Recipes by Cafe Metro

Let me interrupt my posts on my recent trip to the US with this local restaurant I treated my office mates to last September for my birthday. I don’t know how I missed posting these pictures.

The first time I tried Recipes several years ago was at SM Mega Mall.  My friend Rizette treated us there for her birthday. I loved the food so much I told all my friends about it. This was long before I had a blog. I brought all the balikbayans there and they all loved it. There was a time I ate at Recipes up to five times a month. Can you guess what happened? I got tired of eating the same food over and over again so I stopped cold turkey.

When I found out that they opened a branch at Shrangri-La mall I felt it was time to go back to my old friend and renew acquaintances.

We ordered almost all of their specialties.

Recipes by Cafe Metro menu (click to enlarge)

The servings were small which I didn’t mind since that gave me an excuse to order more dishes. I prefer eating a smaller amount of food with more variety.

Gising gising was made with chopped green beans with ground pork in a delicious coconut based sauce. It was everyone’s favorite.

gising gising P170

The kare kare was not the best I’ve eaten but it wasn’t bad at all. The sauce was thick and peanuty but I found their bagoong too salty.

kare kare P338

At least there was ox tail in their kare kare even though there wasn’t as much as I would have wanted.

ox tail

An order of prawns aligue yielded only 3 pieces. The prawns were a good size and the aligue (crab fat) sauce was good. I can’t believe I ate all these food without rice. The sauce would have been awesome on rice.

prawns with aligue P310

My new favorite was the general’s tofu. Fried tofu squares topped with their sweet and spicy sauce. I could have finished an order all by myself.

general’s tofu P135

General’s tofu was a new dish inspired by their famous general’s chicken. Crunchy fried chicken and eggplant with the same sweet, spicy sauce. This is one of their most popular dish.

general’s chicken P215

Yes almost everything was fried!!! But I must say they do a good job with frying. The oil is fresh and the food isn’t greasy. Although the fried beef ribs were a bit tough.

crispy tadyang P248

The crispy tilapia is another dish that I always order and it never fails to please everyone. It was at Recipes that I first tried this dish. Today almost all Filipino restaurants serve this. But still they do it best. It was really crispy and not greasy.

crispy tilapia P215

The sad, thin, over fried pieces of pork belly was the most disappointing dish of all. The adobong kang kong was good though.

lechon kawali with kang kong P215

buko pandan with ice cream P90

I’m happy to rediscover Recipes again. The food quality hasn’t changed. They still serve good, Filipino comfort food. The next time I go back I will make a conscious effort to try new dishes but it will be hard since I always want to order the tried and tested dishes. I heartily recommend this restaurant.

Recipes by Cafe Metro
5th Floor Shangri-La Plaza Mall
Mandaluyong City, Metro Manila
Philippines
telephone: 637-4050
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