Pepper Lunch Adventure

Its a Japanese Pepper Steak!


The Philippine food business seems to be booming. In the midst of the world crisis, new restaurant concepts keep mushrooming in the mall or outside the mall. Specialty restaurants seem to be the name of the game. First we have Sango Japanese burgers. Now Japanese Pepper Steak?

Pepper Lunch in Power Plant Mall Rockwell is part of a Japanese chain of fastfood steakhouses. Their concept is a unique adventure because they serve you raw food that you cook yourself right on your own table in your own sizzling plate.

My Pepper lunch adventure went this way:

1. Line up and order from the counter - I went on a weekday so there were no long lines. You have to pay your order before they deliver it to your table.



2. My order was delivered to my table. It was on a special kind of sizzling plate which was wrapped with paper instructions (also protects your fingers I guess from the very hot plate) -Waiter gave a short orientation. However,I think he assumed we had been there before. He failed to tell me that you should not add the sauce before browning the meat. I was so excited to do the "cook it yourself routine" thinking it it just as simple as Korean restos. I didn't even bother watching the video demo/ instructional before cooking my food.


3. I quickly spread the herbed butter (served ala butter on top of pancake) on the pre-cut marbled steak. Unfortunately, in my usual eagerness, I forgot to take a photo again before doing this. I quickly turned the steak slices around with chopsticks and poured some of their vegetable and steak sauce. The sad result : half brown steak! ( The photo below is the nice seared side)



Oh well!! Better luck next time. It was tasty specially with the finely ground peppercorn and delicious Japanese sauce. Definitely worth trying agin. On the expensive side though for a quick lunch. My Shimofuri Pepper steak cost 645 pesos ( including rice and a drink). There are other more affordable items on the menu though if you prefer to spend less to experience your own Pepper Lunch adventure.