Pamana Filipino Restaurant Chatswood — Restaurant in Sydney

PROs: Food was great, staff was friendly

CONs: Customer service is extremely lacking; the staff are ONLY friendly. They seemed very inexperienced. We did not get any service unless we waved them down. They didn't seem to communicate. One person asked us if we were ready for our boodle fight or if we're waiting for more people since it will take 30 mins to prepare, after advising them to go ahead and start we had ANOTHER person come back 15 minutes later and ask us if we were ready to start the boodle. For our booking for a 7:30 dinner, the food didn't START coming out until 8:15 and since we've had little to no attention to our table that was 45 minutes of asking if we can order drinks and get some table water.

Let's talk drinks. We had a booking of 21 people and they were not prepared. They had no beers available, which you'd think if they were advertising that they are serving filipino beer they WOULD HAVE stock but their only excuse was that the other bigger booking has dried them up. Even the non-imported beer was unavaillable and they didn't have the brain to ask a staff member to take a quick trip to the bottle shop to get heineken, but instead, we had to ask if we could do it ourselves AND they had the "decency" to charge us corkage fee because they couldn't serve us drinks or offer any alternatives.

The boodle came in boards with banana leaves on top of it with the food spread out, little different, innovative but it isn't the problem. They serve a boodle board across 4 people, there was 20 of us, and only 4 boards... math doesn't add up, what was one table going to do.... watch?! Who knows... maybe they ran out of boards and banana leaves too.

Remember how I said the food started coming out at about 8:15? Did you know they close at 9pm? So we basically didn't really have much time to enjoy ourselves. I wanted to order some dessert! That's ok though they have take away. I ordered a couple of pints of the cheese ice cream, I'm taking it home anyway. They said it will be ready on our departure at the bar, no worries. When our group was walking out the door, I asked for it and they looked at me like I grew a second head! (Remember how they don't seem to communicate) So I repeated that I ordered ice cream to go and they ruffled through the bills like I was lying. It was at this point I started to lose any semblance of calm and collected. Their excuse was they were tired. I feel for you, but it really isn't that much energy to communicate with the people you work with.

Overall, I am deeply ashamed that I actually recommended this place and brought 19 non-filipino friends here to experience filipino food and hospitality for the first time. It looked good on the pictures, but that was about it. I wouldn't go here again, nor would I recommend anyone else who wants an experience to dine here.

Food was good though, order some take-away, make sure you order early because they're a bit slow on the serving.

Summary: Food - 4/5 Service -...

My friends and I dined here on March 7 and 8. Our first time was really good. The place is really nice, excellent service and amazing food. No issues at all. So the next day, we decided to have dinner here again because we really enjoyed it. The food is still amazing, however the service was awful (they have different crews this time). We had this waiter take our orders who was very impatient and rude. I'm not sure if that's just the way he is or he's just stressed out. What happened was my friends decided that they wanted to add drinks in our order, but apparently he couldn't wait for 1 min max for them to choose. He got very impatient and told us in a very sassy way that he'll just put our orders in the system and come back for my friends order. Shouldn't he be happier that we're spending more money at their restaurant? Anyway, at this time our mood was already ruined and he never came back to take our additional orders, we had to flag another waitress to take them (which is good because we didn't had to deal with the other waiter's sassiness). Then they started serving our meals, one of our orders was pork sinigang and it was the sassy waiter who served us. We ordered Sinigang na hipon the previous day and they gave bowls to each us so we assumed that they will also give us bowls this time. I told my friend to wait before asking, because maybe it's on it's way and we're scared of being told off by the sassy waiter. Then after a few minutes, we finally asked and lo and behold it's the sassy waiter! This time he's no longer subtle and actually showed his annoyance to us that he actually huffed in exasperation when he turned his back on us! My friend who was sitting next to me was very surprised he did that.That's just plain rude and disrespectful, we felt so unwelcomed and like I said the food is great, but our mood was ruined by the service. We were actually scared of the waiter which shouldn't happen especially in hospitality! I don't know why he's like that, we were very polite. Anyway, great food, ambiance and location but terrible customer service experience (only with that waiter) which ruined everything else, hence the 2...

WORST chicken adobo and MOST intimidating chef ever. We ordered pork knuckle, fish sinigang, garlic fried rice and chicken adobo. Chicken adobo we got had just 3 chicken pieces with not much chicken meat but all bones..🦴 was hard to find meat on the bones which made us question if it is supposed to be like this. My sister and I had lived in Manila in the Philippines for 14 years we know what and how Chicken adobo looks like and tastes like. I had to ask the staff if the dish we received is what it was supposed to be..there's not much meat but all bones. few mins later, very ANGRY looking Chef came out with different looking chickens(not so much bones this time) and TOLD US OFF that adobo chicken meant to have bones. I said I know but there was too little meat but all bones. and I was just asking a question. He didnt seem to understand and said No! thanks and walked away. 😨 he left my family including my toddler in a bit of shock we all got intimidated and could NOT enjoy the meal at all. the newly brought chicken adobo was too salty we could hardly eat. such a waste of money. The chef and the manager together could have better reacted and dealt customer's comment. POOREST customer service and attitude ever in our entire dining experience. Never met a chef getting offended and ANGRY, going off at the customers for asking a question about the NO MEAT BUT ALL BONES chicken adobo. my family love and know Filippino food we had it for more than 14 years in the Philippines and here in Australia but the experience at Panama today was the most disappointing and We would never go back. 2 stars are for other dishes and the staff who was...