Avenida Restaurant — Restaurant in San Mateo

My husband and I have been eyeing this new Filipino place to open up since we saw the signs during the renovation. We’re in downtown San Mateo almost everyday so we noticed immediately when they finally opened up this week. We couldn’t find them on yelp but we did find them on Opentable so we made a reservation there for a Friday night date.

If this place wasn’t new, the review would have been a solid 2 stars but since they’re still in “soft opening”, I’m sure they are still figuring out their restaurant groove. All the staff seemed very nice, but inexperienced. Upon entering the restaurant, it was unclear who I was supposed to talk to because there was no one to greet me and there wasn’t a clear waiting area. It took only a minute for the hostess to address me and take me to a seat upstairs. I asked her how the opening was going and she told me they expected a full house tonight so they were very excited to see it all goes.

Looking at the restaurant, it honestly felt empty since there was so much open, undecorated space. I hope they will work on the decor inside. Especially because they are trying to sell themselves as a “upscale” restaurant. We were placed next to a large family with a wailing baby for our date night...Not sure what prompted her to ask if I needed a drink menu. How am I supposed to know if I want a drink if I can’t see it?

The prices on the menu were a little high for the expected type of food. Our waiter explained they are more “upscale” so the prices would reflect the quality of the food. I’ve had a lot of experience with Filipino food but my husband did not so he didn’t understand most of the menu, “what’s so special about pork knuckles?”. I think having pictures next to all these Filipino specialties would help them so much. The waiter was very helpful with his recommendations and introduction to the restaurant.

In the end, I ended up ordering just two things since everything was little pricier than expected- the crispy pata and fried chicken. The food took a little longer than expected to arrive but again, since it’s soft opening- they will eventually figure out their groove. (As pictured) the crispy pata arrived on a wooden board and the fried chicken was on large plate.

Crispy Pata ($26?) this is a very large plate, larger than expected based on the description on the menu. It looked and smelled incredible on arrival. What do you think of when you think of crispy pata? I only have fond memories of crunching skin and melting pork fat in my mouth, there’s nothing quite like it and I highly recommend getting it somewhere else for a real experience of what crispy pata can be. Unfortunately, the look didn’t match the taste or the price. The skin wasn’t crispy, it was hard, bland, and hurt the inside of my mouth. The fat was more gelatinous than melty, the meat was also dry. I’m not sure how they were able to disappoint me so much with this dish. I miss visiting family gatherings just to have a bite of scrumptious pata.

The “local fave” fried chicken ($16?) is -not crispy-. It doesn’t crunch in your mouth as you bite into it. In fact, you’ll end up with a mouth full of powdery batter but at least the meat is tender. The flavor was also bland for this dish. I’d recommend trying out jollibee’s instead for fried chicken. The fries were actually the best thing we got that night.

After eating a quarter of our food, hearing a wailing baby for the 50th time, we were ready to leave. It took another 10 minutes to get the check and another 5 minutes to complete the transaction. They have 3 very large bathrooms with baby changing stations. Unfortunately the bathrooms don’t have hooks and the counters are wet and leaky so you’ll have to hold your leftovers and bags. I also felt quite uncomfortable with the frosted glass doors as the only defense to someone peeking into my bathroom.

I will be coming back again in the upcoming months, hoping they improve the experience. I’m a big fan of Filipino food, so I genuinely wish...

We've ordered takeout from Avenida Restaurant thrice now, and the food was fresh and excellent every time. It is pricier than your traditional Filipino restaurant, but I consider this high quality Filipino food so I don't mind paying extra.

Although I know how to cook, I can't make the dishes taste as good as they make it and I don't have the time to figure out how right now. Thankfully, we live close to downtown San Mateo so we can easily pick up food when the cravings hit. LOL.

Tip: Instead of ordering pickup/takeout via Grubhub or Doordash, just call in your order. The hours of operation and pick-up time slots that the apps give tend to not reflect the actual availability of the restaurant. Also, calling in your order means the apps don't take a huge cut from the restaurant.

