North Park: blacklisted!

Due to sheer hunger I forgot that I had already banned North Park and so the other day I ended up in it. After 15 minutes of waiting I really wanted to get up and leave but decided to stay out of courtesy. When the food arrived it was like somebody splashed cold water all over me and I was reminded why I vowed never to eat in North Park again.

There was a time (around 9 years ago) when North Park had a little more class, but as time went by it seems to have degraded itself into becoming more and more like a fast food chain which is not so bad if they did not charge exorbitant prices for their food. I am willing to pay a premium on food if I can enjoy it but there are a couple of things about North Park that really bother me:

1. The ambience is terrible. Their outlets are crowded and the diners are boisterous. I wouldn’t mind if this were a bar / hangout joint like Gilligan’s, Congo Grille, or Gerry’s, but even the architecture of North Park is very plain compared to those three. They could have invested in some sound proofing material or spaced the tables a little bit.
2. Not enough value for money. For viands that cost over 150 bucks per dish and take 20 minutes to prepare I would expect a little more in terms of quantity. Take for example my favorite Chinese the lemon chicken. Super Bowl serves twice the amount and they give you snacks while waiting for your food. Cheap snacks they may be, but this isn’t a fast food restaurant.
3. Food quality. They serve low quality rice that is a little over cooked … worth the 35-peso price tag. Their tea appears to be oversteeped to the point that I can no longer taste the leaves. I can tell simply by smelling and looking that their tea is no good. I am a tea person. I run a tea store. I am of Chinese descent. If you are a Chinese restaurant I expect good tea. Period. Need I mention the lemon chicken? Okay. Let me tell you the ingredients of their lemon sauce: some lemon, lots of vinegar, sugar, salt (wtf?), and lots of yellow coloring. I can cook lemon chicken and good lemon chicken sauce needs to use soy sauce (black if not white) and it needs to have ginger. I will personally throw in pepper and a few drops of white wine but the main ingredient, lemon, needs to be there!!! VINEGAR != LEMON, and yellow food coloring has no business being in there!! Probably these folks are trying to cut on costs but puh-leeze have some respect for the food you serve to your customers!
4. Misleading ads. A few months ago Kevin tried to pay with his credit card he was promptly told that they did not accept credit card because their processing system has not yet been setup even though they already had a “credit card accepted” signages up.

All in all the food here is starting to look more and more like Jollibee in terms of proportions. It’s like they’re trying to trick the masses by trying to appear like a classy restaurant so that they can price their meals a little higher when there are so many other classy restaurants (e.g. Cantinetta, Ayala M-Cafe) that give you more for what you pay for and there are lower-end restaurants that serve better food for a whole lot less.

So I was elated to find that strip of paper that read “customer feedback” (or something like that) inside the black sleeve that was handed to me along with the receipt. I wrote down in all caps and multiple underline the word “BLACKLISTED”, made sure to give them failing marks in the food quality and ambience area, and vented out my frustrations in the comments area.

End of story.

Maybe I’ll write about my other blacklisted restaurant, Brother’s Burger. Now that’s going to have to wait for another day.