Rocksalt

It's my dear Sally's birthday once again! We had a dinner celebration at Rocksalt, Timog.

I have never been intrigued by Rocksalt, primarily because of the bland looking exterior and signage of the place. As I found out, it is run by Global Academy (by Chef Rob Pengson)---school cum casual-fine dining restaurant. I got excited! hehehe =)

The main dining area is located at the second floor. The interior is bright, quiet and casual.

Angry Shrimp Cakes Php 165.00

Crispy shrimp cakes with green papaya and mango salad, lime cream and sweet chili sauce. We love this! The shrimp bits were chunky, giving a nice texture to the cake.

Chips & Chorizo Php 250.00

House made potato chips, smothered with crispy chorizo bits with cilantro-tomato salsa and smoked paprika cheese sauce. The house chips were great! Thin and crisp potato chips made yummy with the cheese sauce. I didn't get any smoked paprika taste though. We all go..."OMG hindi natin ito mauubos (we wont be able to finish all of this)..." because we all ordered individual entrees. Well...we under-estimated our appetites! hehehehe ;P

Crispy Tequila Calamari Php 125.00

Deep fried squid seasoned with Tequila salt and served with mango salsa. Another winner! For only Php 125.00...this dish is a steal! The squid pieces were big and they were able to maintain the tenderness after being fried. No tequila salt taste what so ever here...but yummy still..wiped out also! hehehe ;P

Let's have a closer look at the huge calamari strips....yum! yum! yum!!!!

Girls will girls. We like to share our entrees so we can all taste every dish!

Moroccan Spiced Fish Php 280.00

Chermula spiced dory fillet, pan seared with a warm potato salad. I didn't like how the fish was cooked. It was pinkish at the center where the chermula spices were stuffed. I don't think dory should be cooked rare =( The fish was bland tasting. A boring dish with an interesting name. Sorry.

Crispy Pork Callos Php 390.00

Twice cooked pork belly on traditional callos served with rice pillaf. This perked up everyone's curiosity! Crispy bagnet-ish pork resting on a bed of callos---how devilishly delicious sounding! hehehehe How does this dish fair? hmmm it was flavorful but the pork belly had a pork-y taste! hehehe I don't know how to put that into words...but it had this pork gamey-ness that was not so nice. The callos part was good though =)

Rice Pilaf

This came with the callos-pork entree...we ordered an extra bowl others (like me) who likes to rice-up with their meals ;P hehehe I liked that the rice was fragrant and fluffy =)

Pan Fried Chicken Php 375.00

Pan roasted half chicken, marinated in rosemary and garlic on whipped sweet potatoes, with chorizo-mushroom stew and grilled asparagus. Like fried chicken with mushroom gravy! It was tasty...but I don't particularly like how the sweet potato mash was drowned in the stew sauce. Maybe it would have been better if they served the sweet potato mash on the side.

House Special: Gamberetti Pasta ~ Php 250.00 or 230.00 (not sure because price was on the special board ;P hehehe)

Oh...I might get crucified by all my not so nice comments, but I have to be all honest...this dish was absolutely tasteless! =( For a placed named ROCKSALT---this dish BADLY NEEDED SOME! Or maybe we should have asked for some??? Dry and tasteless.

Pan Seared Salmon Php 330.00

Lightly smoked salmon fillet, crusted with apples and bacon served with sweet potato mash in a shrimp dill cream sauce. This was my order. I was generally pleased with my choice, specially after tasting the other entrees. There was no light smoke taste on my salmon...and it's only now that I realize the crust on my fish was made of apples and bacon (I didn't read the description when I ordered---heheheh too excited to get to the eating part ;P ) It was generally a pleasant tasting and the salmon fillet was cooked nicely.

Over all, I would say that the best part of our meal was the appetizers part! The entrees were all nice enough to eat..but I must comment that the descriptions were kind of mis-leading. They tend to promise all sorts of flavors and tastes with each dish but fail to deliver. So sorry to the chefs/students who work there =( . Nevertheless, the serving portions were generous and the service was very good. Oh one more thing we didn't appreciate was the fact that we told them it was a birthday dinner celebration...no reaction or act of generosity from the kitchen! I go, even at Burgoo, Italianni's or Alex III would give a small piece of cake or a scoop of ice cream..or perhaps a song. For all the food and price of our orders, we expected a little bit of perk. Please don't get me wrong, we had a great time having dinner here...catching up...chatting...tasting the food....criticizing..hehehe all part of the fun!

I hope they improve the quality of the food because the place is quite promising. I would suggest that they have a close monitoring of the quality of the food coming out of the kitchen.

Rocksalt

Unit 7&8 Timog Comercial Complex,

Timog Ave. cor. Panay Ave., Q.C.

(along BPI, Savory, Pixie's, Razon's etc.)

Tel# (632) 215 0761/ 0917 5360809