Classic Chicken Barbecue

The Aristocrat Restaurant is a venerable institution and the quality of their dishes is always consistent. While one should never dine there with any expectation of fulfilling any unusual food fetish, it can however be relied upon to satisfy the biggest and meanest hunger.

One of our favorites (criteria being value for money, calorie content and of course taste) is the “walang kamatayan” chicken barbecue. It has long been done to death countless times from restaurants to neighborhood carinderias, but they do hold the distinction of being one of the first restaurants to bring it into prominence along style along Roxas (Dewey to the errr, oldies) Boulevard. I remember when I was a kid they used to have honey barbecue on the menu as well, but it did not survive the years as well as the chicken barbecue and is not available in all their branches. It’s cheap (Only P160 for 3 pieces on a stick with the usual trimmings), big and quite tasty. If you exchange the java rice for plain rice not too bad health-wise. Now that we know better we usually remove the charred parts too.

A fairly recent discovery is their generously sized lumpiang ubod. Aside from tasting pretty good it is always freshly made (don’t you just hate it when the lumpia they serve you is limp and dry around the edges, or worse, sourish??!!) filled with a generous amount of ubod with just a hint of porkiness. The sauce has just the right amount of garlic and best of all could not discern any excessive amount of monosodium glutamate (hey! in typical fashion restaurants that have survived this long usually do add vetsin to their dishes). They used to have a scaled-down snack size, but the regular lumpia is only about P70.

For a bit of variety I ordered the tuna belly. It was a bit expensive at almost P200, but it was meaty and perfectly grilled.

We don’t make it a habit to eat there often, but when we want something filling, quick and typical with no surprises we give then a visit. The downside to all this though is depending on what branch of Aristocrat you visit, this might be a good idea.