Best Manila Restaurants, Anyone?

A Quest For The Best Manila Restaurants

What exactly is your definition of the best Manila restaurants? Is it better to be based in services rendered, amenities that they have or the people that populate the place. Well, if I were to be asked about this simple question I would say only one and they can not be found in the three aspects I mentioned above that most restaurant fanatics would go for. That is “comfort”.

What's In It With The Restaurant?

Would you believe that our of ten (10) people I have asked including myself on what specific traits did they like on their favorite restaurants in Manila, 4 answered me that it is the way they feel when they eat at the restaurant that makes them stay. Yes ! it is simply “comfort” that triggers them to go back on and on and on in a single restaurant in Manila that they like even if they have to wait the whole evening just for the seats to go vacant.

A Busy Restaurant by Night

I actually have a good example for this and it goes like when people work late at night and they are hungry even before reaching the house, one of the best Manila restaurants the they go to is a local and not so cozy restaurant somewhere in Bambang. The restaurant offers cuisines that are very familiar to the masses of evening workers and they vary from tapsilog, longsilog, dasilog, malingsilog, pares, tocilog, chicksilog and many other delicacies that are plainly cooked using cooking oil and is always served hot with egg, garlic fried rice and soup. It is true that most evening workers today would prefer to go for this local manila deli. They range from 27 Php up to 50 Php which is a true Manila restaurant price for the local midnight worker who is hungry with soup and fried rice.

How do you Find Your Restaurant?

For this reason I came in one day and tried to satisfy the curiosity in me with ordering and eating a deli that I have once favorited ar home. After all the commotions, sips and spoon and fork tangling, I found out that the restaurant is not that much of an ideal family dinner treat or lunch treat at all. The place is very small and crowded, especially in the late evening dinners and midnight snacks. What I found odd about the set up of that late evening Manila restaurant is that despite the overloaded capacity of the small place, they still manage to fill their reservation seats up to an extension which runs to the sidewalks of the main jeepney streets in Avenida and Bambang.

Burning Restaurant Intrigues

Now, the question is, what makes all those regular eaters in that evening Manila restaurant come back for more. It can’t be the service which as I saw many times is very poor and slow and inaccurate and would not even fall as a classy one. No, not even with the atmosphere of the place because setting aside my own personal preferences, I would not even touch the plates as I eat and the glass is glossy with oil as many regulars would even know and not miss out. So the amenities and environment is out of the picture. It couldn’t even be because of the types of people that delve in the place because I cannot find any class at all especially when the accommodation of the seat is concerned. Imagine being served with your dinner in the middle of the sidewalks? Who would take a second night out in the place if that is your definition of a dinner night out? No, not my type even but what makes them all come back for more? I can’t say that it’s because of the cheap price that is the culprit.

What's With The Midnight Restaurant, Then?

If it’s not the service, not the environment, not the price and not even the special amenities of that Manila restaurant, then what could it be? Could it be because people feel comfortable that way? To answer this question, I will have to have a part two on this one because it surely deserve a second taste of the cuisine in that Manila restaurant and I would sched a visit sometime next week and probably talk to the owner of the establishment for a short interview to settle things out with this one. “I deserve a treat” !!!