Teppan Okochi by Mangetsu Osaka aims to have an authentic Japanese fine dining restaurant in the Philippines where customers can enjoy Japanese quality dishes cooked on a Teppan or Iron Plate combined with carefully selected Napa Valley Wines, premium Japanese Sake, and Japanese Whisky.

I was lucky enough to have been invited by Cyrene dela Rosa of ChowBuzz to join her for lunch in this fairly new establishment. We were greeted by none other but Grand Chef, chef Akihiro Okochi as he starts to prepare our meals in the main Teppan station.

For our lunch, we were treated with a Japanese style degustation that highlights the restaurant’s specialties.

Lunch started with a series of appetizers which included Gyu Tatake or seared Beef, Tako Wasabi or Octopus in Wasabi, Negi Tamago, Tori Karaage, Daikon Oshingko or Pickled Daikon Radish, and Teppan cooked Oysters.

Personally, I liked the Oysters here the most, followed by the Gyu Tatake. To be clear, everything we had at this point is really good, but the restaurant takes pride in serving really good seafood dishes.

A classic Caesar Salad came next, made even better with thick cuts of lardons cooked on the teppan.

Hiroshima Scallops, and Olive Oil cooked Jumbo Prawns, cooked on the teppan was served as our starting main course.

As I’ve mentioned earlier, this restaurant really prides in serving the best seafood they can source. These two dishes just made me speechless, and I was blown away with how well executed these are.

Our next seafood course was this King Crab flown all the way from Japan. The sweetness of the meat is just captivating. Of all the dishes we had, this for me was cooked with the utmost simplicity to best highlight the delicate flavor of the crab.

Our meat course was this Wagyu steak, cooked perfectly medium rare and was served wtih vegetables. Do try this with the chef’s own blend of smoked salt or steak sauce. Personally, I prefer it as is… But it is also goes really well with the smoked salt.

Our last main dish was Unajyu, and may I just say… this is by far the best Unajyu I had in Manila. They source their eel locally, and prepare the dish in the traditional manner in store.

For dessert we had traditional Japanese sweets, as we were told, their desserts change every 2 months (3 kinds every cycle), in total they have 18.

To top it off, they also have seasonal Japanese fruits, which is very hard to find in Manila.

From what I’ve tried, I highly recommend this restaurant for Japanese food aficionado. Do try their Japanese set meals (photos posted above) to get a feel of what the offer (and generally lunch specials are quite cheaper than dinner).

Teppan Okochi by Mangetsu Osaka

Ground Floor, Ore Central Building 9th Avenue Cor 31st St., Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City, Metro Manila

Contact Number: (02) 813 0051

Stay hungry,

thehungrychef

Nathaniel Uy