Apartment 1B….My kinda place

Last week one of our dear friend’s mom was in Manila for a visit from the States, so we decided to take her to Salcedo market to have a little lunch. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t participate with our plans as it was a drizzly, overcast kinda day.

So we decided to skip across the road (under umbrellas) and have lunch at Apartment 1B… I had never been there before but heard a lot about it.

I really liked the look of the restaurant as we walked in, it was simple yet elegant at the same time.

My wife ordered a watermelon shake, it was probably the best shake I had ever tasted… it was like biting into a perfectly ripened, juicy watermelon (I guess thats the aim, right?)

After having a look at the menu, I decided that because of the gloomy weather it was gonna have to be the beef pie (properly made, is one of my favourite dishes) I am still looking for a decent place to have a pie, and I think I just found one…

     When the pie was put in front of me, I immediately thought of London. It came with mash potato that was silky smooth, well seasoned and buttery. The actual pie was great, the beef inside was fork tender and jam packed full of big beef flavour. Mushy peas were as good and as sweet as any pub in England could’ve made. To me, the beauty of this dish is in its simplicity, it is simple food done properly.

My wife ordered the Vongole (this is one of her favourite dishes). Again, this dish was spot on because of simplicity and proper execution of this dish. The pasta was cooked perfectly, it only had olive oil and lemon juice as a sauce and loads of chopped parsley just to freshen it up and garlic with nice big clams and plenty of them! I can’t understand how some places can mess up this simple, yet classic dish. My wife loved it and said it was one of the best vongole that she had ever had. I would have to agree with her on that (even though she likes to put parmesan on top of her vongole ; )  ).

We also ordered the New Zealand mussels to share. Again, the flavour was great with paprika and bacon running through the cream sauce. I just thought it was a little pricey for what it was and for how many mussels you got.

All in all I loved this place. It was not trying to be pretentious in any way (It basically did exactly what it said on the tin). It was good food made it should be made and that is what I like in a restaurant. I wish there were more places like this kicking about in Manila.