It was an unusual Valentine’s because it shared the same day as Ash Wednesday. I was just one of the many who were walking around with ashes on their foreheads while spending the night out.
Days before Valentine’s, Gep and I agreed to try out Kitchen 1B on the 14th. Kitchen 1B is located at Legaspi Village, Makati, a 10-minute walk from Greenbelt 1. The interior was both classy and cozy.
“Gusto mo mag-wine?” Gep asked, we both snorted at ourselves for trying hard to be sosyal for tonight. We’re not fans of wine but we’d always say yes to sparkling wine. Since Kitchen 1B’s sparkling wines were sold by the bottle, we had fruit juices instead.
We had the Salmon Cakes (P420) as our starter. The cakes were made of deep fried ground salmon, seasoned well and cooked just right. It tasted best with the turmeric aioli on the side. The dish also came with mixed greens dressed with vinaigrette.
Garlic Shrimp Pasta (P580) was the pasta we both chose. I was expecting it to taste like the usual oil-based seafood pasta but this was different. There was a generous mix of capers and cherry tomatoes and the shrimp was so flavorful that we had to confirm if they had used bagoong (shrimp paste) in the pasta. It came with two whole-wheat bread slices which was so organic that I had a hard time chewing because it was so hard. Haha!
Our main dish was the Grilled Mango BBQ Chicken (P530). I like my food a little extra salty so I found the chicken quite dull. ‘Maybe because it was organic?’ I thought. It was as if the waiters knew my preference, they had offered salt and pepper as soon as I took the first bite. It had mango puree at the side and some broccoli and cauliflower.
For the plating, I’d give them my two thumbs up. My two big toes are up too because of their cute placemat! It was a map of Makati which low-key promotes their other restaurants like Pablo, Apartment 1B, and Cartel. Really clever.
We had a fancy time at Kitchen 1B and there are a lot of other items in their menu I’d like to try. The staff was also very attentive and I forgot to mention, they have this call button on each table where you can ask for the bill, call of the waiter or something, it was cool! I heard Pablo’s good too so I’d give it a visit some time.
End!
