Many Filipinos often crave for delicious rice cakes that you could easily find along many Philippine canteens and carinderias in town. Here in the UAE, while there are many more restaurants serving Filipino food and delicacies, it’s a matter of finding the right restaurant that serves the real iconic taste of these Filipino rice cakes instead of following a cookie-cutter recipe.
Enter Face Café – one of the 13 restaurants participating in the ongoing Philippines Food Festival’s ‘Bangkota Meals’. Specializing in breads and rice cakes, the restaurant chose to highlight two of the Filipinos most favorite snacks: The Bibingka and the Ube Biko as part of their ‘Bangkota Meal’ offerings.
The Bibingka is served piping hot directly out of the oven with a fresh, inviting aroma of warmth. Each bite is filled with creamy, milky goodness where you can taste the perfect combination of coconut milk, eggs, butter, salted eggs, and rice, which are complemented with cheese on top. Each piece of Bibingka is traditionally cooked within a terracotta and is wrapped neatly with banana leaves.
Meanwhile, Face Café’s Ube Biko takes freshly cooked delicious ube mixed with rice and other ingredients in specially packed boxes with a generous serving of shredded cheese and special yema on top! Each bite gives you that counterpoint taste of sweet and salty which would have you grabbing another bite!
Apart from a la carte offerings, Face Café also provides their ‘Bibingka’ and ‘Ube Biko’ in combo meals where diners can pair it with either the Halo-Halo or a Bubble Tea.
Premium taste of pastries
Launched in 2018, Face Café has been serving premium pastries at their shop located at the Shop AHA 03 at the China Mall in Um Al Quwain.
“Face café was formed thru the collaboration of five friends with a common goal of keeping the Filipino tradition and passing it on to our young generation. We also promote our food and culture to other nationalities by introducing them to our authentic delicacies from bread to rice cakes. With UAE’s multicultural environment, we were able to showcase the rich history and nature of Filipinos,” read a statement from the company.
Apart from its dine-in and takeaway services, Face Cafe also accepts delivery in Sharjah, Ajman, and Dubai.
Since then, Face Café has been known to serve its traditional Bibingka all year round as well as its Ube Biko with Yema and Cheese – both of which have their customers returning often to enjoy another piece of these two delicious Filipino delicacies.
Face Café is a member of the League of Food and Beverage Entrepreneur (LFBE), a subsidiary of the Philippine Business Council of Dubai and Northern Emirates (PBC-DNE). The PBC-DNE is a non-profit organization established in 2001 under the patronage of the Embassy of the Philippines and the Philippine Consulate General of Dubai and the Northern Emirates, and the only Filipino organization recognized by the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry, with the esteemed role of facilitating business opportunities for the Filipino community and their commercial partners in the country.
