Monday, July 13, 2015

RUB Ribs and BBQ at Roces Ave and Kiddie Shoe shopping in Cubao Shoe Expo and Ali Mall

Jun 28 2015. Around 12 noon, I wanted to go out with Thirdy since he just came back from Antipolo last night.

While Tita Fe was still taking a bath, Chea, Thirdy and I went to SM Novaliches to pay some bills. I queued at the payment center and Chea and Thirdy looked around for a new pair of shoes since Thirdy's outgrowing his last pair.

I also bought 12 pieces of blu ray discs at CDRKing to backup some of my files to free up some hard disc space. At 20-25gb storage per disc, that's potentially 240gb of freed up space. 'Potentially' since optical discs bought at CDRKing are a hit or miss. They either burn successfully or fail. But it's hard not to be tempted with a 25pesos/disc price as compared to a branded disc at a computer store which costs at least 100 pesos. So I'm taking my chances.

After buying the discs, Chea and Thirdy met up with me and drove back home to pick up Tita Fe. Since it was already almost 2pm, we decided to have lunch.

We headed off to RUB at Roces Avenue. We tried going there before but parking was always full, so Chea thought about trying it again since it's way past lunch that it could probably be empty already.

Ribs and BBQ. Mmmmm.


By the time we got there, there was a lone available parking space fronting Papemelroti.

RUB here used to be Chocolate Kisses cafe, but as Chea once narrated it to me, they often got robbed, so it's likely they've decided to close their branch here.

The menu

I didn't know what the fuss is all about since this place is always packed whenever we passed by. When we got inside and I got a menu, I realized why. The menus are just around the right price. Quite a few of them cost less than 200 pesos, so for me, that's pretty good.

220 for ribs with rice and a side dish


As I said earlier, there was only one parking space left, but inside it was less than half full. The place can easily sit 50 people. And since the place is barely accessible via public transport, most of the patrons probably comes in private cars. No wonder parking here is always packed. Imagine groups totaling 50 people coming in with their own cars.

We got a corner table with a couch. There's a few tables with couches lining a wall, while the rest of the tables are paired with chairs. My complaint about the chairs are the feet are iron or steel, and they do not have padding. So when the people shift or drag their chairs, it becomes irritating to the ears.

View from our corner table 


The place looks clean and very roomy, with the counter and kitchen off to one side. The floor I think are vinyl tiles made to look like planks of wood. There are a few posters in frames around the wall, and on top of the serving counter, there're menus scribbled with chalk.

Thirdy playing around with a tic tac toe toy we got from Jollibee


Since the food looks justifiably priced, I asked Chea that we have separate orders. Usually when things are expensive, Chea and I just share especially if the servings are large.

The place is full of posters

I coaxed Chea to order the Raki's BBQ Ribs Single (220 pesos), while i ordered the Rub Beef (310 pesos) and then we ordered the Fried Chicken (260 pesos)  for Tita Fe and Thirdy. We also ordered a pitcher of Iced Tea (120 pesos)

Looks small but we managed to get a few glasses for each of us

The iced tea came first, then it was just a short wait of around 10 minutes for the food.

Larger than bite sized slices


When I was served the Rubbed beef, it came in a large plate. The beef was actually large but they cut it into smaller (but still larger than bite sizes pieces), along with a decent sized serving of vegetables and 4 bigger than usual slices of toasted bread. I don't think I could finish all of it even if I was hungry.

Ribs!

Chea got a good sized ribs serving. I think it's good enough for an average person especially if you're hungry.

The chicken's pretty huge in person

The chicken was humongous. I didn't notice that the menu actually said it was really half a chicken.

Now for the taste test.

The beef was pretty good. You can taste the herbs on the beef. Aside from the herbs, it's salty too. The meat was just the right amount of softness. The sauce/dip had a good amount of chunkiness in it, so I couldn't help not to dunk the toasted bread in them. The toast, while shaped like a sliced baguette, was actually crispy like toasted white bread. Unlike the common baguette you get to buy and are tough and chewy. The vegetables were pretty ok, but I didn't get to eat more than a few carrot sticks as I got full from eating Chea's rice off her plate.

Chea's order came with a side dish and a serving of rice. We shared the rice since the serving was pretty big as well. She chose mashed potatos as her side dish. The mash potato was thick and chunky. The skin was still in there too. And the serving was pretty big. The ribs was slathered with the sauce. The meat easily separates from the bone, but tastes plain once you get past the sauce.

I think the winner goes to the Chicken. It's pretty big, like I said, half a chicken. It's lightly glazed with honey I think. Or is it lemon? I didn't bother to taste since i just went for the chicken itself. The breading is very crispy, but it tastes pretty good that you don't realize that you're just eating breading. It doesn't taste like your typical breaded fried chicken. And the gravy tasted pretty good too. It's lightly colored and doesn't taste like your regular gravy. Chea asked what it's called and we were told that it's called white gravy (although it looks almost beige).

We all enjoyed eating from Thirdy's chicken (he didn't mind), that we barely ate our own meals. Chea took a slice of beef from my food, while I took about 3 slices, and there were a lot more left. Chea only managed to eat half of her ribs. So we ended up finishing the Chicken dish, and took the rest of the beef and ribs home.

Our total bill was about 965 pesos, and with a senior discount, it came to about 890 pesos. It's really nice to have a senior with us when eating outside. They could usually share their meal with Thirdy and still get a discount. Yey for all the seniors!

After that, we wanted to shop for Thirdy's shoes. Chea thought of going to Robinson's Magnolia, but I wasn't in the mood to go there.

Parking's always full

I asked that we look at Cubao Expo in Araneta Center. Unfortunately, most of the shoe stores there were gone. There's about only 4 left, with the rest of the stores now being restaurants, vintage shops or art shops.

The place is a really nice quiet place to hangout during the afternoon
Some of the establishments

Thirdy walking around clutching a transformer toy and his mom

We then went to Ali Mall to see if there're kid stores there since when my dad and I went there a few days back to buy some airplane tickets some of the stores were on sale.

Again, unfortunately, there are no retail stores there for kids (from what we've seen). There's this big shop kind of like their department store section for shoes, but they mostly catered only to adults. So I guess, if you're shopping with your kids, don't bother with Ali Mall.

Since it was getting late and we were tired, we decided to head home and call it a day.

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