Dining | Inihaw Express - SM Muntinlupa
Budget meal in a well known mall? Yes there is one and its Inihaw Express. For only Php99, you can have a combo meal complete with rice, meat and vegetable.
While on an errand at the SM Muntinlupa, this writer got hungry. Amidst the well known fast food brands, I remembered that there is a small food court located at the second floor of this mall. The food court suffered a lot after they transferred the supermarket to the ground floor. The once heavy foot traffic was now gone. People simply stayed on the ground floor and they don't go up to the food court. With less people dining in, you can see that some of the food stalls are now empty or changed to retail shops and with a handful of restaurants left to feed the hungry shoppers.
Such a case happened and I was hungry. So I chose to eat at the food court. There were a few restaurants left and we settled with Inihaw Express. Not that we know they have great tasting food, but simply they had the least expensive meal available. We got to try it out, to check if a Php99 meal can fully satisfy one hungry blogger such as myself.
As noted by the lackluster foot traffic, Inihaw Express had a few dishes offered. I was left to choose bopis and noodles. I should have chosen one vegetable dish but what they were offering did not suit my taste. Good thing they have pansit as an alternative to the vegetable dish option.
Service wise, the food was served fast. First, its a food court, so they should deliver as fast as they can. Second, too fast in delivery meant using a microwave to heat both food and rice. Rice? microwaved? this just means that with slow sales, rice wasn't sold right away and it went cold. I really hate microwaved rice. For the dishes I can accept, but not rice. In other food courts, presence of microwave ovens are fine with me. Usually its just the dishes that they use it for but for this branch, it wasn't limited to just that.
Serving wise was nice. I had a big cup of rice. My bopis was sadly a few scoops of meat. Check out the picture herein. Now they compensated me with a big serving of pansit. Don't ask for free soup, as they don't have it. If my memory serves me right, other branches do offer, however this one doesn't. So don't bother asking.
Taste wise? I still ask that question until now. The rice was microwaved, I don't like the taste of this. Rice becomes bland and not sweet for me. Maybe its just me but I do hope you are unlike my taste buds. Bopis was stale even if microwaved. What saved this dish was the introduction of chili's which gave the oomph. But I don't like spicy foods so I was still looking for the taste of the bopis. I like bopis honestly, but this one didn't fit me to a T. To add to my bad experience, the bopis was greasy. Yes it should be greasy, but if you have great flavors to it, you can forgive the dish. This was simply a bit spicy dish that's greasy. The pansit was the same. Microwaved noodles do not heat completely so you will get some parts cold and soggy pansit. Taste was from soy sauce and not much else. I begin to entertain the thought how long the pansit was being served in this branch.
I have eaten in other Inihaw Express branches and I had great experiences with them that's another reason I chose this (in addition to the price) restaurant. Sadly, I think they just made the dishes relative to the less foot traffic they are getting in this food court. I can't blame them as this area of the mall is slowly dying. I won't be surprised if one day they would simply close shop.
We will check with other branches if the Php99 meal is also offered and we will see if our review on their food would improve. If you have visited their other branches, send us an email at submit.katooga@gmail.com and narrate to us your dining story with them.
ps. I hope SM Management of SM Muntinlupa can resurrect the food court.
