Barkada — Restaurant in Hong Kong Island

Had a chance to try some of the Barkada dishes during their Shady Acres pop-up, and was happy to finally have a chance to try even more dishes at the restaurant. Bookings get full fast, so be sure you make reservations in advance. Being born and raised in PH and living in HK for quite some time, it honestly makes me ecstatic to finally see Filipino cuisine getting the spotlight it deserves with more and more pinoy spots flourishing around HK recently.

With that being said, Barkada has a much more contemporary take on Pinoy flavors in general, so honestly I wouldn’t say it’s authentic, but the food is still delicious nonetheless. The popcorn chicken adobo is a great starter and a yummy, fun take on the traditional chicken adobo dish; definitely have this with garlic rice. The lumpia was also great when paired with their drinks, and even though spicy funky coconut noodles aren’t really Filipino (compared to traditional pancit), it’s still delicious as well, and I find it’s a fun twist added to the menu to give some variety. The mango float for the dessert was great, especially as this is one of my personal favorite pinoy desserts.

If you have friends that have never exactly tried Filipino cuisine, this is not a bad spot to introduce them to Filipino flavors. Also want to mention that it’s fantastic to see Barkada have an array of options for vegans and vegetarians on their menu, because let’s be real: most Filipino food in general doesn’t exactly have the most vegan or vegetarian-friendly dishes, so props to Barkada for being considerate about this aspect. Super friendly staff and it was also great to meet Jen in person to learn more about the work put into the restaurant. Already looking forward to my next visit to try more stuff...

Had the chicken bicol express which was a "main" that looked closer to a side. When I asked staff "is that it?", staff was unsure what the dish even was! Came back to embarrassingly explain that that was in fact, it. I could feel his embarrassment. Enough said. Tapas portions with main prices. Did it have the presentation and taste as memorable as a typical tapas dish? Also no.

Ordered the toyomansi tuna. Don't be fooled, it's just tuna sashimi… with plain old soy sauce, chopped garlic, chili, parsley. Simply underwhelming. Where was the calamansi flavor as promised in the menu? Probably overpowered by the soy sauce

2 cocktails ordered, 1 coaster given. Only after a quarter of my cocktail was spilled from the unstable table did staff finally offer to change tables, no attempt was made to remedy the situation beforehand, and of course, we had to move our own drinks to another table. Prior to the move, 2 separate staff members did acknowledge the shaky table, and I presumed walked away to find a wedge/remedy for the situation… only for me to see them chatting with other staff members instead, problem forgotten… Although the Barkada Sour was suited to my personal taste, being charged a price similar to Shangri-La's cocktails while lacking the style, service, and ambiance… does indeed put a rather sour taste in my mouth (going for the 4D experience, I see)

Unstable, shaky table, with the chicken bicol express served in an unstable, shaky coconut bowl. Staff was inattentive and were more preoccupied with their phones and casual talk with other staff. If prices were $40-80, probably a 4 star restaurant. However, it was $300+ per person at the end, so I will judge it as a restaurant at the $300 range:...

I’ve been to Barkada twice now, once for dinner and once for lunch. My dinner experience was average at best, which I was really disappointed about as I was super excited to try this place, and especially given the price point too for what we were getting. The service was decent for this dinner.

I wanted to come back a second time to try again a few months later to see if there were any improvements over time, given its still a pretty new restaurant. This time I came for lunch. This experience was shockingly bad. To start, the service was terrible! It took 15 minutes for our soda to come out, and by the time they got to our table my Coke zero was all flat (no bubbles at all). Second, the BBQ chicken thigh was literally raw. I told the staff, and she didn’t even say a sorry, just took it away and brought a new dish over. We saw the dish sitting at the counter for a good 5 minutes waiting to get cold while the staff happily chatted away, even when we already told her we were in a rush to go back to work. At this point I had alrdy lost my appetite completely and so I just asked for it to go. My friend got the chicken sausage one, and the portion was TINY. How can any restaurant charge ~130hkd for lunch for this kind of portion???!!! We were all shocked. I wish I took a pic of this to show. The bbq pork belly was decent but nothing too memorable.

Overall, I gave this restaurant two chances as I had high hopes, but the second time especially was extremely disappointing. I really hope Barkada can improve on all aspects before...