A guy lost on Boracay

• Summary: 66% Satisfaction on food product.
• Price/value: 850 ₱ (Philippine Peso) – high for a single-person lite lunch.
• Atmosphere: Nice. Excellent usage of glass and white space to maintain an ‘open’ feel.

Its right across from Cocomangas/Andoks on the main road with beachside area too.  I heard about it from something online about the US Embassy making statements not liking businesses using Obama’s name and exact campaign logo.

Today was its 3rd day to be open….so I went there for lunch.

One website was saying it might be considered racist, like the other stores selling fried chicken, BBQ, and stereotypical soul/black food – - – But this place, well, look at the menu. It’s all Filipino food on this page except for the fries, fried chicken, button mushrooms, and 2 steaks.  There was another full page filled with seafood, but that’s not my thing. You can see the place looks really nice and the staff is pretty cool. I had to smile when she asked me if something was wrong when I kept flipping thru the menu – trying to figure where the “Bar & Grill” section was…. hehe. (pssst… they have 2 pages of food….. 5 pages of drinks)

Had a mango shake which was tasty… and large.

Anywhoo… I saw the steak prices. One about 1000 ₱, the other 3000 ₱ I think, and I really didn’t feel like a massive meal so I got the USDA tenderloin at 390₱. Somehow I missed the phrase bistek tagalog above it which most of you know as thin breakfast/minute steak strips (think: the meat in a sir-fry dish). All I saw was “USDA tenderloin”.

It was juicy and tender and heavily peppered (which takes a lot for me). Not spicy hot – but black-pepper tangy. Ever had pepperloaf cold cuts? Like eating the outer pepper skin. I guess that’s not normal because the waiter asked about it when I finished and he was like “it was hot? really? pepper?” as if it wasn’t supposed to be.

The other dish is fried calamari: They were really good! None of that hard-nuggets or beak-parts or tough suckers that some places serve. You see that dipping sauce that looks like ketchup with a swirl of mayo?…. well, hehe, that what it is.

But tell ya what, as much as I like the location and the setting (definitely not crowded-in like most places here)… getting that 850 ₱ bill for an appetizer, bisteak (the size of appetizer), and a mango shake…. was a bit much. But the place is really nice… I wonder if Obama likes Pork Adobo Liempo? Oh… and that other pic?… has nothing to do with this, I just like seeing a president chugging some beer.

In closing, the calamari were better than most around here, the mango shake was sweet and large, but the bistek ‘tenderloin’ tasted average except 300% more expensive than everyone else charges for chopped-overcooked-beefstrips (which is bistek). At about 850 ₱ for a single meal with no alcoholic drinks, its been the most expensive lunch I’ve had on Boracay in my two years here.

I found the receipt the other day and noticed it had a service charge on top of the 12% VAT.  With prices like that, whats the service charge for?

But would I go back?… Yes,  if I had someone to impress or wanted nice atmosphere in the evening.

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