La Parrilla de Manila — Restaurant in Woodbridge Township

My family used to go here frequently.

The food is good, but way overpriced. My reasons for the lesser stars is as follows:

I have dropped by this establishment with visiting family members on different occasions/years, 3 times for a quick dessert treat like halo halo. On each of those 3 occasions, we were turned away. Once, they seemed to have an event and were closed even though the hours were listed as open. 2nd time they were closed in between lunch and dinner, fine. 3rd time it was only 5 mins prior to re-opening for dinner, we could see them all inside, but they did not even welcome us in even to just sit and wait the 5 mins inside quietly which we would have been happy with. No hospitality. These were all spur of the moment events with a group of people.

I had bought a kare kare dish to go one evening for my dinner, and it took perhaps 20-30 mins wait or so. It was not busy at all at the time. I was shocked when at the pay counter, it had cost around $33 with my $5 coupon which I had received from a Central Jersey flyer!!! I'm pretty sure they scammed me, but I paid it and left thinking never would I buy that again and to next time check the menu prices before ordering. It's Central NJ, not NYC. What was even more shocking was when I opened the to-go box at home. The box was a little more than 1/2 empty with only two slivers of wilted bok choy and one thin cut of meat that barely had any meat on it. It was not oxtail, but lamb I believe. Oddly no rice either which was weird for a Filipino dish. I wish I had taken a picture at the time, because it was so unreal. Needless to say I was still starving and bought myself Taco Bell afterwards. I never went back since then.

The interior of the restaurant looks nice. They have a parking lot which can get crowded. Food presentations inside the restaurant are generally good. Portion sizes lean towards the smaller side except for their halo...

I made a reservation for a specific time, but we were running late so I decided to call to let them know that we would be about half an hour late. The young lady who answered informed us that they were heavily understaffed and asked me if we would like to place order on the phone so that we wouldn't have to wait. I unfortunately had to decline because we didn't know what we wanted yet.

When we got there, we rang the bell and we were greeted with the young lady whom I later discovered to be the hostess, waitress, food runner and bus girl. She promptly checked each of our temperatures before we were seated. She took our drink orders after which, I watched how she managed to care of three other tables that were enjoying their meals.

After waiting for about 10 minutes, she came back with our drinks and took our orders. The menu was quite full but unfortunately, they didn't have the appetizer that we were all craving that evening (chicharon bulaklak.) We ordered an array of dishes and each and every one of them were delicious. They were portioned just right (maybe even larger) for a party of five. The flavors and the freshness of the ingredients were all there. Kudos to the chef who prepared them. The crispy pata were all kind of crispy and fatty in the best way. The bulalo took me back to Tagaytay. The pinakbet was made with fresh vegetables. The sisig and the pork BBQ made me want to take a shot with my barkada back home. And you can't have a proper Filipino dinner without rice; garlic fried rice that wast just comforting.

I have to admit that I was very hesitant after I was told that they were understaffed, especially after she asked if she could take our orders over the phone before we even arrive. But I was shockingly surprised by how everything turned out and the quality of the food. Very impressed. Definitely will be back, especially on a Friday when they have street...

Before coming here my husband called the restaurant to see if they have a bar, whoever he spoke to told them no, so he asked if we could BYOB. He was told no, when asked why the employee said it’s not allowed…odd. Anyway, we decided to go because we were meeting a few family members there. Last night was our first time going to this restaurant. The food was good, but the service was horrible! Wasn’t greeted when we came in, nor was the staff friendly throughout our dinner. In fact one was extremely rude, the thin lady with the long hair and tattooed arms. We arrived around 6:30pm and around 7pm the rude server came to our table to tell us the kitchen is closing at 7:15pm and to put in all our orders in including dessert because the restaurant closes at 8pm…really on a Saturday night?!?! Only our drinks and appetizers arrived when this announcement came! While eating the same rude server was clearing out dishes, she was reaching right in front of our faces. When my sister in law was inquiring about our to go order the rude server purposely ignored her. My husband said excuse me she’s asking about her order and her reply was, “yeah, I know” and told my sister law that the order was coming. Also, they couldn’t wait to start cleaning while we’re still eating. My husband got nauseous because you can smell the chemicals from the cleaning products. Mind you there were two other tables with customers still in the restaurant eating as well. When the server took all the dishes away she started spraying cleaner and wiped the tabled while we were in mid conversation. That’s when our party got quiet and we all just looked at each other and got up and left. Sadly the food was good, but we will never go back again. It’s obvious the staff do not know how to...