Unexpected Fast Food Finds

“People will travel anywhere for good food - it's crazy.” - Rene Redzepi

 Occasionally, and when you have time on your hands, it is rewarding to find food that is not served to you with colorful trappings and or fancy presentations, just the bare minimal.   They call these establishments a“Hole-in=the-Wall”, I just like to think of them as being “undiscovered”.   Places like these, you have either know of or you’d need a map to find or at least good directions from persons who have experienced their food.

Just very recently, I found myself eating one of the best, if not the best pork barbecues I have ever tasted.   Probably better than those commercialized joints that sell you on witty pricing schemes or fancy names that entice you to buy overpriced sticks of paper thin pork skewered on a stick.

In a prestigious State University in Quezon City, you can find little shack situated between an institutional building and a field.  I find its existence mythological, in the way people would talk about it or in the manner they would recommend it.   In this feast, I find out that there is no myth attached to this establishment.  They do serve GOOD STUFF.

On this feast I was brought to the BEACH HOUSE found on the grounds of University of the Philippines.    Now, I’ve tried a lot of pork barbecues in my time loitering around the streets (sometimes inebriated, others sober) and I have to say they are doing something right with their pork skewers out there. 

 

Photographed by Foodie and the Feast

As I see it pork barbecues thrive on three 

things, good quality pork, marinade, and its cookery. It is annoying to take a bite of your first piece of barbecue only to find out that it wants to play “tug of war” with you, not to mention when the pork turns out to be so gamey that you find yourself chewing gum rather than pork. The marinade should always be balanced, not too sweet not and not too salty, just the right amount of ingredients, giving the pork more flavor.  Besides if the marinade is good enough, it will help in caramelizing the pork and help the smoky flavor from the charcoal grill adhere to and impart that flavor we all love and know so well. Finally, its cookery, place it on the grill too long, and your marinade is ruined and so is your pork, and all you’re left with is a piece of charcoal on a stick. Undercook it, and you pork is otherwise inedible or just gamey to say the least.  But when you cook it perfectly, the pork melts in your mouth and all those flavors from the pork itself and the marinade, coupled with the smoky flavors from the grill just bathes your palate.

Photographed by Foodie and the Feast

The BEACH HOUSE barbecue has all these things in spades, which is probably why they have been considered as an “institution” in itself by the community that it caters to on a daily basis.  Located just behind the University’s Main library, people actually go out of there way just to visit this small shack whether for a full meal or a quick snack. 

Photographed by Foodie and the Feast

   Unfortunately, at the time of this post I am unaware if the BEACH HOUSE is still open, since, at the time I visited their quaint rustic shack, there were banners eluding to save the BEACH HOUSE from closing down its business for reasons undisclosed to this author.  But if you have time, and you are craving for good barbecue, you should definitely give it a try.

Photographed by Foodie and the Feast

A sizable walking distance between the Beach House stands another thriving “shack” stationed within the confines of this University.  However, they don’t serve pork skewers/barbecue. So, what else goes hand in hand with a grill?  Hamburgers of course!  So I ventured out to seek what this newly established yet slowly-but-surely “shack” had to offer.  I found myself face to face with the SNACK SHACK, Burger Stand that is found just around the corner of the Universities Shopping Center, or as to their locals, known as the SC.  

Photographed by Foodie and the Feast

I am not the traditional kind of man, don’t get me wrong I am a meat person, but I am hardly a man of red meat or steaks but if I had any equivalent desire for any slab of meat on a grill it would most definitely be the mighty Burger.  This is why I take my Burger-loving palate seriously and in establishments that I visit that offers burgers on their menus, I expect a lot, with high standards in mind. “Real Fast food should always grab your attention with big gutsy flavors fantastic aromas and must be

immediately satisfying” – Gordon Ramsay – so whether it’s a small grill shack or gourmet resto, a burger should always be “worth the price of admission”.

Photographed by Foodie and the Feast

SNACK SHACK has a diverse menu(Click to see their Menu), introducing unconventional add-ons to their burgers, but somehow I was unimpressed on this particular visit of mine.   Not to be a “stick in the mud” or anything, their burger, at least the one I had, was – hmmm – good, so-so in terms of flavor. It was good enough but I don’t really know if I would say it was “go-out-of-you-way” good. 

Photographed by Foodie and the Feast

Frankly, I was disappointed with the service, 30 minutes for a regular burger that has a quarter of an inch thick patty is just horrible service.   Correct me if I’m wrong, (and I would appreciate being corrected, just place your “constructive” comments below) but a quarter of an inch patty would probably take 2-3 minutes of cookery on each side give or take.  This would compute to my burger being served from the grill to the window to my hands 22 minutes overdue. 

Maybe it was the volume of orders, or maybe just really one of those days, whatever it was, to me, that was just unacceptable, because 30 minutes for a “so-so” burger is not a good sign.   People will wait for good food than something they can make themselves at home.  This is my only major gripe about the SNACK SHACK, if you are walking around the vicinity of this University and you want a burger to munch on, then I would say you should try this, otherwise, you’re better off visiting another burger joint.