Out of nowhere, indeed
I GAVE the right directions, but Imee panicked upon seeing rows of bodegas and thus, we took a wrong turn. Lesson for the night: Just follow the directions and do not be distracted by the sight of warehouses.
Out of Nowhere Kitchen (OONK), which is gathering a good number of habitues despite its unusual location is easy to spot, if you will only not give in to panic.
Take the Mamay Road (Damosa) from J.P. Laurel Avenue. Drive on until you see the HB1 sign on the left. The road going to OONK is the first road to the right after the HB1 sign. Just to make sure that you are on the right road, there is an AUB branch right at the corner.
Do not be like Imee, do not panic upon seeing nothing but warehouses, just drive on, because sooner than not you will see a sign showing you where to park. But if you don't have a car and are just taking a stroll or riding a taxi, do not go that way yet, go a little farther, maybe ten meters more, there you will see the restaurant.
The restaurant offers just enough choices for pasta, meat and seafood viands, desserts, and drinks. Best of all, they have wine whose prices aren't jacked up three or four times as many restaurants offering wine do in this part of the world.
We got the mushroom pasta with smoked salmon (P250) because we like salmon. We also got the Caribbean Style grilled boneless chicken thigh (P180), the seared trio maki (P230), and spicy shrimp somboon (P320).
The pasta, however, was smaller than we thought, and so we ordered one more, the grilled beef ribs (P270). For drinks, we got a bottle of cabernet sauvignon (P630).
The chicken was chewy (still a bit raw), we had to return it. The lady just took it back then returned as we were halfway through the meal bringing a newly grilled one that, fortunately, was already well grilled. With chicken, you just can never let even a little bit of rawness pass. But having our chicken replaced instead of just being done over again is well appreciated.
Next time, I'd request that the chicken we well-done as the Caribbean style smothers it in salsa verde, you can't get a good look of the meat. The salsa verde is good though.
The somboon tastes like the somboon chili crab she gets in Bangkok, Imee said, except that here it's shrimps. The pasta was great, too, although as mentioned, the serving was a tad too small (bitin!). The grilled beef was slide off the bone tender, but will require a lot of rice to finish.
The trio maki was good (without the sauce), but is a bit too big for one bite, and yes, I still prefer the grand old soy sauce with wasabi for my maki. I wish they had that option.
Overall, it's worth going out of nowhere and from the crowd inside last Wednesday evening, many others found it worth going as well.