My Lesson on the Difference Between Advertising and Reality from Bonchon Chicken Philippines

While looking for a place to have merienda at Robinson's Magnolia this weekend, my friend and I passed by the BonChon Chicken outlet and saw a poster of one of their offerings. The item was named Bulgogi Noodle Soup, and the picture resembled something like the one below:

from bonchon Philippines Facebook page

I like many of BonChon's offerings.  Aside from the chicken, I also order their calamari, chapchae, and their fish and fries.  I haven't tried this soup; I convinced my friend to have merienda at the store and order the item.

The Bulgogi Noodle Soup comes in two sizes.: large and solo.  We ordered one large and one solo (for me).  The truth is, I wasn't expecting the order to look like the picture, neither did I expect to get these:

solo size

large size

My initial reaction was, "Is this what we ordered?".  It looked like something scooped out of a clogged kitchen sink instead of a pot.  The soup looked so greasy, and all those floating sesame seeds and other stuff gave it the appearance of what we call "pinaghugasan ng plato" (water where one washed used plates). 

At first, I didn't want to touch the soup, but then I wanted to do this blog, I decided to taste it.  The soup was both salty and sweet at the same time and, yes, very oily.  You have to dig deep to get the vegetables, beef, and noodles.  The vegetables were overcooked, and the glass noodles were a bit soggy.  The beef was just right.  Overall this noodle soup was not really satisfying, but it was not as bad as it looked.  

I have nothing against companies making their product look good in their advertisement. I only wish BonChon didn't make their promotional material so detached from what their product actually looked like, or maybe they could have made their Bulgogi Noodle Soup looked better.  I know it is a fast-food chain, and their products are inexpensive, but that doesn't mean they should not think about presentation. 

Lesson learned.  Next time I will be more cautious.

Banana Leaf Asian Cafe at Promenade, Greenhills

On one of our Sunday family lunch outs, we decided to go to Greenhills Shopping Center.  We decided to eat at Teriyaki Boy in the Promenade Mall.  However, we were already seated for about 15 minutes and none of the staff were serving us.  They were just walking around and past us even though there were just a few patrons inside.  

We decided to transfer to another restaurant and we went to Banana Leaf Asian Cafe which was just a few steps away.  We were seated immediately and waited on by a very helpful staff.  The menu consisted of mostly Southeast Asian cuisine, some were familiar and others not so familiar.  We decided to get the ones we were not familiar with since the staff who was serving us helped with our orders.

The one that makes Banana Leaf different from the other restaurants is that you would actually eat on a banana leaf and not on a plate.  I told my sister in law that on one occasion that my friends and I met for  dinner in their Makati branch, I shredded part of my plate and it had to be changed.

We ordered the Vietnamese fried rice.  I was expecting it would be salty or sweet but it tasted just right and was actually really good.

We also had the Malayan Beef Rendang which is one of my favorites here in Banana Leaf.  It's beef  stewed in a sauce that's both sweet and spicy at the same time.  It is then covered with desiccated coconut.  I liked because the beef was so tender.

For some fish dish, we ordered the Tilapia fillet in Assam Sambal sauce.  We were warned by our server that the sauce is a bit spicy so we asked for a more moderate sauce.  It tasted like they used some sweet chili because it's not totally hot and spicy.  The fish was deep fried and crispy.

We also had Malayan Chicken Curry with Potatoes which tasted like, well, chicken curry.  There's really nothing special about this dish although it was also good.  It's just that we were expecting that it would have something different from the usual chicken curry you can get from a non-specialty cafe.

 My brother was so intrigued with the Stir Fried Chinese Turnip Cake with Beansprout and Chives so we decided to order it.  It was a great choice because it tasted good too.  The turnip cake had a very nice mouth fill, which is entirely different from tofu.

We all had a pleasant eating experience at the Banana Leaf Asian Cafe at the Promenade.  Good food, good service and also, the price is just right.  There still other great dishes that we could try if ever we come for lunch again.