Miguel's Garden Cafe — Restaurant in Luzon

We visited this place during Mother's Day. We expected the place to be fully packed since its one of the nice new restos in Antipolo Sumulong Highway area. They are right next to Haven of Angels.

Parking wasn't really a problem. Waiting time was about 30mins. Not even a nice reception venue for waiting guests. Their receptionist kept walking around to look for available tables instead of waiters from both ends of the resto going to her.

When finally seated, we were told that food prep was an hour at least. We have no other choice since we already waited for 30mins.

After 40mins waiting in the tables near their bar, one of their waiter Marie approached us to tell us that two of our orders are already out of stock. I questioned her why it took them 40mins to inform us. And even answered back that its not yet 40mins. After that... only barbecue have been served. Then a new waitress approached us to ask again for our orders. OMG! Its already past 1hr of waiting.

Finally I think we already ate dinner around 9:30pm. Food finally arrived. Their chicken inasal is okay. Soft and tender. I like how it was cooked.

Their kare kare is a disaster. Its like kare kare with soup. We ordered pork liempo as well and what arrived looked like leftovers from another table.

Then after 20mins of begging.. we finally had our rice that could best be with a Thai resto's Mango Sticky Rice.

Come on! Asians who don't know how to cook nice rice. We ordered for 5 cups and was given one huge bowl that doesn't even look good for five people.

This restaurant is so disorganized that I can't believe that you decided to operate right away. Your waiters can't even confirm who's table the orders were. I also took a shot of their palabok and bangus that looked delicious but unfortunately is already a loss to the establishment since a waiter can't remember who ordered the dish.

Order lots of pen and papers for your staff. Place numbers on each table so they don't mess up. Place a manager or head waiter in the bar area and one in your dining area where I'm expecting most of those customers are getting better service that us. I'm sorry for this post but you messed up on Mother's day. Get staff from well organized restos like from the Moment Group (Manam, 8-Cuts, etc).

Good thing your barbecue was...

This is a restaurant that focuses on aesthetics over quality. The service here is terrible, we waited 50 mins for our food to be served and it was not even that packed. The reason that they gave that their "puncher" was not working but for me it's an operational error on their part. The ambiance is okay as their decors are aesthetic but it wasn't mainted well as you will see old and dirty decorations hanging. Lastly the food is also terrible after waiting for 50 mins we ate at around 10 mins and had them wrapped our food because we didn't enjoy it.5 Detailed food review as follows:

Miguel's Fish Florentine - fish was overcooked, dry, and gummy. The soup / sauce was bland as it was a mixture of butter, cream, tomatoes, onions, garlic, and spinach. The flavor profile was confusing as the acid of choice was tomatoes in a white / cream based dish.

Pasta Arrabbiata - The pasta tastes like regular tomato sauce as it was lacking the spicy, peppery heat. Imagine a spaghetti with eggplant and eggplant chunks in it, because that's what the dish is!

Michelle's Supreme Pizza - the pizza would've been great if they left out the garlic mayo because it ruined the flavor. I suggest to eat the pizza on it's own because the garlic mayo isn't garlicky, and the mayo was sweet... I'm guessing they're using a cheap brand for mayo. I didn't bother to take a photo of the pizze because it came 1 hour since we ordered.

Update: I understood what the concept of the pizza is when I made my own garlic aioli... With the pizza it didnt ruin the flavor. The dough (underside and crust) would've taste like garlic bread.

My partner told me that this restaurant was good and had a following long ago but it was evident that on a Sunday afternoon where there were a lot of empty tables and the fact that they disappointed her on her 2 most recent visits that the quality of the restaurant...

It's my first time ever giving a review. 1) my family (who loves dining out) had a terrible experience from start to end, in and out. 2) All of us experienced both stomachache and diarrhe* and their response to our concern was not addressed nor resolved properly. So, here I am. Did not ask for anything but I gave my time hoping our concern will be properly dealt with, alas.

Pros: The place looks nice and there are plenty of tables to accommodate people. Plus, the parking space was well-lit.

CONS: Service was 2 out of 5 bad but understandable bc we thought, eh, could be a new employee.

Food was just food. We got fried seafoods, it's okay. Pasta was good enough but it's side bread looked soft but very hard and dry. Cakes were the DRIEST (but they gave us a new batch with better texture). Sadly, ubeng-ube only has a faint ube-flavor, our chocolate cake had a fruit fly flying out and it's a bit luma too. Salmon and it's potato salad side are very bland. Cucumber lemonade was my fave. Michelle pizza is meh but the mediocre garlic sauce revived it.

Atmosphere: Cute place but even the servers could not hear us from all the loud noises (open area and cars).

ISSUE: We dined together after a week away and ALL of us experienced diarrhea and stomachache.

I informed the resto about our issue.

Resto's resolution: Called to apologize, asked if we're okay, and proceeded to tell me, 1.) No one else complained 2) They checked and everything's seemed fine. As for the cakes, "sabi ko sa kanila, bakit mo naman sila binigyan ng old batch ng cakes". Well, Miss Chel, I don't know why too. 3) Come back again and give them a chance. (?) That call was their chance. There's no...