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The first Sango I’ve ever been to was in Makati Cinema Square. To my knowledge, that is the original. I thought it would also remain to be the only branch forever and ever. Well, just recently, Sango opened up a few branches near me. One is in Rockwell and another is in Edsa Shangri-La mall; I live right smack in the middle of these two. The branch I frequent is Shangri-La’s.

Though nothing beats the taste and cozy atmosphere of the original Sango (in Makati Cinema Square), Shangri-La’s much smaller restaurant is far from being a disappointment. It’s the kind of place you go to when you are in a hurry…like when we were about to line up for the Eiga Sai 2010 (Japanese film festival) last Friday. Gosh, who would’ve thought that people would be so interested in Japanese indie films that the queue would be that long?? (Will write about Eiga Sai in a separate post. Promise.) We needed to race against other people and Sango served to be the perfect quick bite.

Sango is most popular for their rice burgers. I suspect these burgers are the ones that McDonald’s tried to copy, though that venture ended in utter failure. Anyway, here’s a poster of one of their bestsellers:

They also have burgers with regular patties and vegetables sandwiched by a bread bun. This one looks like it could kill my arteries, although it’s significantly lighter (and a tad more expensive) than what you’d be getting in other fast food chains.

My ultimate favorite — I never order anything else — is the Kimpira Rice burger. You just gotta love the chewy texture of the kimpira vegetables and how they mesh well with Japanese rice. I always pair that up with cold green tea. Yum. They also have interesting desserts but my sister Alex already dove into hers before I could take a decent photo.

Oh, a word of warning, though: Eating one of these can get messy…so that huge paper wrapper actually has a function. You can use it to keep your dignity intact cover your face while you devour the entire thing.

And for the final Japanese experience, a member of a J-Pop boy band sat with us.

Just kidding!!! That’s actually my sister’s boyfriend, Paolo.