Must-Try: Lamesa’s tropical, multi-textured (and very purple) Filipino sundae

At Lamesa, chef Rudy Boquila’s fusion food draws an equal mix of Queen Westers and Filipino families chatting away in Tagalog. For dessert, he combines two traditional dishes—a creamy coconut soup called ginataan and a milky snow cone called halo-halo—into a multi-textured ice-cream sundae. He churns a nutty, surprisingly violet gelato from mashed purple yams, called ube. Then, he adds clouds of coconut whipped cream and pale-pink pearls of springy tapioca. Also in the mix is powdery polvoron, a soft, crumbly Spanish shortbread popular in the Philippines. Yellow spheres of puffed sweet corn add the final, crunchy layer of textural contrast. The colourful coupe is an airy, tropical take on standard vanilla with hot fudge—and as prettily pastel as an Easter basket.