Here's my review of the food:

Beef Salpicao = If you love garlic (my husband and I do), you will love this dish. The beef cubes were very tender and well marinated. Even the leftovers we reheated the next day still tasted excellent. The dish does has a lot of oil, so stay away if you are on a diet. I personally don't mind that the dish has a lot of oil because I like pouring the oil and garlic sauce over hot rice. Yum!

Avenida Fried Chicken = Both the chicken and the fries they serve with it have been consistently good. The marinade of the fried chicken has some tanginess to it, maybe they use calamansi? I don't know, but it kinda reminds me of my grandma's fried chicken. The breading has a nice crunch to it and well seasoned in my opinion.

Pork Sisig = I love that their sisig is not just made of pork belly! Traditional sisig I ate growing up in the Philippines was made with pig face (maskara) which is a not-so popular part of the pig. When I first moved to California from the Philippines, I was disappointed to see that most restaurants here just use pork belly in their sisig. This is why I was pleasantly surprised with Avenida's version, which seemed to be closer to the real thing. They also top it with crunchy chicharon which is wonderful. I like reheating their sisig on a cast iron skillet at home and then putting a raw egg in there while the food is still sizzling.

Crispy Pata = This is by far my favorite dish from Avenida. The skin was crispy, but the inside was oh so tender, moist, and flavorful! And to think this was takeout, which means the dish had already traveled. I can't wait for COVID to be over so I can eat this dish at the restaurant itself! I told myself I would only eat half my garlic rice, but thanks to the crispy pata I finished the whole cup of rice in record time! I would recommend this dish to anyone looking to treat themselves on a cheat day.

Grilled Pork Belly (Liempo) = Very tasty dish and mine came perfectly grilled! I hate it when the liempo gets too charred, and this was not the case for my order last night. I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Overall, I think Avenida is a great restaurant. I know they had a soft opening right before COVID hit, and had to close shortly after that. But I am so glad they were able to continue operations and adapt to the challenges of the pandemic. I for sure will continue supporting this restaurant, not just because I like their food, but because I believe Filipino food deserves a spot in the front row of the food scene like...

My friends and I opted to catch up over dinner at Avineda and overall, the experience was pretty good! Admittedly we weren't very familiar with Filipino cuisine but everything we tried was very flavorful and enjoyable.

Beginning with drinks, I went with their Pandan Old Fashioned which I highly recommend. If you are more of a classic, smoky Old Fashioned drinker you may not enjoy this version as much but I thought the sweet, almost vanilla-y pandan aftertone was absolutely DELISH.

For our entrees, my friends and I each got our own bowl of garlic rice and we shared 3 entrees family style:

Beef Kaldereta - hands down my runaway favorite. The stew sauce stole the show. It was unctuous and had a delicious velvety profile. It paired perfectly with the garlic rice and we all took seconds, thirds, and maybe even fourths if there was more. The beef ribs were chunky meaty bites which in my opinion could have been a little more tender. Having said that, it was still very good.

Pork Sisig (add an egg) - delivered sizzling hot, this dish featured a delicious array variety of chopped up pork in a vinegary soy sauce that you can accentuate with a touch of lemon. The dish was pretty oily but that's what makes it delicious so make sure you have rice for this one.

Grilled Squid - this dish was a very generous serving and probably the second most popular dish coming out of the kitchen compared to the Pata (this one looked a little intimidating for us though). The squid was grilled perfectly and wasn't chewy. The black vinegar sauce on the side paired very well with it.

For dessert we opted for the Leche Flan. While it had the right flavors I thought the flan was overdone and pretty dense. Definitely could have been better.

Service overall was a little slow in my opinion. Our beef dish took a very very long time to come out and upon asking for a second round of drinks, they too did not show up for an eternity. One of my friends also noted that he got a completely different pour from his first glass but Avenida did make up for this by comping the second round of drinks. Generally though, with covid restrictions still in place, they did alright.

Dinner for 3 with drinks came to about $46 pp with tip. Splurgy meal no doubt, but certainly a delicious...