Review: Pizza Nero

After a big meeting on our upcoming sex education lecture for high school students last night, I approached Lennie Chua and Elizabeth Ching, "Let's eat dinner."

They asked me where.

"Where our feet will take us," I answered, to which they excitedly said, "Let's go."

Eventually Lee-Ann Caro, Krushna Canlas, Margie Bocaya, and Casti Castillo joined us. Unfortunately some friends weren't able to make it—they either just wanted to rest or they had romantic dates lined up for the evening. Mostly the latter.

That's the joy of having time to spare, I guess, a thought made alien to us by the jampacked schedule and unavoidable stresses of medical school. But now that we're on our radiology rotation—something we cherish because, for once, we're taking a two-week break from actually seeing and examining real patients, limiting ourselves to a cold room viewing X-ray or CT plates—we have time, quality time, to go out and explore the streets of Manila.

We decided we didn't want to eat at Robinson's Mall, so we aimlessly roamed around the periphery. We took a turn to Adriatico Street and spotted a Korean restaurant. The waiter was about to reserve a table for us, until we decided the price was too prohibitive for, uhm, student allowance standards. (Note that we have a couple more restaurants to visit this week, and we didn't want to splurge immediately.)

Lennie had an idea, "Café Pizza Nero. It's along Adriatico corner Padre Faura Streets." She said the sisig was amazing. We immediately said yes.

The place was an unassuming inuman venue. There was no airconditioning. The air was humid. And the music was blaring that we had to shout to be heard. Around us people were drinking, some were smoking. But we were told the food was good, so we stayed anyway.



Here's the Sizzling Mixed Barbecue (Php 135) Lee-Ann and I ordered. All meal orders, with a few exceptions, are good for two people, so it'd be prudent to share them. Ours didn't come with rice, so we had to order that, too, for Php 15 a cup. It tasted great: spicy and sweet at the same time. I liked munching on the onions, too. This turned out to be the best meal of the night.



Others ordered this sizzling plate of hotdog slices, mixed with spices and vegetables. Tasted great, too.



I tried the chicken sisig Lennie had recommended. It was delicious, but it wasn't as spectacular as I thought it would be.

The place is also famous for its pizza and pasta, which I'd like to try one of these days.

All in all, it was a great meal. Price range: around Php100 - 200.





Also, you may opt not to come in school uniform.