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Thursday, June 5, 2008

Pepper Lunch and Passion Flower (Sydney)

Last Friday (30 May), Husband and I finally found the time to have dinner at Pepper Lunch.

I've been wanting to try out this restaurant for weeks because according to my cuzin the steaks are really really yummy. I love steaks and I heard that this restaurant is unique on how they serve the food, so that intrigued me more.

Pepper Lunch is a fastfood restaurant which originated from Tokyo, Japan that serves steak in metal hot plates. Raw steaks, beef, chicken, fish (whatever you ordered really) on hot plates will be served to you and you will be the one to cook them based on your preference (whether medium, rare, or well-done).

As we entered the restaurant, we were greeted in Japanese by their pretty smiling waitress. I don't remember the words she said as I was already busy looking at the interiors of the place but whatever she said, she must have meant "Good evening, welcome to Pepper Lunch!" (hehe).

Since the restaurant's concept is fastfood, you have to order at the counter and pay first. We studied the menu carefully as we were overwhelmed by the many choices and finally we asked the friendly waitress what their specialty is. Of course she said, "Steaks!". That didn't help much coz we know we're here for the steaks but still we wanted a little enlightenment on the menu. Good thing, she elaborated a bit more seeing that our faces were still blank after her response.

With the help of the menu, she pointed out that the first row (from Meals 1-3) are their rice meals; the second and third rows (from Meals 4-11) are their steaks; and the fourth row (Meals 12-15) are their Combo Meals. And finally she said that most customers order the "Tokusen" Rib Eye Steak (Meal 8) and the Beef Pepper Rice (Meal 1). With that premise, we focused on the Steak Meals and ordered a Rib Eye Steak for me and a Hamburger Steak for Chris.

The interiors of the resto is simple, nothing flashy...very Japanese in a way, but it appeared cozy due to the dominance of yellowish color and soft lighting.

Our orders took 5 minutes to arrive. The waiter asked us if we know what to do and we said we don't coz it's our first time, so he demostrated how we're going to cook our steaks.

First, we had to spread the butter on top of the steaks.

Chris' Hamburger Steak

When the waiter said "butter", were were like "nasaan ang butter?" Yun pala brown yung butter nila, we were looking for yellow butter.

After spreading the butter on top of our steaks, we flipped our steaks.

Ivy's Rib Eye Steak

My Flipped Rib Eye Steak

Flippin' my steak

Before that first bite

The steaks were really delicious, tender and easy to chew. There are sauces (sweet and not so sweet) available for those who prefer to strengthen the flavour of the steaks. The smell and the taste were really yummy. When I looked at the menu to see where they get their beef, where else but Australia and New Zealand...kaya naman pala :)

The verdict?

Aylabeet!!!!! Pepper Lunch is my newest favorite resto and I will be coming back for more :) As you can see on the photo above, parang dinaanan ng bagyo ang hot plates namin hehehe.

After our yummy and enjoyable dinner, our weekly date won't be complete without dessert and so I took Chris to one of my favorite Dessert Cafes in the City, Passion Flower.

Passion Flower's Counter

Passion Flower's Funky Chairs

Passion Flower is known for their mouth-watering Ice Creams of different flavors (they even have Mango!!!). I initially wanted to order Ice Cream but it was cold so we opted to have hot chocolates instead. I got myself the normal Hot Chocolate while Chris had the White Chocolate. Their chocolates were yummy and not so sweet, just right to the tastebuds.

Hot Chocolates for Dessert

Pepper Lunch and Passion Flower are both located at George Street Sydney, near Townhall Station.

Pepper Lunch Manila is now open at The Rockwell Powerplant Mall. Their beef is imported from Australia and New Zealand. Their prices start from P235.00 for the rice meals; while P345.00-P660.00 for the steaks.