A trip to Nanbantei of Tokyo

Last night, Nica and I decided to chow on grilled Japanese food and we found ourselves in Nanbantei of Tokyo in Greenbelt 3. Supposedly, we're both saving up since I no long have a job and she's planning to leave her work by May of this year. Saving up, however, is not an option last night since we wanted to treat ourselves for our soon-to-improve stagnant careers.

In celebration, we ordered the Bestseller Platter (P800), which has 21 sticks of assorted skewered Japanese goodies. Nanbantei offers yakitori or Japanese grilled food. They grill anything from potatoes to asparagus to meat to corn. In short, Nanbantei is yakitori heaven.

Nica making pa-cute with chopsticks

Nica is currently working as a video editor for GMA. She had been in that post for almost three years now since she entered GMA the same time I entered ABS-CBN in 2008. I already left ABS-CBN and Nica decided to explore other works for GMA. This year, we're freefalling.

My version of the pa-cute pic with chopsticks

While waiting for our meal, we munched on veggie sticks. Since we're first timers, Nica and I figured out how to go about the things on the table while watching the other tables. Haha.

Appetizers with carrot and singkamas sticks

In Nanbantei, they serve meals in sticks of three. Since it was a night with a full-house, we got our plate in one go. The other six sticks were added after five minutes. Once the food arrived, we decided to chow.

Bestsellers Platter

 We ordered rice, which our manager doesn't recommend since the platter comes with grilled corn. We still insisted--Nica and I eat like carpenters. The Bestsellers Platter has aspara maki (asparagus wrapped in pork strips--our favorite), poteto maki (potato), pork garlic yaki (pork with garlic flavor), shisho maki (pork with Shisho leaf), grilled corn, negima (chicken with long onion--not the best one in this platter), and shiitake (mushrooms--another favorite).

Nica with grilled corn and beer

The platter is good enough for three people and no matter how hard we tried, we couldn't finish the plate. After dinner, we decided to lounge at the al fresco area and drink beer while eating what we can devour in our already-full states. Nica, in her sanguine self, commented this about the grilled corn: Shet, kahit mais masarap. Haha.

Me with corn and beer

Nanbantei exceeded my expectations and I don't mind going back for another round of scrumptuous Japanese-style grilled food. The ambience is noisy inside, which is typical of Japanese restaurants. The place never seemed to get full, though. That means, there's always a table for us. Yay!