Pepper Lunch: A Sizzling Japanese Treat

Nothing says like a fresh meal than a one that's cooking in front of you!

My love and I arrived in Pepper Lunch located in Greenbelt 5 Makati just in time as they were already taking the last orders for the day. Famished and tired from a long, eventful day, we decided to take advantage of their weekday lunch & dinner special where their standard pepper rice mixes (beef, curry beef, pork and chicken) cost Php 198 instead of the usual Php 215 (Php 230 for the curry beef).  We added Php 60 (usually Php 80) to turn our orders into a set meal composed of a drink and a choice of either ice cream, salad or soup.

Although we saved around 30-50 pesos by taking their promo offer, it is still quite expensive for a restaurant billing itself as a fast food chain, but is it worth the price?

There were no lines when we got there, perfect timing if you ask me since this place is normally seen packed with customers and during lunch and dinner.  The food must be that good as even though there was no waiting area in this restaurant, long lines were a staple in this branch.  I do hope they add at least a bench or a few chairs soon for the sake of their hungry waiting customers.

Once you enter the restaurant, you are bombarded with large screens of everything they have on their menu so customers can instantly see what they are purchasing.  No more guesswork needed here!  They do have board menus available as well in case you want to use the traditional way of picking out your food. 

My love got the curry beef while I got the beef pepper steak rice.  Since we share almost everything, we opted to get two different side items, the ice cream and salad, so we can taste more things found in the menu.

A bowl of fresh salad

The salad was served first in a ample-sized bowl so we got to taste it as an appetizer.  On top of the crisp greens and carrots were a few pieces of crunchy croutons and a mayonnaise-based dressing, perhaps a light version of the hundred islands dressing.  It was a simple, light start to the meal ahead.

On a side note, I liked it when the waiter asked if we had any last orders as they were about to close the kitchen and when we want to have the ice cream served.  A little good customer service goes a long way.

How to cook your Pepper Lunch!

A thin smoky veil intertwined with the scent of pepper and curry powder covered the air once our rice meals arrived around five minutes after.  The pieces of beef surrounding the hill of rice slightly bubbled as they cooked in their own fat.  The rice was topped with corn and green pepper sprinkled with a good helping of ground pepper. Pepper Lunch provided chopsticks, forks and spoons so we can turn the meat over to ensure that both sides are evenly cooked.  Of course, since it is cooking in front of you, you have the control on how rare or well-done your meat should be.

I liked the paper guard that they place around the electromagnetic hot plate to prevent the snap, crackle and pop of the sizzling meal to hit and scald your skin.  The instructions provided on how to cook your meal were a nice touch as it gives more focus on looking forward to the meal instead of wondering if you cooked it correctly.  You can ask a waiter to help you out though in case you have any doubts.

Curry Beef Pepper Steak Rice

After cooking the beef and mixing it together to free the special butter sauce trapped in the middle of the wall of rice, we proceeded to taste their specialty.

I expected this to be quite spicy as it is, after all, a pepper steak, but I was quite surprised that you can hardly taste the pepper at all.  However, it still remained flavorful due to their secret butter sauce that held the different ingredients of the dish together.

You can opt to mix in the two Pepper Lunch's signature honey brown and garlic soy sauces available on the table, but I didn't use them so as to have the original ingredients and flavors take the stage.

Cooked food often tastes better when served hot.  Considering that we stayed there for near an hour and we were the last customers to leave the place, the temperature stayed hot enough for us to enjoy it up to the last bite.  Thank you patented electromagnetic plate technology!

Kuromitsu Ice Cream

To finish the meal, we had the kuromitsu ice cream.  Again, Pepper Lunch provided their customer touch here as they gave us two teaspoons for one serving of ice cream.  These little things count in the overall experience of the customer.

According to Wikipedia, kuromitsu is a Japanese syrup similar to molasses, but thinner and milder.  And yes, it is indeed mild as you can hardly taste the kuromitsu when we got a teaspoonful of the dessert.  The ice cream itself only had little or no flavor so it needed a little extra punch from any syrup or toppings it can get.  We noticed though that most of the syrup had dripped down the bottom of the cup, so after turning the ice cream a couple of times, the sweetness got stronger.  Its sweetness is nothing like the syrup used in flan or pancakes so I'm guessing this will be perfect for people who do not like desserts that are overpowered by sugar and its variants.

Fast service coupled with the interactive element of cooking your own food, this is the heart of Pepper Lunch.  For those who want to try Pepper Lunch, go now and take advantage of their weekday lunch and dinner special promo as it will only last up until the end of February 2011.

Overall, we enjoyed our visit to this Pepper Lunch branch.  I can recommend this for company team buildings and friends who want to enjoy good food together.  Just expect that you'll end up smelling like pepper steak when you get out of the restaurant!

Pepper Lunch
- 2nd Floor Phase 1, Greenbelt 5, Makati
- Concours Level Powerplant Mall, Rockwell Center, Makati
- Garden Court Level, Shangri-La Plaza Mall, Ortigas
- 2nd Floor, Corte de las Palmas, Alabang Town Center, Alabang
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* Captured with a Nokia N82