Pinoy in Singapore

Last week, Mr. Tsiken and I tried Pepper Lunch  twice.  Once at Takashimaya and the other time at Dhoby Gaut Exchange.  I heard that a restaurant with a very similar concept just opened in Trinoma and the actual Pepper Lunch franchise is also coming to Manila. 

I liked the concept of a DIY steak fast food.  Since they serve your steak basically raw, your order gets to you much faster.  Cooking time is at the customer’s end.  You get to cook your steak to your desired wellness and even get to decide which and how much gravy to put in your steak.  But be prepared to smell like food when you come out of the place coz all that smoke coming out of the sizzling plate is sure to stick to your clothes. 

So far we’ve tried the Beef Pepper Rice, Chicken Pepper Rice, Hitokuchi Cut Steak, Shimofuri Pepper Steak, Tokusen Rib Eye steak, Seaweed Shake Shake Salad, and the Goma Black Sesame Flavor soft Ice cream. 

The verdict: If you need to take a break from Hawker food then this is the way to go.  Personally, I prefer the steaks than the pepper rice because I’m a meat lover more than a rice-a-holic.  The best looking of all the steaks we tried was the Hitokuchi Cut steak coz it was marbled beef, soft and juicy and it was the cheapest of all the steak meals we tried.  To me., they all tasted the same though, coz they were all really hot and my tastebuds get a little disoriented when it has to work with very high temperatures. 

The seaweed salad was ok.  I liked the dressing and it had dilis in it too. But I didn’t like the thick noodles that’s in the salad.  I’m not even sure if they were noodles coz I don’t really get why there are “noodles” in the salad.

The Goma Black sesame flavored sundae is a must try.  I really liked it.  It’s looks like cookies and cream because of the black sesame syrup.  But it tastes like sesame seeds which I like and it’s not too sweet compared to say, a Mc Donald’s sundae. 

Overall, I would say it’s very likely that we would eat at Pepper Lunch again.  But Pepper Lunch doesn’t really offer something out of this world except for the convenience of ordering your steak and getting it fast.  Steak is steak, and as long as I have a good cut of steak, I can just as easily cook the same at home.  

The secret to a good tasting steak is good meat, the right amount of salt, butter (for best tasting results, not as healthy though).