Sunday, November 7, 2010

Bite Club Burgers

Bite Club Burgers is one of the first burger joints I had ever been to. Bite Club offers three patty sizes- 1/3 pound, 1/2 pound and one pound patties. All the burgers come with one free topping and there are plenty to choose from. The variety of toppings makes creating your very on burger a lot of fun. My personal favorites are caramelized unions and mozzarella.

XXX, their one-pound burger, is their claim to fame. The XXX (P260) comes with mozzarella cheese and one free topping. It’s about 10 inches in diameter (like a small pizza) and is good enough for two people to share. If the XXX is too big for you, then try The Club (P110), their basic 1/3 pound burger, which is filling enough or The Bomb (P165), their ½ pound burger.

Bite Club Burgers is not abundant with pre-set burgers, like the Chicano or Kamikaze burgers of Hot Shots Flame-Grilled Burgers. I noticed only one pre-set burger in Bite Club called the Kevin’s Bacon. I tried this burger before but was very disappointed with it. The actual burger looked nothing like the one in the menu, oozing with cheese and with strips of bacon sticking out of the bun. When I got the actual burger, the cheese didn’t have much flavor and instead of finding bacon strips in the Kevin’s Bacon, I only found bacon shreds. That was a bit of a let down.

my order: XXX one-pound burger w/ tomatoes, onions and lettuce, a chocolate shake and potato wedges

With all the burger joints popping up all over the Metro, the only reason I’d return to Bite Club Burgers is for the XXX burger. It’s just overwhelmingly huge and fun to eat. I once ordered the XXX with potato wedges (P65) and a chocolate shake. The gigantic burger was great but both the wedges and shake were disappointing. The potato wedges, for P65, were not plenty and the shake didn’t have much flavor. It was more of ice actually; don’t get the shakes.

Bite Club Burgers does have quality and meaty patties, but they lack in that extra kick of flavor that I find in ArmyNavy Burgers and in Wham Burger. Nevertheless, whether in the Katipunan branch or the Boracay branch, Bite Club burgers is still a good burger joint that can get any weary warrior full. The XXX burger is definitely something you gotta try. Despite their downsides, Bite Club Burgers still lives up to its slogan “we fight hunger.”

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Inasal At Iba Pa

Last week, my wife and I ended up in a new chicken inasal restaurant along Timog corner Tomas Morato. We were originally planning on eating at a Mang Inasal branch but were too lazy and hungry to look for one. Then we stumbled upon a less popular chicken inasal restaurant called Inasal at Iba Pa and it wasn't half bad.

Located next to David’s Tea House along the Timog (Tomas Morato rotonda), Inasal at Iba Pa is a cozy little restaurant where people can both eat and drink (beer) at. They serve pale and light beer (P35) and cigarettes. But what they serve the most of is chicken inasal (duh?). My wife and I each ordered a basic meal- paa (P85), plain rice (bottomless at P12.50) and bottomless iced tea (P30), which comes with a bowl of hot broth/ soup. So for less than P130 you get hella full!

The menu provided cheap combo meals (P50 each) but they looked pretty lame, for example: a cup of rice, one BBQ stick and an iced tea. Not bad, but nothing special. The chicken, on the other hand, was OK. It was crispy but not as juicy/ meaty as the chicken from Mang Inasal. But if crispy and crunchy is your type of chicken, then there’s no problemo here.

my order: paa w/ bottomless rice, bottomless iced tea & soup

My wife and I were also delighted to find out that the very next day, November 1st, the restaurant would be offering a new promo of UNLIMITED PAA at just P150 until the end of the month! Daym. You can also add bottomless rice (P12.50) and bottomless iced tea (P30) to your meal. So for less than P195, you get bottomless everything- chicken, rice and iced tea. This promo was very hard to ignore, so after finishing our meal, we returned just four days later to enjoy the promo.

Here’s the clincher though, folks. They didn’t have any Paa! WTF? How can you have UNLIMITED PAA but not have paa? It turned out the delivery that day hadn’t arrived yet. What a let down. The management was apologetic and, like the last time we were there, very polite.

A week later, I returned and doubted they’d make the same mistake again, but they did! It was a good restaurant but to be so unreliable is a real let down. I honestly don't plan on returning there again. Their foul up kind of speaks of their quality, organization, and reliability.

Don't get me wrong, the place was good- affordable, filling, and customer-friendly. Aside from the fuck-ups with the promos, it was pretty okay.