Aysee

Each area in Metro Manila has its own default hole-in-the-wall restaurant for quick and fuss-free hundred-Peso eats, cheap rice refills for post-exercise carbo-loads and after-after-parties to wash down insane amounts of alcohol consumed. There's Sinangag Express in the south, Mr. Kabab in QC and Good Earth Roasts in Rockwell. And for us Valle Verde kids, we have Aysee. We've never tried authentic sisig in Pampanga, and our primary basis for comparison would have to be Dencio’s and Gerry's, but in our humble opinion, Aysee's is the best sisig this side of Luzon.

Whoever said that food brings people together must have eaten at Aysee, because this is the one place where you can see people from all walks of life bond over a sizzling plate of sisig, literally. Only here will you see a man in a suit seated on a rusty old chair, between a carpenter and a giant cooler filled with bottles of Red Horse beer. The range of customers at Aysee varies depending on the time of day -- at noon you have yuppies from the nearby Ortigas center, students who snuck out of school for an early happy hour, and blue collar workers looking to stuff their bellies with energy-boosting carbs; and in the evening you'll dine next to badminton players winding down after exercise and middle-aged guys who want beer and sisig while watching the night’s PBA game.

 

Sizzling Sisig = Aysee's Most Famous Dish

Given that Aysee is packed about 90% of the time, it's no surprise that parking is oftentimes a dilemma. If you've watched a UAAP game at Ultra before, you know that parking in this area is anywhere your heart desires and at your own risk. The Valle Verde Boys have already been apprehended by the police, so parking is relatively safe. Besides, if the abovementioned man in the suit isn't afraid to park his BMW in the street, why should the average joe be, right?

Sizzling Mushroom with Cheese

Now you're probably wondering what's so great about Aysee that yuppies are willing to skip a couple hours of work and that rich dudes are willing to break a sweat in the al fresco space for a meal here. It's the sisig, we tell you. And if a sizzilng hot plate has the power to transcend social norms and dismantle economic strata, you can be sure that the sisig here is truly worth it. Sisig, for the uninformed, is a dish from Pampanga made from parts of the pig’s head (i.e. face, ears, etc.) including what’s in it (i.e. brains) and liver. You're probably accustomed to sisig made Dencio or Gerry in a commissary located a hundred kilometers from Manila, so we are telling you now that if you've never tried Aysee, you've been missing out on fresh, homemade, crispy sisig. Unlike the commercial kind, Aysee's sisig is crunchy on the bottom as it is charred by the hot plate, but it is juicy on the top. The meat is chopped so finely that it bears absolutely no trace of its swine origins, and there are no weird textures of the brainy or aural kind. This way, you can enjoy a dish of pig’s face, ears and brain without having to actually chew on solid chunks of them. This may sound totally unappealing and unappetizing, but trust us, Aysee's sisig is, for lack of a better description, really good. Topping off the dish is a freshly cracked egg which briskly cooks as it is mixed into the sizzling sisig. Seeing that some people prefer their sisig sans the egg, Aysee gives their patrons the option to have the dish with or without egg.

Rice, Sisig and Mushroom = Winning Combination

Also delicious but obviously less popular than the sisig is Aysee’s sizzling mushrooms. Button mushrooms swimming in gravy and topped with cheese, all sizzling away in a hot plate, make for a perfect accompaniment to the sisig. When you think about it, this dish is very ordinary, what with the canned mushrooms and fresh-from-the-fridge sliced cheese, but it’s its plainness that makes it a winner. The mushrooms aren’t anywhere near sizzling, the gravy is a bit salty and the cheese is cold, but all these cheap imperfections come together to make a dish that goes perfectly with sisig and rice. All in all, this dish isn’t great, but for some strange reason beyond our comprehension, it’s something we return to Aysee for.

Aysee's Dining Area

Clearly, a restaurant has to have withstood the test of time in order to become the kind of place that people go to by default and with absolutely no hesitation. And judging by the sheer volume and variety of people that go to Aysee regularly, it is no surprise that, over the course of fifteen or so years, it has become the go-to place in Ortigas for sisig. If there’s one time to conform, jump on the bandwagon, and be one with the yuppies, students and carpenters that frequent Aysee, this is it.

A meal at Aysee is around 100 to 150 Pesos per person.

Rating:  3 out of 5 salt & pepper shakers



Address: St. Martin Street, Oranbo, Pasig (across Ultra)
Telephone: 6340443
How to get there: Aysee's Google Map