Medleys, The Chocolate Kiss Café’s Live Music Specials

This February, the beloved café in the University of the Philippines Diliman campus is turning 20 years old. And while dessert commonly comes first at The Chocolate Kiss Café, lesser known are the café’s other first loves: Music and arts. So as it celebrates 20 good years, the café has lined up a month of its favorite things to share with its customers.

Kicking off the anniversary celebration is MEDLEYS, The Chocolate Kiss Café’s Live Music Specials every Wednesday of February. The café has always featured live music since it first opened its doors in 1997, and this month, the resident musicians will be touring the café’s three branches, and made special with the addition of guest artists

The first evening last February 1 featured Rudy Cruz, the mainstay pianist of The Chocolate Kiss Café, who enchanted customers with a playlist from Movies and Musicals.

Rudy has been playing with the café for almost 20 years, and never fails to delight audiences with his versions of the classics. Time flies by when he enchants the evening with timeless love songs, standard hits, and musical medleys. His musical talent has graced many prominent hotels around Metro Manila, such as The Manila Hotel, Dusit Hotel, Manila Peninsula, Diamond Hotel, and Edsa Plaza Hotel. He also plays at The Chocolate Kiss Café every Saturday night.

The remaining Wednesdays will feature the following:

• February 8 – Da Capo with Hot Club of Manila for mainstram and gypsy jazz
• February 15 – Da Capo with Johnoy Danao for all-original Pinoy music
• February 22 – Jamming night with Da Capo and friends

Da Capo Instrumentalists has been a regular feature of The Chocolate Kiss Café since 1997. Since their first gig at the 2nd floor dining room, members Royce Aviguetero and Bobot Mabalot, on violin and guitar, respectively, have enthralled guests with their wide repertoire, ranging from classical and pop to latin and mainstream jazz. Their versatile style has landed them several TV appearances and concerts, and they are now sought-after for weddings, private parties and corporate affairs. They also play at The Chocolate Kiss Café every Wednesday and Thursday nights.

As mentioned, Da Capo will be joined by special guest musicians for MEDLEYS:

Hot Club of Manila is made up of musicians with an affection for manouche jazz. When grouped together, these independent artists electrify the room with their gypsy swing-style of music, and brings the magic of manouche to the music-loving hearts of Filipinos. Hot Club of Manila will be performing with Da Capo on Wednesday, February 8 at the Ground Floor, Ang Bahay ng Alumni, UP Diliman branch.

Johnoy Danao is a critically-acclaimed Filipino singer and songwriter, with his two albums, “Dapithapon” and “Samu’t Sari” gaining radio airtime, and a year-long series of concerts with Ebe Dancel and Bullet Dumas as part of 3D. But for true-blue Johnoy fans, he is most loved for his acoustic guitar prowess and distinctly rich, soothing voice. Johnoy will be playing with Da Capo on Wednesday, February 15 at the UP Town Center, Katipunan Avenue branch.

Also for the month of February, gracing the walls of The Chocolate Kiss Café’s original branch, at the 2nd Floor of The Ang Bahay ng Alumni building, UP Diliman, are artworks from an exhibition series entitled HOMONYMS. Homonyms are defined as two or more words having the same spelling but different meanings and origins. As a theme, artists made two artworks based on their homonym of choice.

One of the works, by artist/illustrator Liza Flores, is an interpretation of the café’s signature dessert called SUITE. One artwork depicts “Suite” in a musical definition; a set of selected pieces from an opera or musical, to be played as one instrumental work, such as the Nutracker Suite. Its equivalent artwork depicts The Chocolate Kiss Café’s “Suite” dessert, a cake sampler offering four flavors of cut-up cakes.

Other artists in the exhibition are Fran Alvarez (“Tala”), Jamie Bauza (“Spring”), Harry Monzon (“Araw”), and Ariel Santillan (“Fly”). All of the artists are members of the children’s book illustrators’ group, Ang Ilustrador ng Kabataan (Ang INK).

Finally, what’s a Chocolate Kiss celebration without a cake special? Available only for the month of February, the café will offer SUPER SUITE, the ultimate dessert sampler of the café’s mainstay cakes. It’s a plate-ful of all twelve Chocolate Kiss cake flavors, in square cut-up sizes, perfect for sharing between friends and family. The Super Suite will include 5 additional premium flavors not normally included in the Chocolate Kiss Suite’s 7-flavor line-up, for a total of 12 cut-up cakes, at only P380 per order.

The twelve flavors part of the Super Suite sampler are: Devil’s Food Cake, Dayap Chiffon Cake, Carrot Cake, Quezo Chiffon Cake, Kahlua Buttercake, Orange Chiffon Cake, Prune Cake, Classic Chocolate Cake, Date Walnut Cake, Blueberry Cheesecake, Sour Cream Cheesecake, and Chocolate Chip Cheesecake.

#20GoodYears #SharingTheGoodStuff #TheChocolateKissCafe