A sizzling affair

MANILA, Philippines – For one homegrown restaurant, a dining experience begins with cooking what you have ordered. “We want to get diners more involved in the experience. It’s more fun that way,” says Robert Wong, brand marketing supervisor of Sizzling Pepper Steak.

To date, Sizzling Pepper Steak boasts 11 branches with one of its newest located at the third floor of Festival Supermall in Alabang. The place is laid-back with couched seats to make diners comfy while exhausts are firmly placed on top of every table. It’s a theme of brick and reds here, homey enough to entice family dining especially during lazy weekends.

The menu is quite straightforward. You have your sizzling plates of burger, seafood, chicken, and of course, steak. And with every order, you can request for any of Sizzling Pepper Steak’s sauces — teriyaki, gravy, demi glace, and marinara — all of which were carefully developed by the restaurant’s R&D department.

In this restaurant, the meat is as honest as you get. The Wafu steak, Robert tells us, is served in bite-size cubes with a side of bean sprouts sautéed until they’re soft. There’s a good amount of teriyaki sauce that is served with it, along with some green beans and carrots. Then there are some other honest cuts of rib eye steak, US yakiniku, sirloin, tenderloin, and gyu saikoro burger steak. 

The resto serves about five kinds of hamburger “Hamburg” dishes, served sizzling with a good serving of gravy or any other sauce you might like. You can have salad Hamburg, demi Hamburg, gravy Hamburg, teriyaki Hamburg or mozzarella Hamburg. There are also some sizzling chicken options like the peppered chicken steak, herbed chicken steak, and teriyaki chicken steak. 

There are a lot of other sizzling choices that are served with a generous amount of rice. There’s seafood pepper rice, saikoro pepper rice, teriyaki beef pepper rice, beef pepper rice, chicken pepper rice, pork pepper rice, and oyako pepper rice.

Sizzling Pepper Steak also serves a good deal of salads and Japanese-inspired food. Try the chicken salad which has some chunks of chicken with mayo or the crispy chunks of tori (chicken) karaage served with gravy.

For dessert, the tiramisu comes cold and frozen. It is similar to having some espresso granita with a touch of cream. There are also three kinds of cheesecakes. The New York cheesecake comes unadorned while fruity options include blueberries and strawberries. The restaurant’s cheesecakes are firm and dense as they rest on a bed of graham crust. It’s a dessert experience that can cap your dining affair at Sizzling Pepper Steak on a sizzling note.

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Sizzling Pepper Steak is located at the 3rd level. Chef’s Avenue, Festival Supermall, Alabang. Call Festival Supermall at 850-3514.