Dean and DeLuca | Rallos, Quezon City — Restaurant in Quezon City

During a recent staycation in Makati, we ate at the Dean and Deluca in BGC several times and everything was outstanding!

With that experience, we decided to try lunch at the D&D 10 minutes away from our house in New Manila.  We were very excited to eat at the Dean and Deluca near us after several great experiences in their ORE location in BGC.

BAD: Parking is limited and not easy.

The first floor space is poor unless you want to eat outside or at a bar style table. Honestly, this is a function of trying to put sardines in a can or in this case to put a premium branded restaurant into a small existing space in Tomas Morato / Timog.

We were seated between the bar area and the kitchen which provided both poor views of the bar work area and the ability to overhear the personal conversations of the kitchen staff.

The doors to the outside are kept open so we have several flying bugs join us for lunch.

UGLY:

After finding out that the kitchen staff had waiting for 15 minutes to even start fixing our pizza when the server came to us and asked if we minded that our pizza would be five minutes late. After a brief conversation with the kitchen staff and seeing that the pizza oven did not have any flames showing, we decided to leave.

GOOD:

Truffle fries were served hot and were adequate but many of the fries were soft rather firm and crispy.

SUMMARY:

The Manager was gracious enough to not require us to pay for the fires and our bottled water after we decided to go eat our lunch at another restaurant.

2/10 and DO NOT RECOMMEND

100% would NEVER eat here again.

Sadly, we will have to go to BGC for a good meal from...

A convenient location and a (generally) well-run franchise of an original New York concept.

The interior is very stylish and clean and the service fast and friendly

The food selection is excellent and the pizza we had was perfectly cooked and tasty with truffle oil and porcini mushrooms. The salted caramel cheesecake was excellent also.

This would have merited 5 stars, but there are 2 things which I think were not so good, and unecessary, which I have to score down for, to 4 stars

Firstly, we ordered a white wine, which was a little delayed which made me a bit suspicious and it turned out my guess was correct - they had been trying to chill it, as it was warm. It's simply universally expected that white wine is served chilled, and that a cafe/wine bar serves warm white wine is bizarre. No excuse really - it's easy enough to ensure bottles of wine are held in a chiller

Secondly, the beer selection. There were the usual bland tastleless lager-type beers, and so I chose a draft pale ale. Almost predictably, amongst Filipino businesses, I was told there was no stock of either. It's a sad indictment that these businesses offer the full range but decide not to stock it as the waste and costs of storage of draft beers is higher. So Business first, customer second

Really, it's not difficult, just delete the items...

Their food quality has really gone downhill lately. I ordered the Korean Fried Chicken sandwich, and honestly, it was just bad. The bread was soggy, the chicken was bone-dry like it had just been microwaved, and the chips on the side were limp and half-cooked. I’m not usually the type to return food, even if it’s not great, but this one was genuinely inedible—I couldn’t finish it.

I let the staff know and they asked if I wanted a fresh one. I told them it was up to them, but personally, I didn’t want the same dish again. Still, they decided to prepare a new batch. I asked if I could just pick another item instead, but they hesitated and said no.

Long story short, they brought out a “fresh” version of the same sandwich—and it was somehow worse. Way too salty, still soggy, and the batter on the chicken was so tough I’m literally nursing sore gums as I write this. One of the staff came over to apologize, which I appreciated, but at that point, an apology wasn’t enough. A better solution would’ve gone a long way.

What’s frustrating is this isn’t our first time here. We’ve had great meals here before—aside from that one time the coleslaw tasted like soap—but this experience really missed the mark. The staff were kind, and their service helps soften the blow, but in the end, I didn’t get what I paid for, and that’s...