Next Door at Makati Ave

Yesterday was “sweldo” day and us being food lovers decided to splurge on food. We somehow believe that the first to spend our hard earned money is food. So the shift wasn’t over yet but we’re starving. We commissioned (?) a taxi to deliver us to the Makati Avenue branch of Next Door. According to one of my colleagues, we’re heading for North Park so I was giddy and happy to agree on abandoning meeting my target for the month. I have been craving for North Park for quite some time and I haven’t got the chance to drop by or even call for delivery.

Anyway, we came and what I noticed is that It looks like North Park. The crew sort of wears the same thing as those in North Park but the sign was screaming a different name: Next Door. So most of us reacted “I thought we’re heading to North Park?” He said “North Park din ‘to! We’ll since we’re already there, we decided to look for a comfortable seat. I noticed the sign inside that stated the fact–Next Door is a North Park restaurant. Okay so that explains the similarity which includes the menu so we didn’t question the credibility of the food.

The Scandal

: Table and chairs

Wait! The scandal did not involve us dining in. It’s not the usual scandal if I may add. We just though it funny and innocently tagged it as a scandal. While we were looking for a comfortable seat we chanced upon two of the male crews in the far corner (near out table) holding hands under the table. This malicious colleague of ours could not play a poker face so I guess the couple decided to move someplace else.

The Food

So after the scandal we argued on what to order. We have our resident expert as he is a frequent customer to recommend one of my favorite dish–Lechon Macau! Having heard it, I did not argue but lobbied to the other members of the group to vote for it (yes, we are democratic!)

We ended up with two orders of their pineapple fried rice, an order of beef and mushroom with steamed broccoli flowers and two servings of the ever crunchy lechon Macau.

Tea Time

It usually takes a long time before we can savor and relish the goodness of the things we ordered so the place offers their signature, and I say signature tea! Why? It’s because even in North Park, their tea is crappy. It smells awful, it tastes well, like partly colored hot water. Nobody bothered having tea at six in the morning except Poi, one of our colleagues who incidentally was leaving for Baguio today (he’s based in Baguio and we’ve been convincing him to relocate in Makati for weeks now). Since the food was taking a long time and we were starting to feel restless due to starvation, we were already making some noise on how food are being prepared. Pigs are being slaughtered at the back, and broccolis were in transit from Baguio.

Chow Time

After two hundred years of waiting, we finally got the pineapple fried rice and the broccoli stuff. I am not a big fan of beef (for some reason I don’t like it) but I must say It was good. The beef was tender and the mushroom sauce was tasty. It could even pass as a sauce for the lechon. As for the broccoli, it was good but I think the stems are still partly uncooked. Ang ingay kaya kainin. Not the broccoli itself but the sound of their five pound utensil attempting to slice/chop the damn broccoli!

Then the finale came! The lechon from heaven instead of Macau. The pork skin was crunchy as ever and the lean meat was tender and juicy. Really mouth watering. I’m salivating again as I write. I don’t like the sauce that came with the lechon though. It’s sweet and i’d rather have Mang Tomas as a dip. But personally, the lechon would stand even without any type of sauce.

After the feast, it looked like the plates were hit by a tornado. Everything was swept clean. :) Now everyone was silent and nobody wanted to talk.

The Bill

Since we still have pending target to complete before the close the month, we decided to pay the bill. Good thing Poi is a degree holder in Mathematics he had him divide the bill among the five of us with him having the bigger chunk as he was suppose to treat us. It was a despedida thing for him hehehe:)