Hunter's Cafe

This lunch tale was a comedy of errors. It was way past 12noon and no one attempted to ask everyone for lunch. Having been most hungry, I went to see Eric if he wanted to join for lunch. He asked where, and I suggested we took the nearest place, maybe Brother's Burger at Convergys. He immediately signed up. I asked Rene and he was ok as well. I called up Chay, and she wanted to visit Som's Noodle House for the cheap Thai food. On our way out, everyone agreed to visit Som's. We related to Chay our past experience at Som's the previous week but she was relentless.

We reached Som's at N. Garcia at it was full to the rafters. I asked the waitress if they can accommodate us still, we got the same answer the last time. They can't guarantee the waiting time, so, once again, we trooped out of the resto. We checked out the nearby hole in the wall, but it wasn't airconditioned. Chay had another one in mind, a Japanese burger place in Amorsolo. With the way she described it, being one of those cheap restos with quite decent fare, we all agreed to be adventurous. Before we left the office, Manong Rudy, our office cleaner, thought he knew the place and it was right next to the Makati Medical Center. We went to that THX cinema side of Amorsolo only to be disappointed. There was no Japanese outlet anywhere near it. It was searing hot and we don't have a place to eat and it was like past 1pm already. I told them about the Hunter's Cafe on our way in at the Creekside Mall and if they were willing for another adventure as I haven't been to Hunter's Cafe before. Everyone was game which was a good thing.

Hunter's Cafe as the same suggested was decked with preserved animal parts such as deer antlers, a goat or sheep's skull, even a fish acquarium. The interiors resembled like those old wooden cabins in Baguio City - dark, unpolished pinewood with converted electric hunter's lamp. The overall ambience was more of a gentleman's drinking hole complete with a bar set-up and on one corner, a group of middle-aged men are dunking beer at this early. Tried to see if any other cafe was nearby, but we resigned to the fact that we were too hungry to look for another one.

Hunter's Cafe menu was extensive. A lot of appetizers catered for the drinking class, sandwiches, rice toppings, and a la carte orders for exotic fares like ostrich steaks, burgers. I insisted we try the ostrich caldereta. Eric received an urgent call and he needed to return to the office at once. We were sorry that after so much of the ordeal, Eric still was not able to eat anything. We continued to order sauteed mushrooms and pork sisig (pork meat, cheeks in sizzling plate).

Our orders came and the ostrich caldereta doesn't looked too appetizing. It was quite bony and per Chay's review, it wasn't the choicest meat. I thought it was badly burnt it left some charcoal taste. The sauteed mushroom was not what I expected thinking it was prepared in sizzling plate. It came bland and lifeless. Despite the lush colors of green bell pepper, crunchy white onions, it wasn't too good to eat. Thank God, the sisig tasted much better though it wasn't as hot as we expected it. It paled in comparison to its Kapangpangan variant which has egg topping and spicy kick.

We took our lunch not much happier with our meal and vowed never to return to this place. I had buko juice (coconut water with slivers of young coconut meat) which tasted like three day old coconut. We divided the bill and my share was Php265.00 or US$5.88. On our way out of the Creekside Mall, we purposely went to see the other side of Amorsolo still thinking about that Jap burger place. True to our dismay, it was on the other side, quite far from the Makati Med area. We laughed thinking, why did we believe Manong Rudy that he knew where it was, we should discern better next time around. Me, Chay and Rene were troopers not much happier on our way back to the office. We were glad Jimmy was there to drive us all along on our misadventures for the day. What a lunch it was indeed!