My mom had an unused voucher for Barrio Fiesta and since the sissies and I went xmas clothes shopping in Trinoma, Mom gave it to us so we don't need to shell out for dinner... The whole experience was terrible!!!! Where do I even begin???? Lemme see...
To be fair, there were a few good points:
1. The chicken was well done.
Hubby kept commenting that the chicken in Savory was much better(he's such a savory fan) but for me, they weren't comparable since the taste was different. I liked that it was cooked well but not dry and the skin was so crispy.. We're suckers for crispy chicken and though Mom can cook chicken ala-Max's, this was still good.
2. The lumpia wasn't drowning in sauce and the ubod was cooked thoroughly.
Some lumpiang ubod (fresh spring roll) in other restos or most especially in fast food chains are drowning in sauce as if to make the sauce comprise half of the taste test. This, however, just had the right amount of sauce and some might not like it that way (since they're looking for the crunchy feel), but I did enjoy that the ubod was thoroughly cooked.
3. The seafood toppings rice este Paella rice had a lot of sea food.
Some establishments put 2 kinds of seafood and call it seafood ____(seafood chowder, seafood rice, seafood kare-kare-kare), but this was really seafood galore. There was a crab, two big shrimps, squid and a good number of mussels.
3. They were prompt with the bill
Not much explaining left ^_^
As for the bad points, ugh...
1. It took them forever to bring out our order. OUR ORDER SPECIFICALLY.
Why ours specifically? Because the food at the table next to ours came 15 minutes earlier. It would have been okay if I knew that they came before us or that our food was much longer to prepare but for some reason, we had to follow up twice before our order was out. Mind you, we only had Paella rice(more on this later) and Chicken while they had Patatim, Kare-kare, and pancit bihon. Was it the fact that we had a voucher??
2. The Paella rice wasn't Paella rice, it was "not mixed-well-Java rice with seafood toppings."
This was a major major fail on many levels. First, for crying out loud, don't call something as Paella rice if it was something else! For starters, Paella rice should have the nice reddish color because of the tomato sauce and not the plainly yellow color from margarine. Second, the seafood should actually be sauteed with the rice or at least give the impression that they had the same base ingredients and not merely placed on top after being blanched and salted. Third, have the decency to mix the rice well if it's going to be called _____ rice because it's not plain rice. This last thing really, really pissed me off. As we chowed the rice, the bottom layer had chunks as big as a macaroon of white, unmixed, slightly hard rice. I do understand that the rice might not be evenly mixed and that the rice might be harder than plain rice(since it has to be cool for them to mix it well) but seriously, have the decency to at least crush or break out the bigger chunks. It was supposed to be Paella rice in the first place and the least you can do was to mix the rice well.
3. Have the decency to tell us early if our order was out of stock.
We ordered halo-halo and I thought they didn't serve it immediately because it was dessert. So when we were about to finish with the main meal, I asked a waiter to serve it. She nodded but after ten minutes, the halo-halo never came. Surprise, surprise, we had to follow up a second time and this time, the 2nd waiter came back after 5 minutes to tell us that it wasn't available. Wow. I was okay with the fact that it wasn't available but what really ticked me off was that the waiter who was asked to follow up our halo-halo never came back to tell us it was out. This is dessert and if we didn't wait a total of an extra 15 freakin' minutes to know it was unavailable, we could have left earlier.
The final verdict: I dunno if it was just a series of unfortunate events but I'm guessing this had something to do with our voucher. If it did, then don't freakin participate in discounted deals! The main point of offering vouchers is to attract people towards your establishment or encourage them to try out less popular products and this experience made me think of the opposite! I only had two prior Barrio Fiesta experiences before this because both were terrible and after this, I am never, ever coming back if I can help it.
If it didn't have anything to do with our discounted voucher, then make sure your service and products are consistent.
I indulge in food and I would have been willing to pay the full amount for them to make our food okay. Sana siningil na lang kami ng original price kung ganyan rin lang na hindi aayusin. It was so disappointing since eating out is supposed to be a pleasurable experience but the bad points of this visit outweighed the good ones.
Disclaimer: Again, I repeat that this was in SM North Branch..It might not be the same in all branches.
