Monday, July 28, 2014

Project Pie, Artisan Pizza at Makati

I mistakenly thought that Project Pie was a home grown pizza concept ala Yellow Cab.  Rather it is another American franchise that creates self proclaimed "artisan" pizza amidst all the commercial pizza (Shakey's, Pizza Hut, Dominos and recently Papa Johns").  Artisan pizza is not a new term for me, artisan is an artist and so Artisan Pizza is pizza made by an artist, though I did not see it.

My friends all recommend Project Pie as worth trying and they all recommended having an entire pizza to myself.  Being used to the above mentioned commercial pizza fare ie Shakey's, Pizza Hut, Dominos and recently Papa Johns, I could not fathom eating a whole pizza myself, partially because I never order the personal pizza meals and when I see personal pizzas in malls they are usually buy one take one so I always eat two. 

Pizza bites
The pizzas are small, think thin crust personal pizzas for P285.  Except the cheese, that was P245.  You can either order by number or build your own which really doesn't appeal to me, building your own for me means getting a base pizza and adding extra toppings.  

This was our order by number order with descriptions copied and pasted from their site (hence the caps).

1- Classic Cheese Pizza - This was ordered by mistake, my sister wanted to build a pizza so ordered this plus extra cheese and peperroni
2 - PEPPERONI, ITALIAN SAUSAGE, CRUMBLED MEATBALLS, MOZZARELLA, OUR SIGNATURE RED SAUCE, GARLIC
5- MOZZARELLA, RICOTTA, GORGONZOLA, PARMESAN, CRACKED BLACK PEPPER, OLIVE OIL, GARLIC, FRESH CHOPPED BASIL (WHITE PIZZA)

PARMESAN GARLIC - PIZZA SHAPED BREAD STICKS




My verdict?  Get 2 and 5, quite tasty, especially 5.  Thin crust crunchiness which accentuates the ingredients since they are not very generous and therefore more crust would overpower them.  1 meh, the parmesan (top right) please don't, waste of money and ab breaking calories.

Project Pie Cute touches
Selfie station, very popular with children.  I didn't see any adults take a single pic.  The other interesting touch is the "quotes" section, featuring well, different food and what not quotes to help pass the brief waiting period.

The pizza at Project Pie is quite good, there is minimal oiliness, the crust is very crunchy, the ingredients are good and fresh.  Pricey if compared to the run of the mill pizza places.  Overall a great merienda place, the pizzas are light.  Oh and drinks are bottomless, a big bonus for me.

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Fuel Burger, Be a Burger Engineer at SM Shoemart Makati

It was a dark, rainy and windy evening when I had to rush to Shoemart Makati when I noticed something was not right.  The supermarket was now gone from the ground floor because the entire basement was remodelled.  The large food court was now gone and instead we now have a very chic' restaurant lane of, this looks very upscale and something similar to the supermarkets and their food courts I have seen in any in unique concept restaurants across the new supermarkets in a dark colored and brick motiff.  I was confused other Asian countries such as Singapore and Hong Kong but what possessed those in lofty places in the SM hierarchy to do this?  Gone was my beloved food court full of turo turo and now we have well as small lane of restaurants and none of the old food court crowd.  Thats right, no more lechon places, generic Filipino turo turo stalls and gone are the franchises like Jollibee and Chowking.  Really strange mood, I would have decided otherwise as SM Makati is the gateway to the MRT and bus stops in Makati.  

So where to eat?  Glorietta although a short, interconnected walk away has nothing but mostly franchises and the more unique concepts were beyond my budget for the day.  So I went to the new SM Makati food court to see what they had.

It is one long lane of restaurants now, restaurants that look like one offs, no more franchises or chains.  There are Korean joints, there is the Jamaican Beef Patty (only concession to the franchise gods), Chinese place and there is Fuel Burger.  A hamburger is a safe choice when you cannot decide what to eat.

The new SM food court now has a SM cashier to whom you pay for your order, I guess the former tenants must have had a lot of monkey business with reporting so SM booted them all out and instituted this system.  I saw a long line in front of Fuel Burger so I thought that it must be good, there are so many patrons.  I was mistaken, this was the queue for a block of restaurants the cashier was handling.  Nontheless......

                                                        
185 Pesos gets you a double quarter pound beef patties, french fries and a drink!  Not bad as this is your typical big burger meal price which are walking distance away and exactly who Fuel Burger has to compete with.

Fuel Burger bring the Burger Barn, Burger Bar model of choosing your toppings, bread and side or basically allowing you to customize your burger but at half the price!  Though this is confusing to people including myself which I imagine leads to waiting time when you order, the chef was there and was patient enough to explain each topping.  He even allowed me to put in extra.

I had Jalapeno Cheddar cheese, mushrooms, fresh onions and green peppers with fries.  That coupled with their tomato sauce led to a very "pizza" tasting burger which can or will not float your boat.  Not bad indeed and this is the price of a basic burger at Brother's Burger which has no fries and drink.

Definitely good value and it is a lot of meat, the Fuel Burger "Jack Burger" comes out to half a pound of beef total.  Not a bad way to get your protein fix in Sm Makati.  I think I will pursue some further Burger Engineering at Fuel Burger sometime soon.


 





I have an anecdote to share about the old SM Makati foodcourt.  I approached a stall that had a dummy food display as most do, a plastic assortment of meat and rice that looked far too generous to be true and so I asked "ganyan ba talaga ka dami ang serving ninyo?" to which they replied "oo".  Having called my challenge I then proceeded to order and to my surprise I was given a plate full of meat and rice that was perhaps even more generous than their model dish.  I was stuffed to high heavens.  It was this experience of my customer delight that made me seek out the food court once more.  I am disappointed by SM deciding to grow up and not be the people place it used to be.