Chicken Ati-atihan — Restaurant in Zamboanga del Norte

Food is fairly good, but the overall experience is quite disappointing. Dipolog does not have a lot of choices when it comes to good food, and this place should be among the top, but it fails in several key ways.

1 – Food is usually warm, but rarely hot. Even though they bring dishes as they are ready, (not all at once), as they do nothing to heat their plates, the food temperatures start off too low and cool down quickly.

2 – They sound system is operated for the enjoyment of the employees without regard to the desires of the customers. The default setting is TOO HIGH. When an employee’s favored song comes up, suddenly the volume goes from TOO HIGH to WAY TOO HIGH. They do not have an area where noise is minimized, so the dining experience is jarring and less than pleasant. Employees gleefully shout at each other without much regard to what this does to the atmosphere of the restaurant.

3 – They can flat out miss parts of your order. If you get your food to go, be sure to make sure they got it all in there, or be prepared to go back to get what they missed.

4 – They have lots of time to kill, and have been trained to wash the windows, but they have not been trained to kill the houseflies which are bothersome. The little badminton racket bug zappers would help a lot. In their defense, many other restaurants have this same problem.

5 – Tables are spotted curiously, some of them can be so close to each other that you have to disturb seated guests in order to take your own seat. Of course, that means that the noise from the other tables is right there at your own table as well.

While this place has the menu and the facilities to be the best restaurant in town, the disappointments have sadly caused me to cross it off my list, despite the lack of choices for good food in Dipolog. You might find them okay for take out and then you can properly heat the food hot at home, just make sure they get all your order in there...

I ate at the old location that was adjacent to Lee Plaza and was open air. I heard this location opened to replace it and was eager to get my chicken ati-atihan fix. I'm from another country so I only get to indulge in their delicious foods occasionally. I went in expecting the same as the old location which had its own charm and seemingly well seasoned grills. I liked the air con of the new place and the service is excellent as always but the food wasn't as tasty overall. I currently theorize it's the newer equipment not seasoned from years and years of use but I could be wrong. I'll try again for sure, though because I enjoy the overall taste of their namesake as well as the barbeque pork and fresh fruit halo which is a favorite of mine. Although like the meats, it wasn't as good, but still tasty. We also had a boku and avocado shake, with the avocado shake being...

My experience was better than expected. The food quality is good. They arrived on time and looks nice. We ordered bicol express, chicken barbeque & chocomilk shake. They have a lot on the menu to choose from. The dining area is an open space and during lunch time it's quite hot but tolerable. My personal favorite is the buko halo-halo. No wifi but toilet and wash room is clean. They can improved on the...