Recipes by Cafe Metro

If you?re a first-timer at Recipes, figuring out what the place is known for and what to order will be about as difficult as tuning in to Manny Villar?s overplayed campaign jingle on the radio. This isn?t because the waiters are hospitable enough to describe the menu in great detail. It?s because Recipes has as many signature dishes as you have fingers on your left hand, and pictures of these dishes are printed across the top of the menu. So, if you?re lazy to read further, or if you?re a bullet-point kind of person, these are the must-tries at Recipes:

Unless you?ve been living under a rock (or outside the Philippines), you should have already heard of Recipe?s gising gising by now. Probably the only mall-based and widely accessible restaurant in Manila to serve this, we?re uncertain whether Recipes? version is authentic or not. Nevertheless, it?s the rich combination of string beans sliced about a millimeter in thickness, diced pork, rich coconut milk and a very faint hint of heat from chilies, that make this dish quite literally nothing unlike we?ve ever had before. Even though it is basically just a bowl of vegetables, gising gising over a cup of rice is flavorful enough to make a hearty meal. While Recipes? other dishes may be less than spectacular compared to what?s served in other restaurants, this gising gising makes Recipes definitely worth returning to. After all, when faced with a mad craving for this vegetable dish, where else can you go but here?

Another favorite is general?s chicken, which is smothered with a sweet glaze and mixed with eggplant. Chicken is the one thing that both health buffs and hard core carnivores can enjoy, so this is a good dish to share when with a big group. Biting through the eggplant is quite the savory experience too, on account of the sweet and slightly salty glaze. Definitely not the successor of sliced bread in the list of the most amazing food breakthroughs ever, general?s chicken isn?t going to blow your socks and shoes off. But you can at least expect that everyone on the table is going to like it.

You?ve probably had crispy tilapia at least once in your lifetime, especially if you grew up with rice as a staple on your family?s dining table. Because Tilapia is to us Filipinos what kimchi is to Koreans, or what sweet and sour anything is to the Chinese. It?s just part of our culinary heritage. So when local restaurants decide to put something as basic as fried tilapia on their menus, it?s got to give all other tilapia recipes in the country a good ass-kicking. Word around Manila is that Abe?s crispy tilapia is the best anywhere between Mindanao and, well, Santa?s Workshop. But at almost 500 Pesos for a whale-sized fish, it sometimes makes better sense to head over to Recipes for mid-sized tilapia at half the price. Every single bite of Recipes? tilapia is crispy, from the meat to the crunchy fishbone. Yes, even those little throat-scratching fish bones are crispy enough to nibble on. Recipes? is undoubtedly not as flavorful as Abe?s, but if you?re all the way in Alabang Town Center or at Shangri-la, what?s not to like about Recipes?

A lot of restaurants around Manila have become the kind of place your friends go to by default because you?re just too lazy to agree on another place. There?s Gloria Maris for steamed lapu-lapu lovers, Cibo for those who grew up with Gaita?s spinach dip, and Cafe Mediterranean for kebabs. And while most of these can take you around the world at a fraction of the cost of a plane ticket, sometimes it?s more relaxing to hang out with friends over familiar flavors, like fried fish or our local coconut milk. So the next time you?re looking for a nice fuss-free spot for lunch or dinner, why not take the road less traveled and go for something comfortable and reminiscent of home? Besides, if Recipes doesn?t work out, you can always just head home and get stuffed on your mother?s fried fish.

Address: Unit 559, 5th Floor, Shangri-la Plaza Mall Mandaluyong