Food, Restaurants

Omakase - Great food, great value

“If you have to ask, you can’t afford it.”

So goes the motto of the School of Big Spending. When you walk into any one of the stores in Greenbelt 4, for example, and browse through designer bags and shoes galore, you have to be prepared to ask how much something is, since they seldom put tags on their merchandise (or they somehow hide them so skillfully in the folds and pockets that you can never seem to dig them out; I like to say the untagged items are free—wouldn’t that be great?).

I have a friend who, aside from thinking he was Batman back in college, loves to go to restaurants, and, when asked for his order, would ask them to bring him the restaurant’s specialty. He did that once at some place back in the early 90’s and ended up with a thousand-plus peso bill for two, which was, at that time, a rather obscene amount.

That’s the whole idea behind the Japanese word “omakase.” Roughly meaning “entrust” or “protect” (I got this from wikipedia, hehehe), ordering omakase means you pretty much give the chef free reign to prepare whatever he wants for you, and to correspondingly charge you, if he so desires, an arm and a leg. Still, they say you do get lucky ordering this way, and most omakase orders actually turn out to be a good deal, or at least well worth the price of admission.

Good deal indeed. The restaurant named after this adventurous culinary tradition, Omakase, has got to be the *best value* Japanese restaurant I’ve ever come across. I used to think this place was unique to the South, but then I discovered (mainly from reading various blogs (Lori’s got a review on Dessert Comes First, and there’s another on Rants and Raves) that there are branches in Libis and Morato as well.

Of course, there’s a menu, and we didn’t really try to ask them to serve up whatever the chef fancied. Instead, being with a relatively large and fairly unadventurous group, we just ordered a Sushi Deluxe (25 pieces of assorted sushi, P495). The selection was basic (the most exciting thing on the plate was the uni sushi, which I bravely ate, despite its looking like, well, you know).

We also had some Seafood and Beef Teppan (P290 and P270, respectively), some Asupara Beef Rolls (P185), and some Yakisoba (P140). Oh, and my brother in law ordered a Bento Box that looked like a really good deal (Bento Regular, P295). The food was well-cooked (except the sushi, natch; the fish was still tender and the meat wasn’t tough) and (to the untrained palate, at least) had a ring of authenticity to it, quite unlike most Japanese restaurants on the lower scale of the price range.

Which is what makes this place such a find: when you come here, it feels like you’re eating at a much fancier Japanese restaurant, but you pay commercial chain rates. My sister put it this way: it’s like eating at an Authentic Japanese version of Teriyaki Boy (and yes, since we do enjoy eating at Teriyaki Boy, that’s a good thing). The place is quiet, the interiors are refined, the service is attentive, and did we mention that the food is cheap (you can get Yasai Itame for P85, and Tonkatsu for P105)?

Of course, to do it justice, I’ll have to come back one of these days to try the Chef’s Specials (and there are many promising maki combinations: the American Dream, with salmon, kani, and cream cheese, P150; the Jurassic Maki, a concoction of ebi, kani, ebiko, salmon skin, and unagi, P230; the Tiger Eye, which has ebiko, spicy tuna, and smoked eel, P195). After all, it seems like a shame to waste your order on plain ol’ California Maki, given all these other choices. Oh, and they have oysters too’yum!

Omakase straddles the line between hardcore and mainstream. No matter who you are, you’ll be able to appreciate it. Trust us.

Omakase
Casa Susana, Madrigal Avenue,
Alabang, Muntinlupa City
850-3964

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