Tom Sawyer's is Back

I have two childhood memories associated with December. Being given shopping money (Php500 at that time) to buy our own Christmas presents for family members and helpers, and eating at Tom Sawyers (which used to have branches at Crossroad Arcade in Greenhills and Session Road in Baguio) for Timmy's birthday.

My favorite order used to be their Fried Chicken and Ribs combo, but eventually, they just disappeared. (Just like Choo Choo Junction Spaghetti House, another Greenhills favorite restaurant of mine.)

Since Sofia turned 7 this year, I decided she was only enough to start buying her own presents for the family. Because of inflation, I told her to make her Christmas list and I gave her Php1,500 as her Christmas budget. To avoid the crowds, I decided to help her go shopping in the newly opened Tiendesitas shopping mall. Parking is covered so it's not inconvenient to visit when it rains, and there is 1 level with tiangge (bazaar) style shops, and another level with more permanent stores. 

Since the place is small, we were able to shortlist the possible gifts we saw, and the last price they were selling it for, while we looked through everything to see if we had other options. While I guided Sofia, she did most of the picking of gifts for the family. I asked Sofia to be the one to ask for tawad (discount) and she was a bit shy, but quite successful. 

For my gift, I saw nice initial leather key chains from
Tannery (previously only an online store) that was
within Sofia's budget, so I told her to choose if she wanted
to give me N or C and what color - so I'll still be surprised.

She was so proud she did her Christmas shopping all by herself, and within her budget too! She even picked out to gifts for some people because she still had extra shopping money.

We started to get hungry when we neared one of the corners of the tiangge because we could smell freshly cooked fried chicken! It's because Tom Sawyer's is back! I just don't have any memories of Tom Sawyer's being a fast food chain! (I think I even remember waiters and tablecloth... but I may be romanticizing it in my memories).

Tom Sawyer's is now clearly a fast food!

No more Chicken and Ribs combo, but you can order them separately.

Since we were just impulse snacking so I could try it again and see if it's as good as I remembered, we opted to just share a 2 pcs Chicken order.

They have tables in the small restaurant, and also outside
within the tiangge area where Sofia and I sat.

They cook the chicken only after you order it, so this one took 6 minutes
to be served, or maybe that's because there weren't many people because
they are still new.

My verdict is it's good fried chicken, especially because it's freshly cooked when served, and the cuts of the chicken are generous (unlike Jollibee - which butchers the chicken in a weird way - so no part is really good). But at the end of the day, fast food fried chicken is still fast food fried chicken. I will not crave for it. However, I think Tom Sawyer's deserves another chance to be tried, with ribs next time, before I can truly say whether or not it's as good as what I remember from my childhood. just saying.

Tom Sawyer's Old Fashioned Fried Chicken 

2/F Building A 

Tiendesitas, Pasig City 

Contact: 966-2291, 0917-811-0338