Food Event: Bar-B-King and Bibingkinitan

Yesterday I was invited for a Food Bloggers event for Bar-B-King and Bibingkinitan at SM Megamall Ortigas. I was ecstatic because, I love Bar-B-King’s newly improved sweet barbeque which we first tried at SM Makati Food Court a few months ago. You can check out my review about Bar-B-King here and here.

I was the first one to arrive at the Bar-B-King restaurant and Ms. Magie (Marketing Manager of Food Asia) was already there preparing the place. Arriving early gives you an advantage of being able to take photos of the restaurant without competing with other people. I had the privilege of taking photos and the staff were very accommodating.

We were lucky to have tried their newly launched Angus Beef Belly from Bar-B-King and the Iced Barako Coffee from Bibingkinitan.  Before I babble further about the event let me give you a brief introduction about the two food chains from Food Asia.

There are already a lot of Barbecue houses all over the metro, so what makes Bar-B-King different among others?

Well, basically Bar-B-King is a Fast Food Barbecue House where they offer charcoal-grilled barbecues like pork, liempo, beef, steaks, pork chops, sea foods and veggies. Like other barbecue houses, they also offer unlimited rice and soup. According to Marketing Manager, Ms. Salvador said “the soup served everyday is Tinola”. Among other things, they came up with the new Angus Beef Belly which comes with unlimited rice, soup and gravy called “Au Jus Gravy” with a free 12 oz. drink only for P150.

When we were all served we noticed that there were some plates that had big portions of meat while others had medium sized portions.  It was kind of weird but Operations Manager said that the meats are weighed according to size. Personally, I think this is what sets Bar-B-King apart from other barbecue houses. Their new food product reminds me of RACK’s barbecue ribs, only Bar-B-King’ Angus Belly has fatty parts. Well, the belly has the fatty part which makes it the best part because the meat is soft and the fat gives extra flavor in the meat. Some bloggers were criticizing the meat for being too fatty, but for me personally it’s common sense since it’s the belly part that they are serving, which obviously is a fatty part.

Their Angus meat is USDA certified, baked-then-grilled which makes the meat almost a melt in your mouth experience.

Bar-B-King is 100% wholly owned and operated by FoodAsia Corp and now has five branches in SM Makati, SM Megamall, SM Rosario, SM Dasmariñas and SM Olongapo. The branch is SM Megamall is very cozy and cold, unfortunately they are not WiFi capable.  Currently they are now also venturing into Franchising.

Bibingkinitan

Was established in 2006 and had evolved from a brand-new player in this category into the market leader within five years in the market, with a store network of over 200 in key cities and towns nationwide.

It’spopularized by its variety of soft and moist bibingka (rice cake) and 100% Barako (Philippine Liberica) Coffee, which is characterized by its full and strong flavor. Their newest product is called “Iced Barako” – cool strong barako coffee with a twist. Freshly brewed and perfectly blended with a creamy taste for only P45. It’s very creamy and a little sweet that fits the Pinoy “taste”. I am definitely going back for more of their Iced Barako Coffee which I enjoyed a lot!

Now on to the photos…

Early Bird registrant

I was offered Pepsi products for me to drink while waiting for other food bloggers.

Customer’s food

Freebie

When all the bloggers arrived we were finally able to start and Ms. Magie gave the opening remarks. The General Manager and Operations Manager was there too, to give a brief introduction of how Bar-B-King started.

        Marketing Manger – Ms. Magie, General Manager (middle) and Operations Manager (wearing a tangerine blouse)

Bloggers I met…

The lady wearing white shorts is Khristina of konyonessinthecity seated with other fellow food bloggers

I was lucky to be seated with mommy blogger Joy of gastronomyjoy.com and the well known food blogger Sumi of purpledoll.net. They were both very friendly and very warm.

  

                       Sumi with her food blogger friend Stacy of Tsinoy Foodies

Other food bloggers

The lady holding a camera is Kai from Brew Of The Day and Genn from MISSGENND

The lady at the far back along with his brother are both familiar bloggers to me, especially the lady with the glasses. I‘ve read her blog a few times already which I enjoy reading. I wasn’t able to get her name, or if I did, I forgot (apologies). I was actually a little shy to give her my calling card. The lady in front is Aylin (bubblyfluffy) whom I invited through Pinoy Bloggers Facebook page. Thank you for coming Aylin! She actually won a raffle prize, yey!

On to the food

My thoughts about it?

Taste:

The rice is not JAVA rice, it’s called something else. It has a very subtle flavor which is just right because the Angus has enough flavor that compliments the rice. I noticed that there were some herbs used upon grilling the meat. I like the flavors and I think is a hit to Pinoy taste.

Personally, I love the sweet barbecue sauce and I was thinking what if they use that sauce instead to marinate the Angus Belly? The Au Jus gravy was just right, nothing fancy or different about it.

Some people prefer dipping the Angus in toyomansi (soysauce with kalamansi), I will try that next time to compare which dip goes better with the Angus.

Price:

For P150 that comes with unlimited rice (of the same kind) and soup, you are getting your money’s worth.

Next, they served us their Iced Barako and dessert, what else? But a box of bibingkinitan’s.

The cream used may be a bit creamy and too sweet but I loved it to bits. I was able to try Mcdonald’s Ice Coffee and I prefer Bibingkinitan’s.

The bibingkinitan’s are best eaten on the same day or the next only. I love that it has banana leaves to separate each of them. It also gives an added smoky flavor too. I was too full to even consume dessert so I asked to have it wrapped instead.

There were 3 winners for the raffle, but for those who didn’t win we we’re still given something to take home to. When I was about to leave, Ms. Magie said that she wanted to give me something and I was wondering what could it be? She thanked me for coming and handed me an extra envelope for being the early bird. Thank you Magie 🙂

My dear sister posing with her Bibingkinitan, LOL!

The event was fun as I had the opportunity to meet with other food bloggers. Thank you again to Magie for inviting me too.

Bar-B-King can be found at the basement level of SM Megamall (near Timezone)

🙂