it’s christmas time and people look forward to meeting friends whom they haven’t for a long time due to busy schedules. now, a group of friends would like to maintain a “meeting place” to be somewhere of the best ambiance, gastronomic experience when it comes to the food, and superb guest service to make that once a year dinner a memorable one.
rizal park hotel’s cafe rizal came to mind. the beautiful interiors, after its renovation and conversion to a hotel, have been beautifully exposed online, luring ignorant people like us to consider and give their place a visit, again in this once a year gathering. oh the regrets.
interiors / ambiance
an easy 5/5 if i were to rate it. from the outside, the interiors shout of simplicity and elegance, every angle is instagram worthy and you can’t help but take shots of the place. it’s christmas time and their tree is beautifully placed as a centerpiece in their small lobby. lighting and the audio system on point.
food and service 1/5
this is where the beauty of the interiors get pulled really into the lowest low. think we were overreacting? it really spoiled everything for us.
we didn’t have problems with booking a table for 10 pax. one of our friends contacted them ahead of time.
we arrived 7:30pm and our dinner was served around 9:30pm. here’s when our experience started spiraling towards disappointment.
1. our orders were taken by someone who seem to be not confident and not aware of the food items in the menu.
2. after placing our orders, they had to spend 10-20 minutes before they go back to inform us the food we want to eat is not available. it was okay during the first dish not available but when they had to come back three times (yes three separate occasions) to inform us that three different dishes were not available, you know something’s wrong. and this fiasco delayed all our orders to 9:30pm.
3. understaffed servers. the refilling of water is supposed to be done reflexively. too bad this resto never showed us this, instead had us keep on calling the servers (too busy and far from our table) numerous times to the point of requesting them to leave a pitcher with us. hay.
4. no restaurant manager available for us to voice out our concerns. why should this happen?
5. they charged us service tax for an almost no service experienced. when we complained, they gave us poor quality cake to apologize for this.
to be fair, their food’s taste was acceptable but not right for the expensive pricing. i got jimmy’s choice bla bla which arrived to be spicy spareribs with yangchow fried rice which initially lacked the vinegar that supposed to come with it. the personnel gave me vinegar from their buffet table, what a joke.
merry christmas to rizal park hotel, hope you guys get to read this review for your improvement. it was really a bad night and i sincerely hope other guests don’t experience the disaster we did.