Philippine Magic Cafe — Restaurant in Walpole

An attempt to bring international fusion to a small town, but unfortunately, they fail to execute. Charging restaurant prices, serving sub-par food & regretable service.

Prices are exorbitant at $4 for water, almost $30 for a main and $13 for a small bowl of wedges. The fish from the kids' F&C was about the length and width of a butter knife.

The curry dishes were awful. Both the vegetable green curry and chicken satay were drowning in so much oil that they didn't get eaten. The vegetables also had visible mould & rot on them and, at an absolute minimum, needed to be washed. 1 of the meals was shown to the owner/operator who told us that the colouring wasn't mould, but in fact, what happens when the items are put in the wok. You don't need to be a chef to know that's BS. We were also confronted with an aggressive and argumentative response, asking why any of it was eaten. However, we weren't asking for a refund or even a replacement. It was purely an FYI for their own quality control, but feedback is not welcome.

The thing is, they don't need repeat customers. They've got a captive market in a tourist town, and with the prices they charge, they don't need you to come back. Just the next tourist to come in. I wouldn't return and certainly wouldn't recommend anyone else spend their hard earned cash at such a poorly run and managed...

I think it depends on what you order. Anything deep fried is reasonably ok, and with the lack of restaurants in this town no one would blame you for being lured in by the owner's friendly demeanor.

If you order something off their "Asian Dishes" menu, you're going to be served a generic mix of veggies with your choice of meat and some basic sauce that taste like its out of a flavour packet. Though the dishes are not flavoursome, and as authentic as a Tingle Tree in Port Hedland.

Ordered the Chicken Tikka Masala and Thai Green Curry at $22 each so it's not even cheap! Both dishes have enough reason found in their oily watery concoction to have India and Thailand sue for damages!

I mean if it's the Phillippine Magic Cafe, why not serve Filipino dishes???? Like all practices of magic, it's all about deception and misdirection, and clearly David Blaine at the fromt counter gets his own Tucker elsewhere, or it's his wife who is cooking and he can't afford to tell her the truth that her cooking is mediocre at best for fear of a lengthy spell in the dog house.

So look, you're hungry and it's not a big town. Order something fried and you should be alright (no guarantee) but don't trip yourselves up like I did and order anything else. If they want to care about the 439 locals and the tourists coming through, get a cook book....an...

The portions are so enormous. One dish would easily feed two of us. However in the case of the Mongolian beef, I'd prefer half as much of a better cut of meat...or else add a half teaspoon of bicarb to the marinade...it would have made it chewable, at least. Each piece I tried to eat I ended up removing from my mouth, it was so sinewy and tough. The carrots were hard and raw... please parboil them. The cauliflower was practically raw, too, and the marinade didn't taste like Mongolian usually does. The garlic rice was tasty but swimming in oil. The amount of oil pooling under my rice would have been sufficient to cook another stir-fry dish.

There were lots of locals who seemed to be enjoying themselves... clearly not knowledgeable about Asian food. This restaurant would struggle to survive in a larger town. But on a Sunday night in a small village like Walpole they had a monopoly.

I'm sure the TripAdvisor recommendations were when it was under different ownership.

It's a shame...the family who own the business seem like...