Sentro 1771 - Pinoy Gourmet

For my birthday, HSBC sent me a freebie card to Sentro 1771, located at Greenbelt 3. I can avail of a free Pica-Pica dish free just for showing up, and Garlicky Adobo for a minimum receipt of P1000, as long as I used my plastic, of course.

Now, being the indiscriminate freeloader that I am, I immediately set about planning for dinner there. I've never heard of Sentro (mostly because I'm a cheapskate, even with food), and only found out recently that it was the small dark resto beside the loud and colorful Bubba Gump. P and I decided to have our own Christmas dinner at Sentro, armed with my little card from HSBC.

I've read that Sentro always has a long line of hungry diners waiting for a table, but that time we went, we only had to wait a few minutes for a free table.

As for our dinner, the free Pica-Pica appetizer came first.

Pica-Pica with garlicky vinegar

Tapa, tocino, lumpia and chicken lollipops with the all-too-Filipino vinegar with garlic and onions. The tapa was delicious, I stuffed myself silly with it and hardly left any for P. The other stuff was great too, but I was a big fan of the tapa that night.

For our main course, we ordered the restaurant's most popular dish:

Corned Beef in Tamarind Broth

Corned Beef in Tamarind Broth, or simply Sinigang na Corned Beef, combines the native Filipino tamarind soup with the unusual choice of boneless beef shanks normally used for the canned beef variety and still comes out very tasty, if not a little oily. This is Sentro's bestseller; we were treated to a little taste test when a server came over to us, had us taste the broth in a little espresso cup, and asked us how sour we wanted our sinigang to be. P definitely wanted it sour. I had a pinched face nearly the whole time we ate.

Rated GG

Rated GG is a very cool twist on the humble galunggong, one of my favorite fish. Cut into fillets and cooked with lots of garlic, the dish is a great alternative to the usual fried kind that I love to cook at home. Maybe I should try this. My dad says it was first cooked in paksiw (what's the English word for this?) before being fried with garlic. That seems a lot of work. Ok, maybe not.

My thirst-quencher of choice was the restaurant's bottomless Sago't Gulaman. I'm not a fan of this summer staple, but gave it a try anyway, because as I've said before, I love all drinks bottomless. It doesn't disappoint. I like this drink.

All in all, it was a very satisfying and very filling dinner, albeit a bit more expensive than our usual dinner choices. I would definitely eat here again, as long as it's payday and I'm loaded.

Now for another shot of P in the act of elegantly shoving food in his mouth. =P

I <3 P hehehe