Manong’s – SM Southmall Food street

Posted by Ian Galliguez in Eat and Drink | 4 comments

In the search for the best sisig places in the metro, I found myself gravitating towards a huge sign for Crispy Pork sisig at Manong’s in SM Southmall’s food street.  It was a relatively awful day for me so I was hoping to be comforted by one of my favorite food. The experience with the restaurant was a little bit less than satisfying.

Good points first: I loved the design of the place. It may be a mall restaurant but the feel of being part of something truly Filipino was evident in their interior design and ingenious use of Filipino items like the lampara (oil lamp) and the pamaypay (woven fan). Another good point was the under the table bag hooks. This way, my bag and I won’t have to fight for space on my seat nor did I have to put it on the floor where it would get dirty.

Now, there must have been something in the water that day as it seemed all of the people I interact with are either hard of hearing or are just spaced out. The waiter seemed like a newbie – asking for our orders about four times before he got it right, and even then, I had to remind him to ask for our drink orders. The food took relatively longer than what was expected and what exacerbated the dissatisfaction was that I was really really hungry. Being a hungry hungry hippo with no food is not a good combination. It’s like pouring honey on yourself and then kicking an anthill then rolling around on it.  Finally the food arrived and there was that annoying housefly that seemed to have a flight pattern around us: Plate, drink, arm, leg, other leg, left cheek and back to plate. I asked the waiter if he can get us a fan or at least get rid of the darn fly but he looked at us like I was asking for his left kidney or the answer to the equation of x*6 (y+56/3) = 76 [determine what is x and y].

Now, as I’ve said previously, I want my sisig to be spicy and crispy without it being dry. Manong only got one out of the three sisig qualifications. Although the sisig was crispy, I had to drench it with copious amounts of hot sauce before I got the desired heat. The downside in doing that is that I’ve managed to change the sisig’s color from a golden brown to a cheap ketchup spaghetti red. The sisig is also on the dry side, which may be something that others prefer but I feel like the flavor is missing if the sauce is dry.

Their only saving grace is their sizzling chicken steak. It was flavorful and the sauce was great. For prices as theirs, we felt like it wasn’t worth it.

Manong’s is located in SM Southmall’s Food Street.