A Japanese friend from business school who visits Manila quite often took me to Sandaya about a month ago, and I was surprised with how good the food was. He had read about Sandaya from several Japanese blogs and decided to check it out. Interestingly, in the frequent trips he takes to Manila, he comes to this place often. Like, he's been here 4-5x already!
Sandaya is located at the end of Arnaiz Avenue, and the corner of Amorsolo / the end of Mile Long. The restaurant occupies the corner... so you'd actually have a full view of the intersection and all the cars that ramp up towards SLEX from Arnaiz. Yakiniku is a lot like Korean BBQ, but of course, the sauces are completely different and so are 90% of the menu items.
When you enter the place, you would notice a number of Japanese customers patronising the restaurant, and sometimes probably with Filipino companions who speak Japanese. For me, I always welcome this as a good sign, because you know if locals eat here, then the food must be good.
I tried to order all the items that my friend Keiji ordered for me, which included marinated meats and some appetisers. Of course, somehow after looking at all these photos, I feel like I ate Korean food hahaha. Anyway, here's what I got:
I wasn't planning to order lettuce at all. But the waitress made a recommendation, perhaps because Filipinos were more used to eating barbecue Korean style. But I agreed nonetheless, because I felt I needed to balance the meat with some veggies.
This appetizer is a personal favorite of mine, just because it's so unusual from what I would normally get to order anywhere. It's practically just finely chopped spring onions, covered with sesame oil + salt + pepper. It's something that wakes up your senses!
Not sure why I was expecting this tamago to be sweet. But somehow that was the expectation in my head when they served it to me. It totally wasn't~
The meat dishes range between Php 200 to Php 350 per plate. They also serve tripe and intestines too, by the way. And once you hover around the wagyu area, the price ranges soar to about Php 900 to Php 1,200.
Overall, I ended up ordering way more than what Sarah could eat, so I had to eat the grilled mackerel and chicken teriyaki on my own. Oh yeah, speaking of which... their chicken teriyaki is so good! I've always enjoyed chicken teriyaki but I didn't expect it to taste this good from their restaurant.
Somehow, you really get this charcoal-infused taste when you eat the chicken teriyaki from Sandaya. Of course, the chicken was tender, and there was an extra dipping saucer full of teriyaki sauce in case you wanted to smother it further (I loved the food so much that I completely did not notice the saucer until my last two bites).
Overall, I'd totally come back to Sandaya again. Even though we raked up a bill of Php 2,000, it's something totally under your control. Appetisers cost around Php 100 while things to eat grill are usually between Php 200 - Php 300.
Comments
Post a Comment