Hao Chi Grill and Hot Pot SM Fairview — Restaurant in Quezon City

To be honest, I wish we checked the Google Maps reviews first before agreeing to dine at this restaurant.

The price of the menu posted outside will actually mislead you to decide to dine inside. 699Php for BOTH unlimited hotpot and grilled food sounds a great deal, right! But you have no idea what food is to be served upon entry.

Our group was not allowed to enter as we are not complete yet. I was hoping that we can start eating and will just the latecomer dine still under the time recorded for us. Each group is given only two hours to stay. We are not even sure if this was strictly monitored.

Upon entry, only we then knew that the food to be grilled are limited selections of pork, beef, and shrimp. These food doesn’t seem to be seasoned or flavored even. The sauces for the grilled food are all too salty, from the barbecue sauce to the Korean sauce. There was no ssamjang or gochujang typically used for grilled meat. Side dishes were also limited; we only have pickled vegetables such as radish and kimchi.

I think the only flavor I liked is the cheese. Why is it added on top of our bill though? Seriously, 49Php per head for unlimited cheese? You don’t get this treatment in other diners!

As for the hotpot, I admit that there is a generous selection of things to put there, from fish meat to vegetables to noodles to mushrooms and other fungi. We got two soup flavors: sinigang and spicy sate. Both are also salty to the taste. We found it hard finishing our soups because these are also salty.

In other diners with grilling options, staff are readily available to monitor if the grills need changing. In this place however, they will only change the grills once called. They would not notice if smoke is already thick or the grills are black with char.

I forgot to mention that our tables were empty upon entry. We have to get our own utensils and even ask for tissue to be served on our tables. Assistance was as limited as the selections of their food. Mind you, some of the staff were just staying on a distant table and seated, probably it is not their shift yet but the sight of seeing them doing nothing on a busy diner was not good.

I’d like to mention as well how the used plates on our table piled up despite calling their attention to empty our table. In other restaurants, if they see empty used plates, they will get these immediately before even being called. For our case, we were even joking one of our members who started sorting and piling the used plates as none of the staff came to assist us. They entertained us after being called twice, and that’s the moment when our bill was also given. Imagine how crowded our table was!

Payment option: no credit card terminal. Poor to know that even online transactions such as GCash and PayMaya were not available. Very outdated.

Will not recommend this diner. I wish better alternatives will be available soon at...

You will not be allowed to get in until your group is complete otherwise 2 hours time will start. What a customer experience why not let the customer sit and start the timer when food is served. Then, no enough food, you need to ask the crew if they have plans to replenish, for the cooked section, fried rice almost nothing, few dry fish fillet and fries. Sub standard siopao and siomai. Even the side dishes were not replenished on time. The set up is confusing, you can't see where the plates are and utensils. If you want plain rice, beef and shrimp you need to order and it will takes forever.. the table has no tissue we just get from other table. Hot pot the soup options are just ok nothing special. Stressful experience, there's a leaking aircon too from...

First of all, the broth of each soup is rich but we don't like the hassle of bringing each dish to it. I understand that it's a hotpot, but I don't know what laksa soup is in, and I have to check one by one if I'm putting it in the right broth.

Plus, every staff member seems tired, they are masungit and unapproachable, food items are so few, ubos na nga yung iba, di pa nila ni-rerefillan, also, I had my niece (infant) with us, and they put us so far in the corner where there was so much hot pot smoke and very uncomfortable. 😡

The price is malapit na sa vikings, so better to eat sa vikings or sambokojin na...