Just as I was about to leave Cebu and board the plane for Siargao, I found IT: The red velvet cake I’d been searching for all week! The one that comes closest to the one I had in Goa.

Curiously, I found it at Tablea’s kiosk at the Mactan Airport, a store that features tablea (- cacao tablets used to make hot chocolate) in almost all of its products.

I can’t say that I’m a fan of anything made out of this except for hot chocolate, but I did have some tablea chocolate chip cookies that I was ready to chuck in the bin, but stuck in the refrigerator instead. I ended up scoffing the lot of it. Definitely much better when served cold. I just bought myself another packet this afternoon, which is now nicely chilling in the fridge. I am hoping to replicate the previous results.

Almost all its products except for the red velvet cake, which I certainly wasn’t expecting to find there. I was going to give it a miss because I’ve had so much red velvet shit this whole week that I didn’t think I could take any more. And then I saw that it had an extra layer of cream cheese filling inside the cake, which is always a good thing. I’m so glad that I decided to try it because I can now declare this red velvet mission closed.

The cake was moist and delicious, and the cream cheese frosting lip-smackingly gorgeous…

Except that it had these sugary red bits on it that made the cake sweeter than it already was. It was only on the outer edges of the frosting – but that’s the last bit that you’re left with when eating a cake, isn’t it? And it’s been more than a few hours since I’ve polished it off, and I’m still reeling from the sugar. (If anyone at Tablea reads this, yeah, those sugary red bits – they’re really pretty, but totally unnecessary. The cake would have been perfect had those bits not pushed it into sweetness overdrive.)

I’m still declaring this mission over. I’m done with it and anything red velvet – until my next trip to Cebu. Har.

In other news, cupcakes that I tried this week, not necessarily of the red velvet variety, that are worthy of recommendation, were from Country Basket, over at JY Square Prestigio in Lahug, and Cake Couture (Fridays to Sundays only; give the red velvet a miss and gorge on the chocolate and salted caramel cupcakes instead) at Banilad Town Centre.

And now showing in theaters near you, a cautionary tale for me…