MENU: Kublai's Rock

MENU
The urban warrior's restaurant

By Margaux Salcedo
Inquirer
Last updated 08:43am (Mla time) 07/15/2007

MANILA, Philippines -- Kublai Khan was the last of the Great Khans of the Mongolian Empire and founder of the Chinese Yuan Dynasty. In his thirties, he became governor of the southern territories of the Mongol Empire. In his forties, he battled his brother for the title of Great Khan and eventually won. In his sixties, he conquered China's Song Dynasty and created the Yuan Dynasty. Obviously, he led many armies, and tales have it that the drive and dedication of his Mongolian warriors were so strong that to survive, they learned to prepare their meals by simply cooking their hunt over fire, using only their swords and overturned shields as cooking implements.

I share this because I thought that was how Mongolian barbecue was born. I had pictured big, brawny men in sheepskin clothing, holding deer by the horns, then chopping these into bite-size pieces and barbecuing them to get through winter and the war.

I was wrong.

Apparently Mongolian barbecue isn't even Mongolian! (In fact, as any pedestrian would notice, it isn't even barbecue.) Just like French fries aren't French, the Mongolian barbecue is, hold your breath for this, Taiwanese! In fact, the made-in-Taiwan stir-fried carnivore chopsuey was inspired by the Japanese-style teppanyaki and became popular in the '80s. Except that the restaurants that used this concept of cooking also used Mongolian names like Genghis Khan or Ogodei, which was probably why the dish came to be known as Mongolian barbecue.

Enticed by its huge signs advertising eat-all-you-can Mongolian barbecue and its tongue-in-cheek announcements on the menu that some items are “still in Mongolia,” I stepped into Kublai’s Rock in Magallanes with my penchant for cultural exploration fully stirred as I braced myself for a “Mongolian” experience. Well, as it turned out, it was a cultural experience independent of state identity as it wasn’t Mongolian at all!

For a start, replace the concept of skewered meats with a heaping bowl of noodles, veggies, rice, and thinly sliced meats, which are then stir-fried on an iron griddle with various sauces for flavoring. This is the main attraction at Kublai's Rock, where you can endlessly refill your Mongolian barbecue bowl for P349. You will then have the choice of appreciating your made-in-Taiwan Mongol bowl, either with very spicy flavoring, a low sodium mix, a Mongol flavor (which the restaurant simply translates to “mildly spicy”) or a sweet and sour take. What makes the Kublai spread special, though, is that the Mongolian barbecue selection goes the extra mile. The restaurant does not limit itself to your usual pork, chicken and beef, but extends the choices to include fancy fare such as oysters.

The truth, though, is that I did not visit Kublai's Rock for the Mongolian Barbecue, although I did enjoy the bowl. That was a plus. I had come across a blog article on the country's best burgers at tableforthreeplease.blogspot.com which featured the Kublai's Rock Barbarian Burger. Table guest Christine of Ramblings of a Gypsy Soul ( http://gypsysoul73. blogspot.com/) had written about Kublai's burger with such gusto that I trekked to southern Makati to check it out myself. The verdict: it was worth the trip. There is no doubt about the sexuality of this burger: it is all man. I mean, it's what a dude would eat if he was hungry. It would be too huge a serving for a woman, I think, unless you're one of those females who can eat like a horse, in which case the restaurant offers The Barbarian's Wife, a petite version of her hubby minus the bacon belt. A fine man, I would call the burger The Warrior instead of The Barbarian as it is dressed quite excessively with cheese and sided with onion rings and fries, plus a thin slice of bacon that circles the beef. But, dressed or not, the bottomline is it's a pretty damn good burger. It is no Kobe beef burger, for sure, but this pure beef quarter pounder is in fact slightly larger and tastier than a Big Brothers' Burger, which I had to order the next day to refresh my carnivore memory. A pretty impressive feat, considering that Brothers has gained a street rep as the burger of choice for many a Pinoy burger connoisseur. Don't mix in the accompanying mayonnaise right away, though, I found it to taste better without.

Another manly order is The Royal Ribs. It really is simply sweet and sour pork spare ribs, but the serving is generous and, true to its menu description, the ribs are “not-so-spare.” A bite of the pork makes me remember Time Magazine's Summer Journey Special Issue entitled We Are What We Eat, where the thesis is made that we may be embracing fusion “at the expense of the erosion of our cultures.” It could be true: before me was an American favorite, spare ribs, but it was bathed not in chili peppers and barbecue sauce but in the more Chinese-oriented sweet and sour sauce, and paired not with potatoes but with the Asian staple, rice. Mongolian? No. American? Not quite. Filipino? Maybe. Pinoy by way of Magallanes in the globalized world.

Kublai's Rock is the urban gentleman's neighborhood resto-bar, with its black walls, huge flat screen that is set to ESPN, dim lights, placemats that playfully unite the history of the Mongol Empire with pop culture, eat-all-you-can Mongolian barbecue, and a meat-laden menu. Although it may be disappointing that there are menu items that are “still in Mongolia,” your heart will grow fonder of the items that are here, beginning with the not-quite-Mongolian Barbecue.

Kublai's Rock. 6/F Oakbridge Building, Paseo de Magallanes. Tel. 851-6086. Hours: 11.30 a.m. to 2 p.m. daily.; 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. Sun. to Tues.; 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. Wed. to Sat. Credit cards: Visa and Mastercard. Reservations: None required. Events: Rocking Wednesdays (rock music) and Saturday White Nights (house). Ambiance: Relaxed casual.