— witsandnuts

Kamayan Barrio Fiesta, Abu Dhabi

When Barrio Fiesta (BF) opened in Abu Dhabi last March, I thought it’s going to kill the other nearby Filipino restaurants. 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 on 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 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 did I/going to say that?). Checking on the dishes displayed, not tempting. Anyway, 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 yummy looking 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 revisit or not. But of course, BF in the Philippines is one of the finest restaurants. There’s no caveat to that.   But if we talk of BF Abu Dhabi, well, I might give it a second try after a cycle of being operational. I sure hope huge improvements are made then.