Baristart Coffee Philippines — Restaurant in Taguig

This is a chain restaurant from Hokkaido, Japan, so we had high expectations from it. Actually, we had after dinner coffee here once many months ago and it was a good experience, that's why we decided to return to Tru their meals for our Sunday lunch.

Upon browsing the menu, I realized that they didn't really offer a wide selection as I thought before. I thought they had many Japanese dishes to choose from, but it was just a few.

What they had many to choose from were breakfast options that come with rice, toasts, sandwiches and pastas. I guess, it's because they are indeed a coffee shop.

Since it was lunch time, I ordered the chicken teriyaki rice bowl and a cup of hot cappuccino. My wife ordered some eggs Benedict.

The cappuccino arrived first and I was disappointed that it was not hot. This is the first time I've gotten a lukewarm cup of coffee in a fancy cafe or restaurant. I tried sipping it again a few more times just to be sure I was not mistaken. Nope, it wasn't hot at all. My wife told me to return it, but I didn't bother anymore.

The chicken teriyaki rice bowl that came with a boiled Japanese egg was fine but nothing really made it stand out from the other chicken teriyakis I've had in other places before.

My wife said her eggs Benedict was also fine, but that's all she can comment about it.

Finally, my wife ordered some Hokkaido soft serve ice cream on a cone. She gave me some as she couldn't finish it. My wife didn't like it much but I thought it was creamy enough and not too sweet just like how the Japanese like it. One thing we noticed, though, was that it melted so unusually fast. The weather was not hot at the time. It was even raining hard.

What's up with the not hot cappuccino, but easily melting ice cream? Weird.

The service is very good in this establishment. Waiters were polite and efficient.

Ambience was also topnotch. Sit outside and you get a relaxing view of the road and people passing by. Only downside of sitting outside is when those pesky motorcycles with noisy headers zoom past. They're a problem in the whole of BGC. Totally ruins the vibe.

We spent P1,400 plus for those meals. Seems not worth it for the food...

Hi! To the owners and managers of this store. Today, I had an unpleasant encounter just because of a heated exchange with your staff.

I order Blueberry Yogurt Smoothie almost every single day, so I already know what I'm getting, how it looks, how many it should be, and in a take out order it is always filled to the brim.

Today, it was exceptionally lower, almost an inch below the brim, so I asked the staff why was it so low today? And she said it was standard. Then I argued that this isn't standard because I always have this drink full or filled to the brim.

We had a rough exchange of her adamantly saying it's standard while I repeatedly said it's always full when I order (in my frustration, I just requested to cancel the order), because of this she eventually agreed to put it back to the shaker and add a couple more ice which I agreed and thanked her, but why is it so hard to do so at the beginning?

Im not asking to add more blueberry or yogurt because the amount for those should be STANDARD, Im just asking for a couple more of ice so it's filled to the brim as it always had.

Is extra ice so expensive that your Baristart staff would withheld ice and argue with the customer? If I request a glass of ice with water every time I order, will this make Baristart realize how trivial this issue is to begin with?

I simply want my yogurt smoothie filled to the brim as it always had. If it means adding just a couple more of ice, then I hope you do so if not I will just complain every single time it's not filled to the brim.

I will definitely order again tomorrow but I hope this doesn't always need to end in a heated exchange.

Don't let adding a couple of ice equate to baristart having poor service.

I hope baristart improves in this aspect.

See...

Tried this place couple of times since it opened and every time, we wanted to give them a chance but in almost all instances the Service really fails.

Food and ambience is ok but the service is totally terrible. While the staff are polite, they have zero management skills.

Wife and I ordered around 0900 AM, her food arrived in less than 5 mins. Couple of mins after, mine is still not served. Wife had to follow up twice and what’s more, it’s obvious that they made a mistake when they tried to serve us the same order my wife already got. Would have been understandable if this only happened once, but no - during that same time, I noticed a similar event happened. To our right, just right after we arrived a father and son came and ordered their food. 10-15 mins after, another customer came and sat on our left. The one who sat left and just arrived got her food first. 30 mins passed and the cust on our right lost his patience and called the staff to ask to cancel their order. Across another table, I also heard that another customer got a wrong order. This all happened in a span of 1 hr across 4 different customers - given the consistency of their misses, it’s apparent that their staff lack proper management training and organisation skills.

Again, note that this is not our first time we experienced this poor service, first time we were here, order also took more than 30 mins. 2nd time, it was a long waiting period and someone cut off the line but they didn’t do anything about it. I called it out to the staff, but they just offered poor excuses.

Good ambience and “ok” food is nothing if service is this poor. Will probably never try again...