The seldom times that my husband and I do get to go out, we try to squeeze in our lunch at a new restaurant. It’s a simple perk-me-up and quality time all rolled into one.
After a much stressful morning, we knew we needed to take a bit of a break and have a somewhat slow paced lunch. We settled on a place in Makati since we didn’t want to travel away from our neighborhood.
This is Sawsaw by Chef Sau.
On the first floor, the open kitchen let’s you see how your dishes get prepared. We were supposed to sit here but we opted to have a more quiet atmosphere upstairs. The receptionist “helpfully” pointed out our table from across the room instead of leading us to our seats. Thanks for the assist Sarah.
We were lucky to have the whole 2nd floor to ourselves; though that meant that there were also no servers present (as evidenced by the 2 uncleared tables). It also meant that there was no one there to give us menus so hubby took the initiative to just get menus from the uncleared tables, which I then proceeded to hose down with lots of alcohol (“self service”).
Moment of truth, if this happened at any other time, these would be enough to make us walk out already. But since our dates/eat outs happen rarely, we didn’t want this to be marred by something negative.
Waiting it out turned out to be a good thing since it was at this point that the service turned around for the better.
Our assigned server finally handed us our menus and was eagerly explaining the best sellers.
This is their Paku Salad at Sugpo, Kesong Puti, Itlog na Maalat (Php 675). We don’t usually order salads but since this dish got high marks from a fellow foodie, we decided to take the plunge… and remembered the reason why we don’t go for salads. Everything was fresh, crisp and light but there was not much going on taste-wise. I would’ve preferred more kesong puti.
Another dish that was foodie recommended was the Sugpo Bicol Express (Php 695). I should’ve listened to my gut (of getting a different dish instead) when I learned that an order only has 2 pieces of prawns. This was a sad plate of a pair of slightly overcooked prawns swimming in coconut cream.
By this time, Hubby took over and ordered two more meat-heavy dishes (he had an inkling that both of my choices would leave us unsatisfied).
This is Sawsaw’s Slowcooked Lengua with Creamed Mushroom (Php 895). The rich buttery sauce did it for me. We were dipping our spoons and rice in it ‘til the very last drop. The ox tail was fork tender and worked really well with the rice.
Last up is the Kurobota Pork Chop (Php 950). This simple pork dish was definitely executed well; no frills, no fuss just straight up good quality pork cooked good. Food-Stars Recommendation: Ask for the Soy Calamansi sauce.
** All main dishes comes with your choice of side dish. We got 2 mashed potato and garlic rice to match our entrees (carb loading at its finest). **
Food-Stars Verdict: Sawsaw offered both familiar and new dishes which meant that there were dishes that I liked due to the fact that it tasted how it was supposed to taste like (in simpler terms, they were “safe dishes”) whereas the more unique ones did not quite make the mark. The pricing for the dishes were on the high side as well since the serving sizes were pretty small.
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SERVICE: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
TASTE: ⭐⭐⭐
VALUE FOR MONEY: ⭐⭐
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