Halo-halo is a staple of Filipino cuisine and the country's most popular summer dessert. While it's a delightful treat, it does not taste like candy or sickeningly sweet, despite its gummy bear-colored layers. 

 

Halo-halo can be best described as a hybrid of a milkshake, a boba tea, and a fruit parfait. It's packed with ingredients of varying textures and flavors, from ube ice cream to fresh jackfruit, all layered under a bed of shaved ice — well, that is before you mix them all.

Mais Con Hielo or Maiz con yelo is a mixture of shaved or crushed ice, milk, sugar, and sweet corn kernels. Like halo-halo, mais con yelo is usually popular as a dessert or snack by itself during summer months in the Philippines. There are many options on how one can enjoy this frozen delight.

 

Aside from the usual ingredients, one can opt to serve it topped with pinipig, ice cream, or corn flakes. Mais Con Yelo or Maíz con hielo means corn with ice in Spanish. The dessert is much easier to prepare as it contains fewer ingredients and preparation is close to none, a very good way of cooling down during a hot summer day.

Buko Pandan is a famous Filipino Dessert made using young coconut, pandan leaves (or Screwpine leaves), and sago pearls. Buko pandan is a variation of that Filipinized fruit salad. Concocted initially on the island of Bohol in the Eastern Visayas region. 

 

Its flavor is strong, described as grassy vanilla with a hint of coconut. It tastes like pandan, which is flowery, fragrant, coconut-y, and banana-y all at once. It's tropical and certainly very unique. 

Taho is a popular street snack in the Philippines. It is a soft tofu-based snack or dessert that is made from layers of fresh silken tofu and chewy sago pearls, then generously drizzled on top with a sweet syrup.

Taho tastes pleasantly sweet, soft, and creamy. The main source of flavor comes from the arnibal, which is a brown sugar syrup.

Mango Tapioca is a Filipino dessert made with mango, all-purpose cream, evaporated milk, condensed milk, and tapioca pearl. It is very easy,  delicious and easy to prepare.

 

Mango tapioca is a fruity and refreshing drink made with fresh mangoes blended into a creamy and milky drink. This drink's small bits of mango and soft spheres of tapioca pearls are what I can't get enough of.