X.O. 46

It’s been awhile since I wrote something about food. So let’s go back to June 2016 in the place where we had our Father’s day lunch. The place is X.0. 46 in Estancia Mall. Here are the dishes we ordered  :

I appreciate that they tried to innovate the Filipino’s version of kare-kare; but it wasn’t done well. The sauce is in fact delicious; but because the veggies are on the side, you can’t really apppreciate the ratio of the sauce and the veggies together. Also, this dish isn’t good for sharing. Do you imagine 3-4 persons sharing with an eggplant, few beef cubes and a Chinese cabbage? The best thing to do here is to mix all the ingredients together with the sauce as soon as it is served (that should be done by their cook). So yeah! Hate it! I think they did it not to innovate but more on to make sure that their kare-kare won’t be spoiled and maintained well. Because the sauce and all of the veggies are stored and made separately, it makes their kare-kare easy to cook, prepare and maintain but so hard for their customers to eat and enjoy. It’s such a shame because the sauce and the shrimp paste it comes with are both really good.

Crispy Pata isn’t crispy. The sauce isn’t good at all. It doesn’t have any taste. Nothing to look forward to this dish.

Gambas is delicious but the price isn’t worth the stingy serving they gave us.

Pancit is delicious but the noodles are overcooked. In Filipino, nakakaumay!

Fried chicken is so-so. Too salty for the others and it took them 30 min to serve this baby, for an expensive amount! Again, serving is too small for its price.

Palabok is the crowd-favorite but unfortunately too salty for me.

Their kaldereta disappointed me so much. Why? They baked it with potatoes and cheese on the top. So instead of eating kaldereta, the dish made us feel like we’re eating baked potato with cheese. The ratio of meat is too small that we couldn’t taste it anymore. The serving is generous; full of potatoes and cheese!

Place (7/10) : The restaurant is small. Air-condition doesn’t work well. The tables are too close from each other so guests’ conversations can easily be heard.

Customer Service (4/10) : They speak well in Filipino but too fast that they’re not understandable anymore. We waited 30 minutes for each dish and we even missed 2 dishes that they weren’t able to cook. We cancelled it after 45 minutes of waiting. We stayed here for almost 2 hours and 1.5 hours were spent on waiting for our food that were given to us by portion. So frustrating. They didn’t even apologize for our waiting time. Also, filling our glasses with water takes 10-15 minutes! Everyone’s pissed. The main dishes are already served but they served the rice 10 minutes late! I understand that it was Father’s Day and their restaurant is jam-packed; but I talked to their manager and they already know that I’m gonna blog about my experience — they still gave us the worst! We are willing to pay a lot if the customer service is good; but everything is awful so I don’t see the sense of paying too much for their food.

I guess the worst part is the time when I forgot my Aldo shoes and when we came back.. nobody even noticed or put it aside. It’s like all of them are completely tired and looked like zombies (sorry, addicted to “Train to Busan” gal here) already. I’m not sure if they need more people or another customer service training.

This photo is definitely one for the books; but the experience isn’t something I’ll remember forever. We’re not impressed and we won’t go back. It’s such a waste to see a good restaurant with a good concept but the management wasn’t able to pull it off. Maybe it’s just the Estancia branch but overall.. we won’t suggest this restaurant. 😥