Gabby's Bistro - Paseo Perdices — Restaurant in Dumaguete

Nice restaurant, great location, but let down by poor service.

Gabby's restaurant is located in what I consider to be the middle of Rival Boulevard.  Nice location, albeit upstairs in a building with no obvious wheelchair access (not an issue with me though).

It was nice to see a well decorated dining area. It's themed like Pinocchio / Traditional Swiss Alpine setting. Often restaurants don't pay much attention to the dining.   Wobby tables meant that we moved to another table.  We did ask the wait staff for help to fix the tables, but that was ignored/forgotten and so moved anyway.

Our visit was for dinner on a public holiday, the restaurant was half full, so wasn't expecting such slow service.  The waiting staff were attentive - given that each table had a bell, but they were probably slowed by the kitchen.  The kitchen was probably not helped by it being the size of the bar area and was probably understaffed.

The menu for Gabby's is quite large and varied, but I think it's going to be a hit and miss as to whether your chosen dish is going to be up to your standard.  Cajun had too much throat choking Cayenne rather than smoked paprika.... It did NOT remind me of the Southern USA at all.  The other dishes were not great either, I was NOT impressed by the 'not so crispy' Frito Calamari or the super late, too many dried shitake, Katsudon.  The latter took nearly an hour and came out just as everyone else on the table had finished their meal. The rest of the dishes were so-so.

The kitchen was small, and slow, but the waiting staff also had their own faults, having twice delivered the wrong dishes to our table, including after the table move.  If there is a next time, I won't even tell them, and start sampling the dish - the delay was so long - I could have forgotten what I ordered anyway.

Positives about the restaurants are that it does have free wi-fi and credit card payments are accepted, and the ice cream cart seems to have a whole variety of different flavours.

Our meal for 3.5 people cost P1655, which isn't great value. I would like to give more stars because I would like to return and try other dishes in the restaurant, but it seems that this place has a better cover than the book, and I would rather try other restaurants first before returning...

Honestly, I wanted this place to be good. I tried this and another location in Dumaguete, and both were disappointments. In short, the one positive is the ambience -- just beautiful, unique decor and atmosphere (outside and inside). However, the service is below average at best, and the quality of the food is quite bad, to put it mildly. While in the restaurant, I thought Gordon Ramsey should do an episode of "Kitchen Nightmares" here. The menu is massive, but it seems like the cooks can't focus on making decent quality dishes because of the huge variety (pizza, burgers, Asian, breakfast, pork, chicken, etc.). There were also many items on the menu that weren't available (no beef or tortilla/Mexican dishes). Even when I ordered mashed potatoes as a side dish, the waitress informed me that mashed potatoes weren't available when she gave me my dish. This is one of the few restaurants in the Philippines where I haven't been able to finish the food because of the taste. To the manager and owner... I HIGHLY recommend a massive revamp of the menu, and put a lot more effort into the quality of your dishes (including better ingredients and fresh produce) instead of the quantity. I'd love to see this place improve, but I definitely won't be returning...

After a recent visit, I find I have to do an update on my review of Gabby's Bistro--Paseo Perdices. When I reviewed this restaurant more than a year ago, I wrote that the breakfast here was pretty good, although this location can be typically "out of stock" on certain items. I returned there recently for breakfast and was disappointed to read signs that said that this particular Gabby's no longer sold breakfast The sign also said that the restaurant opened at 9:00 AM, but I found that not to be the case. We were told by employees that they didn't actually open until 10:00 AM. There was no explanantion why the opening time was different than what was displayed. As we were unable to buy breakfast, we went to a different cafe...