Mama Lou's Italian Kitchen - Ayala Malls, Solenad — Restaurant in Santa Rosa

We ate at Mama Lou’s Solenad for lunch today, September 17, 2023, and we did not experience a good service and food.

Food:

The pasta was not al dente (Olio pasta)and was not evenly cooked. The olive oil tasted burnt.

The ravioli pasta in my Ravioli Spinach was overcooked and was overpowered with the white sauce I can barely taste the spinach and the ravioli.

The pizza was okay. Overall, I’ll give the food a 3 rating.

Service:

This is a big differentiator. The seem to be restaurant manager/supervisor (He dressed differently from the regular staff) welcomed us and guided us to our table. He told me to press the buzzer if we are ready to order or we need anything. When we were ready to order, I pressed the buzzer twice, no one came. I ended up raising my hand for someone to attend to us. We gave our order and specifically asked the Manager/Supervisor to give us water, but no water was given.

My nephew asked for an additional rice, I pressed the buzzer to order one, again, no one came. I ended up raising my hand again to call a waiter.

They did not give us water in our table sonwe had to ask, this was the most annoying part. I pressed the buzzer 5 times, NO ONE CAME. My companion raised his hand to call any crew, but they will look at us and not even acknowledged that we are calling. The lady crew near the door (she was the one attending to customers who will come in) was not assisting anyone because she just finished attending to her last one. She looked at my companion and told him to wait, and she did that 3 times.

I raised my hand now, this lady crew just came from their bar counter and again just looked at me and did not even acknowledged that I was asking for assistance. Completely ignored me.

I pressed the buzzer again, NO ONE CAME.

My companion called the same Manager/Supervisor and asked the guy for water and expressed that we had been asking for quite sometime now.

The male crew who brought our water heard me that I will review this restaurant. I also asked him for our bill.

The Manager/Supervisor was the one who delivered our bill and apologized for not being able to respond when we pressed the buzzer. He claimed there were items on top of the buzzer covering it. My Companion and I asked at the same time - “CAN’T YOU HEAR THE BUZZER? ALL CUSTOMERS CAN HEAR IT.”

While waiting for our bill, the Lady Crew who ignored us multiple times brought 1 scoop of ice cream to our table and told us it is on the house. We politely declined it and told her that we are not looking for a freebie, just a good lunch with good service.

We are not recommending this restaurant and we are definitely not coming back nor going to...

Update as of April 28:

We had a negative experience initially, but we decided to give the restaurant another try — and we’re so glad we did! From the moment we reserved our table until we settled the bill, Mark took excellent care of us every step of the way. The service was outstanding, and the food was just as impressive.

What truly stood out was their persistence in winning us back. They made a clear effort to show how much they value their customers, and it did not go unnoticed. The complimentary treat they offered was a thoughtful and special gesture that made the experience even more memorable. My family had a wonderful time, and we left with smiles all around. Thank you for making us feel truly valued — we’re definitely looking forward to returning!

This is honestly difficult to write because this has been one of my favorite restaurants for a long time. We even availed their FamCard because we loved the food and always enjoyed coming back. But today’s experience was truly disappointing and concerning.

While dining, we found an unknown black element in the water served to us. A few minutes after drinking it, I started feeling stomach discomfort. I immediately informed the server and showed them the dirty particle we discovered from the water bottle. After their internal check, they said it came from the ice scooper dirt - which, frankly, is unacceptable. That should never have made its way into a customer’s drink.

I politely requested an incident report, but to my surprise, the manager refused to provide one. I expected at least a written acknowledgment or a more proactive response, considering how serious this could be.

What made things worse is that this isn’t the first bad experience. In the past, we’ve had our orders served very late, and once our pasta arrived half-cooked, clearly rushed. Despite that, we let it go because we loved the place.

But today crossed a line. I hope this review serves as a wake-up call. You have loyal customers who truly love your food—but cleanliness, safety, and accountability should never be...

Mama Lou's "loses". Terrible pizza. And read a post from me earlier on their sister pizza place. How can two places owned by the same company be so different? Ridiculous and thus I'll NEVER go back. Their Thin crust pizzas are so undercooked that they were similar to wet napkin and lacked the picture in their menu. Typical bait and switch. The " All Meat" Pizza was lacking, all meat. Again different then advertised! We also ordered their Hawaii pizza. Again very little if any cheese. And no resemblance to the menu photo. The whole experience was bad. The staff NEVER checked in on us after being served. Not once to see how things are. These people are way to "comfortable" so my opinion is this place has terrible service. Oh. We did see a server after we ordered, trying to sell us a 1500php membership!! Proves my point. This place might at one time be good. But no longer. And screw the mandatory "service charge" of 98 pesos added to the bill. I would if never left them a tip. A wasted 1800 php! I guess if you're not in a free democracy your need for staying "on top" due to no competition doesn't apply here and you can definitely see the results. Also the "craft" beers were way over priced. 400 php+ each. I'm really upset that I was click baited to go here. Other items I did not order. ...