comfy couches, shelves of books labeled 'Reader’s Copies' including titles like Mitch Albom's ‘For One More Day’, Lalita Tademy's ‘Red River’, and Jean Claude Carriere's ‘Please, Mr. Einstein!’ They also have a collection of children's books to keep the little ones busy while you read. All in all, the perfect setting for an entire afternoon for reading.
But the icing on the cake is the cafe that serves excellent coffee and even better sweet treats. Apparently, the café doesn’t attract only bookworms but anybody with a sweet tooth, too. One of their signature desserts, the Peanut Butter Pie (P120/slice) is sinful with its cookie crust, peanut butter filling and its ice cream texture. The Mini Chocolate Cake (P135) , although not much of a looker, is a chocolate lover’s dream in all its fudgey gooeyness, super sweet caramel center, and its richness in chocolate. In fact, it is by far the best chocolate fudge cake I have ever had in any café in the Metro, I kid you not.
For those with room for more than dessert, they also serve a variety of salads, pastas, paninis and even bento boxes (much to my dismay I must say, bento in a café just doesn’t make sense to me although they were quite good and extremely filling). I recommend their 3-piece Sandwich Wrap Combination (P125) though. You can choose from chicken teriyaki, roast beef, crabstick and mayo, and spicy tuna wraps and they serve it in a custom-made wooden sandwich wrap stand. It fills you up just enough to leave room for dessert and a cup of coffee.
Bookworm Café prides itself the most for serving Illy, Italy’s leading premium espresso coffee. Their baristas are all highly-trained in coffee-making and in creating concoctions out of their Illy espresso and it is said that they do not allow a cup to be served without being inspected thoroughly to assure that each cup of coffee served is nothing short of perfect. Their Cappucino (P100) and Caffe Latte (P100) looked almost too perfect to drink with their silky milk foams and are great companions for a long reading session. They also serve original cold coffee concoctions for those looking for something more refreshing. Try the Kape Con Tsokolate (P145), espresso blended with vanilla ice cream, fresh milk and topped with choco mint syrup, or the Frozen Cappucino (P125) a simple frozen concoction of vanilla ice cream and a shot of Illy espresso.
With your favorite book (or even a borrowed book from the Reader’s Copies shelves) and a cup of coffee in hand, The Bookworm Café is the perfect place to just sit for hours pausing only to take a sip of your latte or to order a snack to munch on while reading. But, if you really must, yes, you can also hang out here, laptop in tow as this is the perfect place for you, too, especially since Bookworm Café lays claim to the only Wi-Fi hot spot in all of Serendra - for free! The Bookworm Café is actually fast becoming a popular spot now for small gatherings as well, like for book club meetings, prayer meetings and even business meetings held at the second floor where it’s a lot more quiet and where you get a good view of the main plaza at Serendra.
As the name suggests, Bookworm Café is about bringing out the bookworm in all of us, whether it’s magazines or comic books or the newspaper or online articles that we’re into, Bookworm Café gives us that perfect spot to curl into with our coffee within an arm's reach.
I’m looking for Bookworm Café.
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