Seasonal Tastes at The Westin Manila — Restaurant in Mandaluyong

It seems to be a love hate relationship I have going with Seasonal tastes inside Westin, like the hotel it is basically in the soft opening stages. Barely 3 months into operations, I can still give them the benefit of the doubt for now hoping that they will improve and not to continually go down. Such a shame as the property definitely has a lot of potential. Located just steps away from SM mega mall and Shangrila Plaza Mall they only have themselves to blame if they don’t improve and have an influx of loyal patrons.

Breakfast Buffet is a hit and miss when it comes to the quality of the food. The sous chefs or junior chefs either needs to know how to properly cook a bacon 🥓 or maybe get better quality pork. It’s so hard to messed up a bacon, it should always be the right amount of crunchiness. But unfortunately their bacon is hard and chewy. Their eggs lacks salt and the ham omelette tastes funky.

Don’t get me wrong there are some good food, hmmm but maybe the bad ones outweigh the good ones that I can’t remember which were good.

The service needs a lot of improvement, but then again they all look fresh out of school and maybe just needs more time to adjust.

Dinner weekend buffet is a disappointment also, I was looking forward to a nice seafood spread, but they failed to live up to the hype.

The seafood selection is limited to the local crab and prawns with some clams. The service again made it even worse, as I had to wait 10 mins before I was offered water. I even had to approach the bar trying to figure out how to get drinks after seeing their signage of unlimited drinks for either 2 hours or 4 hours package. But the one behind the bar and some of the staff were not even aware of their own promotion. Clearly management has a long way to go in training their staff. The sous chef was there and the hygiene manager standing around, you think they would know something about their products but surprisingly they don’t. For me don’t stand around looking like an authority figure if you can’t answer a few simple questions. Everyone should know the basic things or at least be fast enough to assist rather than pointing to someone else and telling me you don’t know anything.

By the way if you can’t properly do paella I suggest just don’t do it.

So in closing, I will see you again Westin and give you another shot. Maybe you will improve and I will actually change my...

We reserved a table to celebrate our dog's birthday since they offered the a-la-bark menu. Unfortunately, when availing this, diners may only be seated at the al fresco area which is infront of a busy road (and a few tables inside but with tables so low, you wouldn't be able to eat). But what makes this unfortunate is that the al fresco area is also the smoking area. So you can just imagine what that's like. And as a bonus, that area is also the grill area for their kitchen. You can just choose which one you'd like to inhale or if you're lucky (in this case, unlucky) you get all three.

Service for them is not as innate as with other hotels and restaurants we've stayed and dined at. It feels more like they choose who they would serve better and who they would ignore of they could. And with us not being hotel guests and us being seated outside, the went with the latter. So bad that you had to walk to the bar just to place your order rather than them going to your table. I get it, we were outside and not in the main dining area but it was 3pm and there were like 5 or 6 tables with people including us. Would it be too much to ask for you to look outside once in a while?

The food is good. That I cannot deny. But a delicious food can only get you far if it's also safe. Yes, mind you, safety should be always a priority but not for them I guess. Again, we were unlucky enough to find a piece of thick wire inside the chicken of their Nasi Goreng. The wire was about half an inch long but thankfully my girlfriend was able to find it before it could have done more damage.

Summary, if you're bringing your furbabies to try their a la bark menu, do consider this review so you know what to expect about where you're actually going to dine. But if you have other options, I suggest you go there...

We availed of their 50% off promo for the seafood dinner buffet (regular price: P3400 per person).

Reservation was fast and easy.

Food selection is limited but most of the food we tried were good. We liked the steak, sushi, and sashimi. However, I think they can still do with lots of improvement. Specifically

The restaurant was not fully booked but it was obvious they were understaffed. They should have 2 people at the seafood cooking station (one to take the plate/order and another one that does the cooking) instead of just one stressed looking chef. Also the staff manning the sashimi section was very slow and only gives 5 tiny pieces of sashimi by default (of course you can ask for more but, again, it was very slow).

Crabs did not taste/feel fresh.

We were given a complimentary seafood platter which was a nice surprise but I wish they’d informed us about it earlier since I had already gotten another plate of seafood by the time they gave it to us. So some pieces in the comped platter were left for waste as we were already too full to eat them.

It took about 20 min for us to bill out.

I basically spent the first several minutes here waiting which is not a good impression and then again before we could leave.

The experience was okay for the discounted price but probably not worth it for...