The Swiss Deli & Restaurant - Matina — Restaurant in Davao City

I DON'T KNOW DAVAO WELL, BUT I KNOW GOOD FOOD!

Hi there! CDO's top foodie here.

THE SPACE: Matina Swiss Deli is on a busy street, but has a reasonable amount of parking out front. You have to walk through the deli to get to the dining room, and you immediately get the impression that each one relies on the other. The dining room is clean, bright and spacious. It does not get particularly noisy, but that is probably due to the smaller table sizes and lack of big groups when the two times (in my two-day visit to Davao) that I dined there. The silverware and plates were nice. The seating was comfortable. THE SPACE: 3 stars.

THE FOOD: The food is absolutely fantastic. We tried pastas, sandwiches, salads, soups, two meat dishes, and found them all to be excellent, with an abundance of cheese, home-made pickled vegetables, gravies, and chips. I also have to include in the food section of this review the items that can be purchased in the deli, which is an absolutely grand assortment of in-house cured meats, imported cheeses, as well as other canned and dried goods. Between the overwhelming variety of the dining room menu and the overwhelming variety of the deli stock... it was all pretty overwhelming. THE FOOD: 5 stars.

THE SERVICE: The service was absolutely fine. I noticed the staff didn't spend their idle seconds watching customers, but they weren't missing anything either. THE SERVICE: 4 stars.

THE PRICE: Overall, the prices were a bit better than reasonable. While nothing was priced substantially lower than I would have expected, I still felt like I was getting a good deal. The prices in the deli are (based on a later visit to Ayala where I saw a few of the same cold cuts for sale) the same as other retail outlets (but again: with a vastly better selection). THE PRICE: 4 stars.

SUMMARY: Matina Swiss Deli is a fantastic restaurant with a great menu of European dishes that do not disappoint. Bring extra money to do some shopping at the counter, because I think that is every bit as important a reason to step through the doors as the meal you are served. The doubled-up shop/dine experience you have here just makes The Swiss Deli all the more worth a visit.

TOTAL: ...

I bought t-bone steaks from the SM Mall and honestly they were terrible. It was like eating shoe leather. I'm a foreigner and sometimes I like to indulge myself and have something good that reminds me of home. I live 4 hours from Davao in the middle of nowhere that has no restaurants you can imagine my lack of food choices basically it's the wet market and that's it. I bought two t-bones I marinated it today and put it on the grill. The real test is when I eat it. I cannot believe how good it was. The service girl said it was from America but many things are exaggerated over here. I didn't have much faith in her statement. I can assure you it tastes like a steak from outback steakhouse. I made mine medium. The only thing I wish I had that they didn't have is that I wanted my t-bone to be about an inch and a half thick and their t-bones were just a little bit under an inch or almost an inch. We got lots of different things there cheese, French bread, wine, nuts and some other things and all of them are exceptionally high quality. I also want to say that the staff was very knowledgeable and very friendly. There was one woman I dealt with and I'm sorry I don't know her name but she said she worked there for 6 years. That woman is a princess! She had all the knowledge on all the products and took the time and patience to show me everything that I wanted to see in that meat display case. Then while waiting for a ride we were looking at photos and videos of my Doberman. What a pleasant experience and you can be sure that I will get more steak when I get...

I would say that this place is Western friendly and it's a go to place for decent food. What I like other than the Swiss and euro ingredients are the standards of consistency. You could order the same thing and rest assured it will make it to your table the same way you ordered it last. The food has variety, good flavor and okay presentation. I consider any place serving fresh unprocessed cheese in dishes a solid 4 stars. One issue I have which prevents the fifth star is the service is very strange. Sometimes they take your order, but leave you alone for 10 to 20 minutes in a time without refills or followup. I guess they do it this way because many "regulars" expats know the place and stick around having drinks and coffee reading papers not wanting to be bothered. Some service seem to be alternating between the deli store, waiting tables and or taking drink orders at the bar. Either way the brats and beer here are excellent if they can figure out the staff stations and where...