Pizza and Pasta Lunch with the Family at Joey Pepperoni Pizzeria

Wazzup Pilipinas!
Pizza has always been a favorite comfort food for me. It's the only meal I would never get tired of eating at any time of the day. As my breakfast, lunch, snack, or dinner, it never fails to please me.

This goes the same with my family who appreciates good food just like me. We are all adventurous when it comes to food but when we need to be sure to get value for our money, we order pizza as the number one choice next to the specialty of the restaurant.

Yeah, we always make it a point to ask for the waiter's recommendation, but would always squeeze in an order of pizza when it's available in the menu.

Thus, our visit to Joey Pepperoni Pizzeria, or Joey Pep for short, needs no more exaggeration. Needless to say, we enjoyed every minute of it. But since they served us more than their specialty, we had to make room for the rest of the dishes.

I made no advance research about Joey Pep except looking for the exact location of the restaurant since I don't want my opinions to be biased with the online reviews of others. That has always been my style so I could write my own thoughts about the food. But I am happy to say that the establishment passed with high scores at all aspects.

The Joey Pep branch that we visited is located at the Ground Floor of RFM Corporate Center, Pioneer St. in Mandaluyong City, but they have another branch at the Ground Floor of the South Wing section of SM Mall of Asia (MOA) in Pasay City.

It is owned by one of the most popular and successful businessmen in the Philippines, Joey Concepcion (Jose Ma. A Concepcion III, CEO and President of RFM Corporation), who you most probably also know as the man behind Go Negosyo, an advocacy of the Philippine Center for Entrepreneurship (PCE), a non-stock, non-profit organization that advocates for a change in mindset and attitude.

Joey Pep offers premium dining experience at non-premium cost. We were informed that several years ago, people usually get intimidated with how classy they looked, this was why most of their customers were the upper class members of society since people thought they were too expensive for the masses.

But they've recently made efforts to reach out to younger people, especially the Millennials, by totally renovating almost everything about them. From how the restaurant's rustic new look, to the changes in their menu, they are on their way to be known again as the pizza place to go. But of course, even after the image-change, they kept their quality and tasty dishes just like how their customers loved them.

Though, I couldn't really compare as this was our first time to try them out, so I have no basis if there were definite improvements or not. The only thing I can assure you is that we enjoyed everything they served from the soup and starters, to the main entree and desserts. There were four of us that day but this is the first time we almost ate all of what's on the table, except for some pizza slices that we eagerly took out with us on our way to a family staycation at a hotel nearby.

Below are the meals we had the privilege to taste at Joey Pep:

Fruit shakes - Dalandan, Mango and Calamansi (Php115)

Naturally, they have drinks to offer, but what I like about them is that they do have fresh fruit shakes or smoothies, unlike other restaurants who only settle for soft drinks since they're easier to manage and stock.

We ordered the different flavors, Dalandan, Mango and Calamansi, and Citrus Brewed Iced Tea as the fourth since they only have three fruit flavors that day. There was no watermelon available, and the iced tea is not the regular iced tea which cost only Php55.

Citrus Brewed Iced Tea (Php75)

Vegetable Soup (Php95)

The tomato-based Vegetable Soup is composed of celery, white beans, carrots, potatoes, basil zucchini and tomato sauce. There's also garlic bread to match.

I liked how they managed to make the soup fairly sweet and the vegetables still crunchy.

House Salad (Php195)

The House Salad is composed of mixed greens, with tomatoes, onions, Parmesan cheese and Balsamic Vinaigrette. You'll enjoy the freshness of each ingredient like it was just harvested at the vegetable garden backyard of the restaurant. We managed to finish all of these even before the first main dish arrived on our table.

Bacon and Shrimp (Php225)

The pasta dishes were both generously sauced. The Bacon and Shrimp, spiced with capellini, tomato sauce, garlic, onion and basil was very satisfactory. I am not a fan of pasta but this has definitely caught my attention.

Sardine Pasta (Php225)

The Sardine Pasta composed of the Spanish-style of cooking variety has linguine added with olive oil, garlic and parsley. I knew I was in love with this because I was trying to eat every piece of sardine left on the plate.

Bianca (Php195 - 8 slices, Php390 - 12 slices)

The Bianca Pizza probably needed more arugula if compared with the photo from the menu, but it still was worth it for its prize. My kids are not so familiar with fresh veggie leaves topped on pizza so they were wondering what they could be. But since their foodies like me, everyone had a slice, and thankful for having it.

Pepperoni Pizza (Php180 - 8 slices, Php370 - 12 slices)

Of course, Joey Pep could not be called by its name it's namesake was not served. The Pepperoni Pizza is still the star of the show as I adore pepperoni as my number one pizza topping. Where else could you find pepperoni as popular as a pizza?

Garlic Fried Chicken (Php215)

The Garlic Fried Chicken and Grilled Pork Chop are their rice meals along with the Rosemary Chicken. The two are priced at Php215 each, while the third is at Php240. Unlike other fast foods, their serving size is more than worth every peso you paid for. This is the first time I've seen mushrooms, plus gravy, as the side dish for rice meals. The chicken breading is also so crispy, yet the chicken meat itself was soft and tender inside. The blackish barbecue sauce covering the pork chop seems to hide the pork chop's beauty but underneath all that sauce is also a tender and tasty treat.

Grilled Pork Chop (Php215)

Dark Chocolate Mousse (Php125)

The Dark Chocolate Mousse is always something to look forward to since you can never go wrong with chocolate. I have never heard anybody declining to eat chocolate. I almost missed tasting this since my kids only left a small portion for me.

Banana Nutella Pizza (Php140)

The Banana Nutella Pizza is their awesome pizza dessert. This is not the first time I've encountered something similar to it but it is very rare to find one among other pizza establishments. For sure, all slices were consumed as fast as you can blink.

If you see them happy here, they were undoubtedly joyous after eating everything except for a few slices of pizza.

We loved everything about Joey Pep so we would like to thank the for inviting us to a lunch treat at their Pioneer branch. We hope to visit your upcoming branches soon as they surely must have plans to open new branches again to reach more customers all over the metro. Of course, we expect them to expand even at the provinces too so more people would get to experience Joey Pep.

Joey Pep opens at 11 am, with either 8 or 9 pm closing time depending on the day. The Pioneer branch is closed on Sundays, and the MOA branch follows mall hours.

Check out more information about them by visiting their official Facebook fan page at https://www.facebook.com/JoeyPepPH

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