Brickfire
i’d been wanting to try this newly-opened restaurant (newly-opened when i first saw it, but it’s now a pretty familiar fixture) in SM north annex, but there was always some odd reason to push it back. finally john agreed to have dinner there and i couldn’t have been more excited.
BRICKFIRE looks quite posh from the outside, and its interiors are no different. the design is gorgeous and exudes that kind of je ne sais quoi ambience that is both comforting and alluring. we were surprised then, to find the menu to be less-than-impressive and seemingly inadequate in both presentation and selection. still, we pushed forward: i ordered cowgirl annie (P149 for 200g), their version of the t-bone steak which comes with rice and gravy, while john went for sisig ala adobo (P160), also with rice, since he had a major craving for some filipino food.
i dug into my steak — requested to be cooked in medium doneness, which is my favorite way to eat a steak — and was startled to find it to lean more toward rare than anything else. the whole thing looked a bit too daunting to even put in my mouth, especially with the huge slab of undercooked fat running around its edges. in the end the steak tasted “okay”, but after several mishaps with the fatty areas i just set them aside completely. the gravy tastes nice too but i prefer to eat steak with a wee sprinkle of salt & pepper, so i only had a handful bites slobbered in the sauce. overall i was dismayed at my dinner — plenty of which was rendered inedible because of the rubbery texture and sheer difficulty to chew.
john’s sisig seemed more promising and after a quick bite it thought it tasted really good. it had been seasoned nicely with a hint of spice, which we both appreciated. later on john complained though that the dish just got way too salty, but he was too hungry to really care (except when we left the resto and he said he just didn’t enjoy his dinner).
all in all our brickfire experience proved to be a huge disappointment, but thankfully their dishes were affordable so it wasn’t a huge loss. will i come back to give it another try? perhaps, just not in the near future.
