Best of Cleveland 2016: Tropical Dessert

You can almost feel the cool ocean breeze while eating Nipa Hut Oriental Food Mart’s halo-halo dessert ($5.99). The Filipino name for “mix-mix,” this layered treat is found across more than 7,000 islands of the Philippines. “You have to mix everything together before you start to eat it,” says owner and chef Poli Ignacio. His halo-halo comes with sweet mung beans, preserved coconut and jackfruit meat, coconut gelatin cubes and purple yam paste on the bottom. Shaved ice and evaporated milk are added as the base and topped with a house-made leche flan, sweet creamed corn, wafer, scoop of purple yam ice cream and garnished with roasted and pounded rice crispies. “It’s a treat to have it prepared exactly the way we do it in the Philippines” says Ignacio. “You have to be adventurous. It’s a mix of everything someone would like in a tropical dessert.” 6775 W. 130 St., Parma Heights, 440-842-7333