I was supposed to continue my Manila retrospective this week, but the
fact is that my week didn’t really give me much time to write. I was
simultaneously busy with work, busy meeting with friends, and then I had to
deal with a flu, so by the end of the week – which was yesterday – I was
bone-dry tired. I’d come from an afternoon out with family, and basically fell
into my bed by the time I got back home. Slept for around nine hours, and it
was glorious.
But since I’m already here and writing, I’d like to talk about one of
the places I’ve been frequenting for the past few weeks. This would be the Oarhouse in Malate, a friendly
neighborhood pub that would be the closest equivalent of Cheers in Manila.
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| Street view of the Oarhouse. Taken from their site. |
This place has been around for a fairly long time – if their claim is
accurate, it’s been around since 1977. My
father used to say that the bar was originally in Mabini street, but the
current iteration of Oarhouse is snugly situated near the corner of Jorge Bocobo
and General Malvar streets. The entrance is unassuming, just a door with a
picture window beside it, and the name of the pub displayed in metal letters on
the overhang.
The current owner, Ben Razon, did a good job of continuing the pub, and
you can see that the man is loved by his patrons. On slow nights, you can see
him hanging out with whoever is at the bar – it doesn’t matter who it was, Sir
Ben always has an ear ready for anybody. I remember when I first hung out at
Oarhouse, I was a bit hesitant to approach the man when the bartenders pointed
him out to me.
After a couple of beers though, I had enough liquid courage to go up to
him and introduce myself. The man was very pleasant and easy to talk to, and
every time I would walk into the pub, he would give me a slight nod as a
welcome. And I wasn’t even one of the regular patrons of the place!
My usual routine upon entering the place: walk up to a bar, order a
couple bottles of beer, one order of fried chicken necks, and a side of garlic
rice. See, their menu is fairly small, but I swear, whoever does the cooking is
really something else. At multiple occasions, I’ve tried their fries, sisig, beef
salpicao, and their buffalo wings. Their chicken necks are my favorite, since I’m
terribly partial to chicken necks, really, but the food is really, really good.
I’ve yet to try their heavy hitters – they have ribs, steak, and other
amazing, tantalizing stuff on the menu – but I’ll work my way up to them
someday, when I’m done enjoying the chicken necks.
If I had to name just one thing the Oarhouse has going for it, though,
it’s the fact that it sells some of the coldest beers in Manila. In fact, some
of the regular patrons prefer heading down to this pub over some of the other
bars in the area – and Malate is home to a
lot of these pubs – just because of the beer.
See, in Manila, the coldest beers are king. There’s always something
special about a place that serves nice cold beer, and there aren’t many of
them. Which is funny, considering that Manila is such a tepid place, and you’d
imagine that an establishment making money out of serving drinks would want to
make sure that people keep coming back to their establishment because their
drinks are good. The Oarhouse,
however, makes sure that they have cold beers at the ready – and because of
this, I have nothing but unconditional love for this place.