Souq Pampanga — Restaurant in San Fernando

Horrible experience last MD!

We dropped by here from Pangasinan to have a dinner as I usually dine in here whenever in SF.

We arrived at 645pm, there is no host to assist all arriving guest. We need to go inside the main dining area where most of them are at the cashier/runner area despite there are people on alfresco waiting to be assisted and private room.

Base on my observation. There are 8 employees on the day. 1 was assigned at the bar counter outside the main hall. And including the manager are at at the cashier/dinning area.

Manager just focus on cashiering as she stand there for the whole time. With such a big restaurnat, i dont understand why she need to stand there instead of doing operational task. The whole operations looks disaster and never organised at all. Why?, no one was assigned at alfresco dining area and private room area. When we arrived, i saw couple waiting for their food. Bulalo came first and it was on the table for a long period of time before other viands/rice arrived.

I need to go to the main dining area to ask someone to take our orders since we are seated at the alfresco. It was around 7.15pm.

We received our starter at 7.50pm(fresh lumpia-photo attached)

8pm we received the bulalo and its LUKE WARM. I ask the waiter to reheat. First time i order Bulalo that was Luke warm.

8.15pm all our orders arrived. And all of the food was COLD. I even ask the waiter/food runner to try and touch the food. The guy just ignore me and went back to the main dining hall.

I call up another staff to follow up on the plain rice that was missing. When she arrived she was apologetic. It seems like the staff(food runner) raise the issue. The waitress mentioned that the food was ready but they wanted to serve the all the orders at the same time since some customer complaint about why they need to serge the food 1 by 1. I did not buy it and told her not to generalize all customer. We order an appetizer( fried pork slice) and how come Bulalo came first before the appetizer? We wanted our food to be serve hot as food best to eat while its hot and not cold.

I went to the cashier area to pay my bills as no one is outside, to my surprise I saw all the food at the food counter area and no one is serving all of it. This makes me conclude why the food was serve cold and why most of the customers are keep looking around and seems waiting for the food. During payment, same girl staffwho is apologetic assisted me to settle my bills. I over heard customers following up their orders.

Here's my advise. During special events- pls ensure you do have more than enough staff both kitchen and service. Think ahead of time. You can avoid giving offdays and rejecting request. Train people how to handle stress. Pre planned or do a shift briefing before opening and make a scenario of possible situation may happened. Make sure that MOD(manager on duty) is visible. He or she is the first defense for the feedback and seevice recovery. By right she or he need to engage to every customers. Check your inventory and planned ahead of time. We wanted Okoy and Spring chicken but the staff mention it was item 86. Thats why we settled on fresh lumpia and the fried pork(i forgot the menu name) as appetizer.

Btw..

Kudos to the mestiza lady that was apologetic to us. She was the only person i think who run the show on that night base on my observation.

2nd person was the bar guy, who I beleived received all the pressure from getting all the drinks order, serving the drink, and clearing tables.

3rd The security uncle who really do his job well assisting customers at the parking area. And moving around bringing his whiteboard to ask the owner of the car.

Thank you to the 3 person above.

The rest, they need to be calibrate.

Fyi. Its my fifth times on that day. Previous dining experience were all good. I even brought my Singaporean Colleague here. Maybe, there are lack of preparations or IDK.

PS. The temperature at the alfresco is hotter than the food that was served. Except...

Very disappointing customer service. Communication of staff is very inefficient. We inquired on possibly booking their private room for a lunch meeting a week prior. After initally getting a response asking for the booking details, succeeding responses were delayed. There was also no proactive follow through from anyone, knowing that an inquiry and booking was pending and considering they promised to get back to us. We followed up daily through all platforms, including viber. But it became even harder to get a hold of anyone, even through phone calls as our reservation date got nearer. Messages were just being brushed off without any follow up, after just an initial response.

Two days before our supposed event, we contacted proactively again to follow up and after several unanswered messages and missed calls, we finally got a hold of someone. Who aksed for 50% DP to be settled. To which we agreed but had to wait for another day to get their response on which account the funds should be transferred too.

The following day, we followed up again to confirm if our booking is already in place, since no one has confirmed and provided the account info yet. We were able to negotiate and agreed on waiving the down payment and just settling the entire balance on the date, since the confirmation was made late in the night. The staff also confirmed that we can arrive early at 10am to tour the area and order our food ahead of time.

However, when we arrived on the supposed date, which was around 10-15 mins. before 10am (agreed time) the restaurant was still closed. We were able to speak to some staff who were inside the premises. They mentioned that pest control is still ongoing and that they will open at 11am, which was still tentative, as they were uncertain if the pest control will be completed by then and if they’ll be able to accomodate diners. We asked how come non of the staff we’ve spoken with informed us about the pest control. They even confirmed 2 days, then again a day before that we can arrive and can be accommodated early. We asked for them to let us in, even in just one spot, epecially our guests who traveled from Manila, coming from Mindanao in. just to get shelter from the sun and rest while waiting for our time. However, they refused and mentioned that the pest control is still ongoing and the chemical is still pungent throughout the area.

In the end, we had to abruptly look for an alternate place and head out instead, as our colleagues were very tired and hungry from their travel. The sun was also scorching and we’ve been standing and waiting outside for more than 30 mins. And they said it might be for another hour or even more at the latest, without even offering any assistance to alleviate the situation. We also didn not see and feel any sincere effort from their part to try to come to an agreement about the predicament, and resolve it so that they can accommodate us early or at least on time as eith their supposed...

We went to this place with 6 people and one of us had difficulty sitting on toilet bowls without seats, there are no seats for their toilets and there is no wheelchair accessible entrance.

The food is bland it doesn't have the delicious flavour kapampangan cuisine is known for, the meat and especially the fat of the Crispy Pata smells meaning it had been left ou for a while before being reheated, thw Kare Kare is bland you can barely taste the peanut butter, the Sizling Salmon is juat salmon hrilled umtill it's dry and then they added sauce that's too salty then next with their garlic rice, the garlic is so obercooked it's become bitter, the hokoy has too much sweet potato and there's only a single piece of shrimp inside.

Now enough about the food let's tallk about service, they seated us rather quickly amd gave us menus afterwards ordering was also a breeze, after that however the service begin deteriorating, they offered us water but only served three of us cause the other three ordered cold water, which never came then we had to wait for at least 5 mimutes yes you heard correctly FIVE minutes, thwn we were given our plates with no sppons and forks after which we were served drinks then it was 10 minutes for the food when the food was served then and only then were we given our spoons and forks, slow very slow not to mention bad service.

Lastly is the ambiance. The restaurant is dark it's hard to read the menus in the darkness the music can barely be heard over the music from the establishment outside, it's peaceful though however that's all it has.

To wrap this up.

Ambiance: 7/10 Food:...