Pino Revisited

It's been a while since our last visit to Pino Resto Bar, along Maginhawa St. in U.P. Village. Upon discovering this place, we hung out quite a number of times here, because of it's casual and comfy ambiance and good food =). Well, I got a tip that the place closed for some reason....so that put a halt on our visits here...up until we started goin around the area, we just decided to check the place out...and to our delight...it was open! Yey!!!


We found out that the place did close up for a short period because of some management changes, and with that...menu alterations too. Curious with the modifications and excited that it was open..we went ...

The menu was definitely shortend. Main courses and starters were cut back to a few items and focus more on the pastas, appetizers and pica-pica food.

Longanisa Nachos

Wow! A wild twist of Nachos ei? Nacho chips topped with chopped sweet longanisa, tomtoes and onios, drizzled with Wasabi mayo. Like breakfast and bar food in one! Pretty good and very generous in serving, I might add. This is just about Php 160.00 or so...I'll check on my next visit...but surely less than 200 bucks. Not bad at all and fun to eat =)

Tempura Oysters and Pearls

What a name right? Battered and fried oysters topped with ebiko (the pearls) resting on wasabi mayo and tamari laced shells. Each piece makes for a perfect bite...you get your tempura, sauce and dip in the chef's recomended proportion. Againg, delicious and fun to eat.

Nori Cheese Sticks with Mint Pesto and Strawberry Coulis
I really loved their cheese sticks with Mango Salsa...so I was excited to try the new twist. The Nori is laid between the cheese and wrapper...deep fries to a crisp and drizzled with the strawberry sauce. We didn't like the dessert-ish take on this. I don't think the Strawberry sauce go well with the nori taste. We asked for the Mint sauce, but it was unfortunately unavailable. It was still ok...but we were muh happier with the original version with Mango Salsa. We just asked for wasabi mayo to dip our cheese sticks in...at least wasabi goes with the Japanes feel =)

Beef and Shitake Salpicao

Tender beef pieces with Shitake mushrooms with a delicious garlicky--sweetish salpicao sauce! Did I describe it right? salpicao sauce? hahaha Anyway, think of it as a traditional salpicao made funky with shitake and I think they used tamari sauce that complimented the Shitakes. Delicious. This was the only dish we ordered that was not so big in serving.

So many yummy fun food to enjoy here. We will definitely come back...for the Red Wine Balut ala Pobre and other promising dishes on the list =)

Filipino Faves with Japanese funk....all if not most dishes we have tried came as a nice surprise. It's just so fun trying new flavors on conventional cusine....with hits or misses...that's how we learn what goes well with what right? =)