Sizzling Pepper Steak in Eastwood

A good ol’ late lunch is always welcome for me. Less people, no lines, less noise…just some quiet time with more reasons why the staff should be extra attentive, because you and maybe another table are the only ones in the resto! Sadly, that doesn’t happen in all cases. We had our late lunch in Sizzling Pepper Steak Eastwood. Yes, it’s the place with the TV’s on their windows showing these girls clad in Japanese School Girl Uniforms and dancing. It’s quite mesmerizing and weird at the same time. Our eyes were drawn to the LCD because it was making a lot of movement and had tons of changing colors. We even came to a point where we began guessing which parts were styled and which didn’t look styled at all. But first things first, our order.

What’s cute about this place is that it has the Bubba Gump charm, where you have that green/red sign saying whether the waiter should come to your table or not. Since we were the only table, we went with the flow. We got our order slips, filled it up on our own, and flipped the green sign. Oh great! I thought, then if we make our order slips, we could put exactly what we want and get it…

The first food to come out was our Gravy Fries. The serving was relatively small for something that says “for sharing”. Maybe if kids shared it, it would be sufficient, but anyway, it was alright that the servings were small because it wasn’t anything special. The fries that were stacked near the top were burnt and tasted like it was blow torched directly or stayed too close to the flame of the salamander. Gravy was instant, almost jelly like, right out of the mix.

Thank God our main course came and it smelled great! It was sizzling and we had to flip our food. Of course, the amount of meat on my Sizzling Pepper steak was a far cry in terms of servings on the video we were distracted with, but atleast the flavor of the sauce was subtle and yet quite tasty. It was sweet with a hint of dashi, which made it meaty and more complex. Sizzling pepper steak is their bestseller was very subtle but had a good dimension of different flavors. But the beef used could’ve been a little more tender despite the thin slices, it felt a little rough…I guess I just got too used to Angus and Wagyu tepanyaki.

Funny how we kept asking for our gravies and they kept asking us what we ordered…isn’t that the reason why we put it down on our order slip? Tartars sauce was okay. It could’ve had a little more sourness since the classic tartar could have pickles and even a hint of vinegar or other acids. It made our fries taste better. As for Mig’s diablo sauce, it came out cold…almost with cold fat being formed at the top. Still the flavor was pretty good, taking the spiciness from a lot of black peppers and maybe some paprika for smoke.

Mig’s BBQ Pork is a new item, and it came with a glorious egg on top (Sorry, he demolished the top before we got a good photo). Just by the smell and look of it, i knew it was going to be fantastic. I love egg! The sauce was delicious and the egg gave the entire thing a better and richer flavor. But then again, the pork was a little rough around the edges. Despite it’s thin slices, I wished it could’ve been softened a bit more for the ultimate texture mix. The BBQ sauce was good. It reminded me of the old Racks’ BBQ sauce that had a great balance of sweet, sour and smokey.

Overall I think the highlight of this lunch was the BBQ pork. I’m not really sure if eating during broken time made the staff relax too much and the kitchen staff cook things in a different way. Maybe we could try going during peak hours…next time, but maybe not that soon.