Caveat on the resto’s name
Barrio Fiesta, Abu Dhabi
When Barrio Fiesta (BF) opened in Abu Dhabi last March, I thought it’s going to kill Philippine House Restaurant. BF opened steps away from the latter and I smelled a very tough competition. Of course, how can you beat the ‘name’ especially that it is known for its authentic Filipino cuisine. I suppressed my excitement to go there expecting that it would be jampacked. To my dismay, a number of people that I personally know who dined there never had anything good to say about their experience.
Until I craved for kare-kare and well, BF along with Max’s and Triple V is known for this, I finally gave it a try. First hand observations:
(a) It never felt like I was in BF.
(b) A good number of tables are there. But, these seemed like pretty empty tables and chairs.
(c) I was there on a weekend and surprisingly, there were only a couple of tables occupied.
(d) The Philippine flag hangs from the ceiling.
(e) Television is at the middle end. As I was eating, Wowowee is being aired.
(f) I thought I had to sit and call for the waiter. No, it has to be self-service, no pretty menus on the table. I almost suspect it’s not BF. Okay, maybe they are cutting on the variable expenses.
(g) There’s a queue stand (there’s no queue though) like in a fastfood/carinderia. No problem with that. But, really it felt like not BF (weeheehee, how many times I said/going to say that?). Checking on the dishes displayed, not tempting. Anyhow, we ordered kare-kare (my verdict later), fried chicken (nothing special, home cooked chix are much better), chicken barbecue (nothing special; restos here are not allowed to sell pork barbecue, for some obvious reasons) along with plain rice and sodas.
(h) Food in general is not reasonably priced.
My looking yummy yet tastefully awful kare-kare.
I am naturally finishing my food even if it doesn’t taste good. But this one, I didn’t get to eat even 1/3. Not worth for take out, no one’s going to like it anyway. The authentic kare-kare from BF is here.
So, a little warning on the restaurant’s name. I think its diners are mostly first-timers, and you can tell the probability if they would be back or not. But of course, BF in the Philippines is one of the finest. There’s no caveat to that. But if we talk of BF Abu Dhabi, walk a few steps instead to its neighbor, Philippine House Restaurant. It’s definitely better.
Take care. Panadeross...
July 2nd, 2008 at 6:01 pm
i know you labeled the kare-kare “awful” but from the photo, it looks good =). i love kare-kare, and my cousin makes a really good one, so no restaurants for me. the restaurant looks really nice. are there a lot of Filipino restaurants there?
kaynis last blog post..Speaking of Road Trips and the Grand Canao
July 2nd, 2008 at 6:24 pm
At least the kare-kare looks good.
But really, it’s a waste of money. The resto’s structure and design is actually nice complemented by friendly staff, the only (but main) problem is the food is not good. Especially that I expected too much because of the name.
Not so many Filipino restaurants are here in Abu Dhabi. There’s Tagpuan Restaurant and Kainang Filipino (which are not high-end restos), chowking for fastfood, and recently I learned that there’s this high end resto inside Al Ain’s Palace (I will try soon) named ‘Tambayan’. Sounds cool to be inside a Palace.
July 4th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
[...] (a) BF is actually Barrio Fiesta and not boyfriend. (b) Abu is Abu Dhabi and not Abu Sayyaf. Which makes me think that in the first [...]