It’s V-Day and I wanted to get away from the hoards of couples crowding the malls this weekend. I’m not bitter or broken hearted or anything, I just really hate crowds. Plans for brunch somewhere in Alabang had been made a few weeks ago with my ex-office mates, to be followed by the earliest screening of 50 Shades of Grey. Lorenz, being the Alabang Town Center boy that he is, initially wanted to go there to watch the movie. But because Town only has 5 cinemas that are almost always full to the brim on a regular weekend, that idea was quickly shot down. We moved to the newly built and as-of-yet untouched Commerce Center, where we decided to sit down and catch up over breakfast in Hot of the Griddle.
It’s mainly a burger and fries joint, but what initially drew us in was their All Day Breakfast set – which none of us ended up getting. I can’t find their Facebook or Zomato page as of this writing so I’m afraid I can’t share their menu. As is with most of the restaurants in Commerce Center, table arrangements were a bit awkward because the space is so very limited. Hot Off the Griddle did compensate, however, by adding lots of mirrors and decorating the place cozily – framed pictures of different city skylines dotted the walls and interesting looking light fixtures hung up on the walls.
I had their baked potato soup, which was sufficiently creamy but nothing special to rave about.
Because I already ate breakfast at home, I only opted for their Mango-Kani Salad. It was pretty good – refreshingly light and the addition of the cayenne pepper really did kick the flavors up a notch.
A friend of mine was craving for something sweet so she got their Pistachio Panna cotta. For a hundred bucks it was a pretty large serving, but even though the flavor was spot on, the texture wasn’t quite right. I’m not an expert with this kind of dessert, but it wasn’t as creamy as the other panna cotta’s I’ve had previously.
Service was somewhat slow – it took over 25 minutes for our orders to arrive, and we only had an order of coffee, two soups, a salad and the desert. The place wasn’t overly crowded either, because there was only our group and another group in the place and they were already half way through their meal when we came in. We killed the time by taking lots of groupies, lol.
All in all it’s a comfortable place to hang out in on a Saturday morning. The food’s good and affordable, but the service could use a little bit more polishing. I’d probably go back and try their breakfast menu. *This post is not sponsored by Hot Off the Griddle.
