Who’s not down for a good deal, especially when it comes to food? Recently, two Facebook posts went viral for the right reasons. The first, by Gel Tolentino, used a mathematical approach to calculate which Potato Corner serving got the most bang out of your buck. The answer was Giga Fries where price per gram came out to P0.51 (Tera came out pricier because its container was much heavier than Giga’s, and Potato Corner weighs your fries with the container included, so you ended up paying for the Tera’s container as well).
Another wily user named Justin Lee decided to conduct his own experiment with Dunkin’ Donuts. In his equation, a Choco Butternut donut costs P35 each while Choco Butternut Munchkins cost P35 for five pieces.
However, when weighed, the Munchkins turned out to be heavier than the donut version by 17 grams, meaning you got 23 percent more product by ordering the Munchkins for the same price (Munchkins are more mouth-friendly, too).
If schools taught math like this, we’d all be prodigies. In honor of these two geniuses, we’ve decided to come up with our own version of Super Sulit. For our first experiment, we decided to deconstruct the mother of all food deals: Pancake House’s House Specials set, a sampler of their tastiest bestsellers: 1 piece pan fried chicken (magic gravy included), spaghetti with garlic bread, the best taco in town (agreed) and iced tea for P267. This meal is like a comforting hug when you’ve had a crappy day or when you just want to treat yo’ self.
We thought, is there a better House Specials set hidden in Pancake House’s menu? We cold-called a few Pancake House branches to find out. A single piece of fried chicken is P75 (it’s not on the menu but you can order it to go with your waffle or if a 2-piece chicken meal is not enough), a taco is P107, while the kiddie spaghetti is P97. This comes out to P279 without a drink still.
But is there a difference between kids’ spaghetti and House Specials spaghetti? We called a Pancake House branch to ask how many grams of spaghetti each dish had under the guise of being on a low-carb diet (we clearly have no idea what a low-carb diet is if we think kiddie spaghetti can be part of one).
There is no difference. Both the kids’ spaghetti and House Specials clock in at 100 grams, so you basically save P12 and get a drink when you get the set meal. Well played, Pancake House.
Have any sulit tips for us? E-mail super@inquirer.com.ph or tweet @inquirersuper.