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Tales of a Hungry Maxie: Burgers and Brewskies

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For those who follow with my Instagram account, a lot of you may notice how my account description says “Beauty blogger and sushi monster” but 70% of my posts contain food. My daily state of happiness is correlated to the yummy food I eat. My friends often push me to blog more about food but I have always felt like I’m not eloquent enough to describe my feels whenever I eat. So, I thought that it would be best to leave the food-reviewing to food bloggers since I already felt content with sharing about my food discoveries on my Instagram account.

All of this changed when I got my first invite (Thanks, Aldous!) for a food tasting in Burgers & Brewskies located at Estancia Mall. I was very hesitant at first because of my insecurities as well my hesitations about having to compromise myself. But I decided to give it a shot because I’ve been a fan of Burgers & Brewskies ever since their branch at Burgos Circle.

Our group of bloggers headed by Aldous Calubad was accompanied by one of the Owners of B&B, Marc Nocon during the entire night. He graciously described each dish that was served and happily answered any of our questions. He was also joined by his partners Mike Floro and Francis Balbarin who popped by once in a while.
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First up on the tasting menu were the appetizers.

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Avocado Fries (seasonal offer)

I imagined the avocado fries to be stiff and was hesitant to try it. But I was wrong. The avocado fries were, in fact, soft enough to bite comfortably, but not at all mushy and I love how it was coated with breadcrumbs to elevate the texture of the avocado fries. It went perfectly with the garlic cheese dip. I really enjoyed these.

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Fish Popper with Chipotle Aioli

The fish poppers were battered nicely and fried to a soft crisp. But I think the chipotle aioili was the component that really brought this dish to life.

B&B has a wide variety of wings and we were able to try three flavors: Angry Korean Wings, Salt and Pepper Wings, and Honey Garlic Wings.

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Angry Korean Wings

The most unique for me would be the Angry Korean wings because of its distinct Gochuchang flavor but it was caramelized well to add some sweet to the spicy. I honestly didn’t find it too spicy. It had just the right amount of  hotness. It definitely did not leave me wanting to have a gulp of milk but I did enjoy the mild kick it brought to my senses.


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Honey Garlic Wings

For those who don’t tolerate spicy food well, they also offer the classic honey garlic wings.

I also have to mention that I enjoyed how their wings were cooked perfectly. They were soft enough to easily detach to the bone (unlike in its awful neighbor, which is supposedly dedicated to serving WINGS but unfortunately failed to deliver by OVERCOOKING the wings).

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                                                                               Bacon Chicharon with sweet and spicy vinegar

Wow, these are by far the best bacon chicharon in the Metro. I’ve tried a couple. One common denominator among the various versions of bacon chicharon that I’ve tried is the toughness of the bacon. I expected the same with these but W-O-W. These thin slices of bacon which were lightly coated with batter were SO crispy and so addicting. Apparently, they make their own bacon which I’m guessing contributes a lot to the quality of the bacon chicharon. I don’t know what kind of sorcery they have to perform to whip these babies up but wow, I’m so impressed! They were a tad bit oily, but HELLO, it’s bacon. The sweet and spicy vinegar was the perfect match to these bacon chicharon.

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Buffalo Balls

This was another one of the surprises of the night for me. I didn’t expect much from these balls but I was impressed with how they really taste like my favorite kind of tangy Buffalo wings in balls form. Marc explained how he wanted to create these balls to match with people who like to drink. It’s the perfect bar chow for those who don’t like the fuss of having to getting their hands dirty trying to bite into regular wings. I think the idea is quite genius. The balls were moist and juicy and you can really see the chicken meat when you bite into it. My only comment about this dish is that, some might miss the experience of biting into the the actual chicken bone. Either way, this is another dish I enjoyed.

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Sausage Platter with Curry Ketchup and Spiced Mustard Aioli

I had a few bites of this and enjoyed dipping the sausages into the unique dips it came with.

