Tropical Hut Burgers – Review, Monumento branch

Burgers are still my favorite comfort food. And in the past years, I’ve tried variations of this popular American food from different fast food joints and restaurants in my search for the BEST burgers here in the Philippines.

One of the burger joints that’s on the top of my list is Tropical Hut. I enjoy their burgers and their prices are also affordable. So, if you want to satisfy your burger cravings one day, I recommend Tropical Hut.

A few weeks ago, Mai and I were at Monumento to buy a new printer for our internet cafe. Right after, we headed to Tropical Hut because we wanted burgers for brunch. We dined in at their Monumento branch, beside Mercury Drug, right around the Bonifacio monument.

Tropical Hut serves most of their burgers in aluminum foil to preserve its freshness and the juiciness of the patty.

But, if you dine in and order their Hawaiian Burger, it’ll be served like this:

I highly enjoy Tropical Hut’s burger because of the patty itself and the bread they use. The beef patty is really juicy. It’s best to devour (notice the word I used? *LoL*) it while it’s still hot so you can get all the beefy goodness. Yum!

Their burgers are fairly big for our appetite. Here’s the Hawaiian burger in Mai’s hands:

The prices are also fair, if you ask us. The Classic Burger costs Php 110.00 (about $2.50), and the Hawaiian burger costs Php 108.00.

Their Cheeseburger value meal is priced at Php 71.00. They also have sandwiches. Their Clubhouse sandwich value meal is sold at Php 115. All value meals include fries and regular drinks.

Aside from burgers and sandwiches, they also serve rice meals. The only one that I’ve tried was their 2-piece Burger Steak, priced at Php 72.00.

Review of Tropical Hut, Monumento Branch

I had to separate my review of the Tropical Hut burgers and prices, and the Monumento branch because Tropical Hut’s prices and quality of food have been consistent throughout the years and even across all other branches.

Anyway, on to my review. Their Monumento branch, as expected, draws a lot of people because the area is one of the busiest places in the Metro. This branch is open 24 hours a day, so, we didn’t really have high expectations of the cleanliness of the place. But, we were still surprised by how they maintain their store.

Before I even go there, I wanted to mention that the waiting time for our orders was surprisingly short. We only had to wait for about 10 minutes. Last time I ate at a Tropical Hut branch, we were asked to wait for 15 to 20 minutes, and the fries were overcooked.

Now, what happened in there that surprised us?! Well, Mai went to the condiments area to get ketchup for our fries. Guess what she saw. A FREAKING COCKROACH! A baby cockroach, actually. But, dang. It crawled its way up to the mouth of the ketchup dispenser. Eeekkk!

Mai immediately reported this to the branch manager, who took action right then and there. He had the ketchup dispenser and all the other condiments’ containers cleaned, just to be sure. So, thumbs up for that. Or he was a bit concerned because I was taking photos?! I’m not really sure. *LoL*

Now, we’re wondering how many more roaches are lurking in their Monumento branch. We saw a baby cockroach, so, definitely, its parents live really close by. Eeek. I do hope they do a major cleanup because that’s one of the MOST unacceptable things you can find in a food place.

This issue didn’t turn us off completely, though. We’ve had worst experiences, I guess. So, we still got to enjoy our burgers.

SCORECARDS

Now, here are our ratings for Tropica Hut, Monumento branch:

As you can see, our scorecards are very different. Mai was a little dissatisfied because of the maintenance of the place, which affected all her ratings. That’s why people who own or manage food joints like Tropical Hut should really ensure that their area is clean at all times so as not to turn off customers because, in the end, no matter how good your food is, they’ll continue imagining how dirty your kitchen area is.

I gave them a good final rating because I did enjoy my burger. By the way, we gave them a low score for Service because they had us go back for our change. Plus, we also believe that their crew should be ensuring that their place is clean at all times to keep bugs, like that eeky cockroach, away from their store.

So, what we’re saying is if you’re craving for burgers and your budget is a little limited, we recommend Tropical Hut. But, as much as possible, stay away from their Monumento branch.

 

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In this section of our blog, we will write reviews of different food products and places we’ve tried ourselves. This is to help other consumers and foodies like us in choosing products and food places they want to try.

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