Grand House - Wilson — Restaurant in San Juan

I can understand orders taking longer than usual because you're packed, but lying is unacceptable.

It was my first time dining here last January 26 (Sunday) with my family. We live pretty close by and both my mom and brother enjoyed the food last time so they wanted me to try it out.

When we arrived, there were two other tables with at least 6 people each, then another two tables with one to two people seated each. We immediately placed an advanced order for the oyster cake, salt and pepper squid, and salted fish fried rice while we were thinking of what else to get. We would later on add an order of hot and sour soup and General Zhao's chicken to round up our lunch selection.

About 15 to 20 minutes in and I admit I was starting to get antsy about the food. Maybe they were having a slow day, I told myself. I could see they were still putting out some of the dishes for the big group that filled two tables. This was fine.

About 10 more minutes go by and we follow-up with the waiter. He apologizes and tells us they're getting the food ready and that the kitchen was busy and cooking by batches. To note, there were also plenty of take out orders being sent out from the kitchen.

About 5 more minutes from that point, we noticed some soup dishes were getting out to the tables that were seated much after we had arrived and placed our orders. I followed up with the waiter and pointed this out. He checked in and said the food would be out soon enough. It took about 5 more minutes after that for the soup and chicken to be served to us. Take note that these were ordered after the initial advanced order.

So I followed up again with a different waiter who said our remaining orders (the ones that were ordered right when we got there) were mistakenly packed as take out and were being transferred to proper plating then served. I also added that I wanted to get an order of their mango tikoy lumpia for take out to bring back to my fiancé to which the waitress acknowledged and wrote the order down.

It was another 20 minutes, over a full hour since we arrived and four peanut refills later, before we got all our food out. There were multiple times when the waiters/waitresses approached us asking if we needed anything, to which we responded water or some condiment like black vinegar.

They never got back to us.

You would think it would have ended with that and we would enjoy our Sunday brunch in peace. Certainly the food ranged from average to above average with the squid, in my opinion, being the best thing we had from our selection there.

But when we were billing out, I followed up on our take out. I could see the waiter heading back to the counter and the looks on their faces as they seemed stunned for a good few minutes. I knew in that moment that I wasn't getting any take out and thankfully I wasn't mistakenly charged for it either.

Please teach your staff to be honest with their customers because it's easy to see people who are lying just to appease, and that can make things much messier. I would suggest as well that maybe you need to hire more staff or figure out a way to cater to both dine-in and take out without overloading your kitchen.

Would I eat their food again? Sure. You guys make tasty food but there's plenty of room for improvement.

Would I dine-in here again? Probably not because of the...

Dined in here last nov 21 for a late lunch. Was excited to try their dishes and we ordered the ff:

corn & chicken soup: was the best and most decent dish out of all our orders Salted egg enoki mushroom: flour batter was tooo thick! I could not differentiate if it was the mushroom or it was just pure fried batter. :( the salted egg taste was good tho! Crab & garlic noodles: lacked flavor. It tasted like a saucy cha misua.. crab meat was too few and lots of small shells were found in between the noodles. Taro puff ( shrimp&mango) : this was just okay.. there was a tiny ground shrimp and one piece of mango inside with cream.. it was not enjoyable coming from someone who LOVES taro puff.. i only ate one out of three and took the rest home :( Tomato & Egg : did not taste like the ones in Taiwan, it was literally just scrambled egg & tomato, the flavors were not incorporated together) very disappointing.. the tomatoes were in big chunks and was sour in taste. The distinct tomato sauce slurry with the egg was not found in the fish :( Shrimp Ball: Omg this was 💀. It was more like a bread ball than shrimp :( it tasted like a fried pan bread overall.. the breading was tooo thick, super greasy and tasted slightly burnt! It tasted very homemade :( super sad. I hope they can improve on this..

Overall, the quality of the dishes were lacking and needed improvement.. i think their main chef was unavailable that day ?? because I could not believe that we did not enjoy our dining experience despite the good review of others. :( hope they can do better on our...

Grand House is the newest Chinese restaurant around the Greenhills/San Juan neighborhood. The place is well designed and maximizes its space, but it’s gonna need to work on its food flavor and quality. Some dishes didn’t seem seasoned while there were some questionable components in the food.

I wasn’t able to picture everything, but I will try to comment on the ones I’ve tried.

Hakaw - I don’t mind a thick wrapping in my dimsum, but the shrimp inside was mushy or crumbly. I prefer my shrimp to have some bite I can chew on.

Hot and Sour soup - This wasn’t well seasoned. Mostly tasted the sour note but it seems they forgot to put chicken stock in their recipe. It used sili labuyo as well.

Sweet and sour pork - Good dish. I don’t mind it had more batter for that extra crunch.

Spinach Tofu with Shimeji Mushroom - This was delicious but I wish the tofu pieces were bigger so it wasn’t mostly fried tofu skin.

Bola bola Misua Soup - No flavor at all.

Grand House Cha Misua - Lacking flavor if you ordered this in other Chinese restaurants

Fried rice - The rice was so dry. Noticed the dish barely had any oil sheen. It had flavor but it felt like eating day old rice.

Steamed Halibut Fillet in Ginger Garlic Sauce - It’s like eating steamed Lapu-Lapu with light Soy Sauce but the fish meat was cardboard hard.

Salted Egg Tiger Prawn - This was delicious too albeit on the saltier side

Hong Kong Peking Chicken - Yummy!

Chinese Style Beef Tenderloin - This was also yummy, but the green peas were harder than uncooked...