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S.P.F (sweet potato fries) with secret secret spice mix

These have been one of my favorite dishes ever since I tried it in the Burgos Circle branch. The perfect combination of sweet and salty.

Now for the burgers:

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Call the Nurse (spiced mustard aioli, B&B cheese sauce,seared mac and cheese, and candied bacon)

Call the Nurse will always be my favorite B&B burger just because I think it really nails the spot with its sweet and salty tones. It’s the utimate burger worthy of the hashtag, #foodporn.

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Seasonal* Holy Guacamole Burger (guacamole salsa, nacho chips)

One interesting fact about B&B is that they regularly switch up their menu items according to the season to keep their customers at their feet with new offerings every time they visit. Just like now, avocados are in season and they conveniently created a guacamole burger.

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Walk of Shame (egg potato hay, lemonaise)

I think this is such an interesting dish because of all its components. It has a lot going on: poached egg, bacon, potato hay, lemonaise. But it all comes together nicely.

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This is how it looks like after Chef Francis demonstrated how Walk of Shame should be eaten.

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                                Don’t Have a Cow ( lentil and bulgar wheat patty, curry ketchup and garlic shitake mushrooms)

As a person who has a lot of vegetarian friends, I really wanted to include this dish because I think it’s great how restaurants make an effort to cater to vegetarians because there aren’t a lot of vegetarian dishes, more so, vegetarian restaurants in the Metro. I’m not a huge fan of veggies, so I can’t properly judge this dish. I’ll have to bring one of my vegetarian friends here next time!

We were treated with 3 desserts to cap of the incredibly filling meal we had:

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Chef – Vanilla Ice Cream with Spiced Chocolate Powder and Candied Bacon Bits

This was my favorite dessert. A bite of this creamy vanilla ice cream coated with bitter chocolate powder will treat your tongue to a sweet and bitter flavor and once you swallow, you feel the slight kick of the chili kicking in. Just enough to feel a tingle in your throat but not too much to send you coughing and gasping for air.

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Cripy bacon slices coated in chocolate 

These were the absolute bomb! Again, super crispy bacon slices covered in chocolate with a hint of spicy to further bring dimension to the dish. I couldn’t help but have 1, 2, 3, or 4 pieces of this!

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Creamy Soy Panna Cotta with Spiced Candied Bacon

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Chocolate pudding with Cinnamon Oatmeal Streusel.

This was a nice flavor profile to break off all the grease on my tongue. Rich and creamy.

Like I said, I was really hesistant to join this tasting event because I don’t want to have to compromise my standards but knowing that it was a B&B event helped me decide more easily because I’ve always enjoyed dining in this restaurant.

I love how most of the B&B dishes keep me excited for more because of the incredible amount of creativity that comes into play into each of their dishes. B&B’s dishes are fun, exciting and executed very well. There are times when I like my burgers classic, in order to really taste the beef patty. But B&B has brought a whole new experience in my food-loving life. They definitely don’t serve your classic burgers and instead provide a refreshing take on burgers through different delicious components.

That’s it for now for Tales of a Hungry Maxie!

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2 Comments

  • Reply Hannah

    Hi Max! This is such a great read. I just like to point out one thing. “It’s” is a contraction for “it is” or “it has” while “its” shows possession.

    You should use “its” in the following:

    “because of it’s distinct Gochuchang flavor”
    “unlike in it’s awful neighbor”
    “nails the spot with it’s sweet and salty tones”
    “I think this is such an interesting dish because of all it’s components”

    Hope you won’t feel offended by this rather, hope this will help you improve your writing since this review was very helpful and superb!

    06/05/2015 at 4:29 AM
    • Reply Maxine Marcelino

      Hi Hannah!

      Sorry for the late response. Thanks so much for pointing this out. I actually know about these grammatical rules already but I was writing the post late at night. So I failed to distinguish which rule applied to which situation. But I’m really thankful for the heads up because it helps remind me to proofread.

      Thanks again! :)

      06/10/2015 at 5:25 PM

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