Restos digests why this third-generation restaurant is utterly first-rate.
With a hankering for the best in Filipino-Japanese fusion, my friends and I set forth for the Alex III restaurant, along Wilson Street in San Juan. As one of the restos that pioneered the entire fusion movement in the Philippines years ago, it had to be good, right?
We were not disappointed. We began with orders of the famous Pork Barbeque (PhP197) and Boneless Chicken Barbeque (PhP209). Served with Java rice, atchara, and the all-important Java sauce, both dishes were perfectly cooked and seasoned. The taste was reminiscent of Aristocrat restaurant—and it should be. Alex Reyes III, for whom the resto is named, is a third-generation member of the Reyes family, and former president of the company that owns Aristocrat.
Fully satisfied by the Filipino side, we tried the Japanese potion of the menu, beginning with the 7-Course Japanese Dinner Set (PhP475). With grilled salmon as the star, the set came with miso-tofu soup, Japanese crab salad, two pieces of black tiger prawn tempura, Japanese fried rice, California maki, and tuna sashimi.
The appetizers were fresh; the soup was rich and flavorful; and the salad was a revelation (crabmeat on a bed of mixed greens and cucumbers, with nori strips and tobiko). The salmon was moist (unlike at other restos that end up drying out the fish), and the tempura was so good that, although the servings were more than generous, we still wanted more, ending up ordering the Black Tiger Prawn Tempura Set (PhP365) as well. (Happily, it came with more miso-tofu soup and Japanese rice!)
One of our big discoveries was a light brown sauce that came with the dinner sets. None of us could identify the delicious sauce that everyone wanted to dip their food into. Finally, after mustering enough courage, we asked and found out that it was Sesame Sauce—made with sesame oil and other secret ingredients. (Of course, they wouldn’t divulge the recipe!) But when you go there, make sure you have it—lots of it.
One of my friends had the Wagyu Teppanyaki Dinner Set (PhP469), which came with sautéed bean sprouts, miso-tofu soup, Japanese fried rice, and either coffee or ice cream. Wagyu, famous for its melt-in-your-mouth quality, is being offered in increasingly more restos around town, as supplies of locally-bred Wagyu beef grow. But Alex III’s version caught us by happy surprise—it tasted (and melted in our mouths) like the real deal. When I asked Norman Cruz, Alex III’s VP for Finance, to sit with us, he confirmed my suspicion. “We import our Wagyu direct from Japan,” he told us with a smile.
After we told him how much we enjoyed his resto’s food, Cruz told us that soon, the resto will be offering its sauces and marinades for sale, in powdered form. My mind filled with thoughts of home-cooked Java Rice (courtesy of the Java sauce) and barbequed chicken (with their honey marinade). I just hope that the secret Sesame Sauce is also offered!
With its generous servings, accessible price points, and wide range of great-tasting selections, Alex III is the perfect restaurant for everything from family dinners to celebrations to business meetings. Apart from the food, the resto has a wonderful, relaxed, yet classy ambiance—because everyone is there to enjoy great food and company.
Alex III branches
(Dean Francis Alfar has won many writing awards and been published nationally and internationally. He is a leading advocate of the speculative fiction movement on the Philippine literary scene.)
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