Verdict: No redeeming factor. Must NOT try.
!Bienvenidos!
Welcome to a complete culinary
experience from fascinating Spain --
a country that considers dining one of life's
greatest pleasures.
So began the menu of Gaudi tapas bar and restaurant at the Piazza in Serendra. Named after Antoni Gaudi of Spain, at least my guess is, the restaurant purports to be authentic Spain. Since I haven't been to Spain I really couldn't tell whether or not it really is authentic, I just have to rely on Ferdi's comments on whether it really is true Spanish cuisine. Authentic or not authentic, however; one thing is for sure -- the food is BAD.
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| the gaudi menu |
To start of the evening we had three sets of appetizers first:
Boquerones en Vinagre (Php290) which is marinated fresh anchovies,
Surtido de 8 Pinxos Frios (Php250) a selection of cold tapas, and
Croquetas Mixtas (Php 200) mixed chicken, serrano ham, and bacalao croquettes.
Nothing of the above is good. We didn't finish half of the croquetas. After finishing one, I couldn't eat any croquetas anymore. The Serrano ham and chicken croquetas might be slightly better, but unluckily for me I tasted the bacalao one first. It was the fishiest most nauseating croquetas I've had. I love fish, and I eat bagoong but nothing comes close to how fishy this one taste. Recalling it as I write now even makes me slightly puke a bit. To add insult to injury it was also so heavily breaded and the oil they used is also not nice. All in all, if you'll ask me to choose between UP fishball and this, I would choose the former.
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| deep-fried croquetas |
Hoping the second of the appetizers will be better, which is not a hard feat considering how bad the croquetas were, we were only to glad when the mix cold tapas were served. Unfortunately, this restaurant is just astonishingly consistent -- consistently bad, that is. The selection of mixed tapas is just too oily and had too much mayonnaise! Ugh. To make matters worse, some of it is served on toasts which are too soft and not crusty enough getting the poor toast so soaked up in alcohol and too soggy from the mayonnaise. Same as the other one, we didn't get to finish it at all. The mixed cold tapas is composed of some olives and baby onions on a stick, sliced parma ham (i think) which is the one on 5 o'clock, the one on 3 o'clock is anchovy and bleue cheese two of the things I love but hate when served together, and some egg salad with lots of mayo, and shrimp with quail egg, again smothered with mayo.
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| The mixed cold tapas |
The third one is not as bad as the former two. The boquerones has good fresh anchovies, a good smothering of olive oil with a lemon wedge on the middle that we squeezed for added taste. The only disappointing thing about this is that they had to put grated cheese on top of the fresh anchovies. Seriously, CHEESE!? And no, it's not like it's hard cheese like pecorino or parmesan that would be forgivable with the anchovies but they had to grade soft cheese which looks like eden cheese to me. I tasted it, and true enough it is tasteless! We made sure to remove all the cheese on top of the anchovies before we ate it. Not as bad as the former two but if it weren't for the cheese, this dish could have been the restaurant's saving grace.
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| It's sobrang cheesy! |
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We chose not to order two main dishes and opted to just share. We ordered Lamb cooked the Andalusian way. After our dish was served though, that's when we realized that the Gaudi Andalusian way is pretty much just like how we cook our caldereta, at least the not good caldereta. The smell of lamb was a bit too strong than normal and the sauce was too oily. What makes it worse was that the potato was also fried and already a bit too soft for the dish. Overall, it was bland and didn't have any 'identity' nor distinctiveness to it. Of course, did I mention it was also oily?!
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| Lamb - Andalusian |
At this point we're already too disappointed with the food and opted to just go. We paired all the above food with Marques de Caceres wine which is not all too bad. But this is not enough to make us go try Gaudi ever again.
Postcript: the food was that oily Ferdi had stomach pains the morning after.
A full menu of Gaudi is found
here, courtesy of munchpunch.
Looks like this restaurant focuses more on its food looking gaudy than the flavors. I normally don't post bad reviews of restaurants I've been to but I'd rather not go back the second time around to give them the chance to redeem themselves.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, I am quite intrigued to try Gaudi and I might just try it when I'm in Makati. (I will surely go back to this blog entry to remind myself what NOT to order.) I am pretty sure I've been here before but since I don't remember, it's most likely that my meal there was so-so.
I have this impression that Serendra restaurants have finesse in their food so your review of Gaudi is quite a surprise. The fishy taste usually comes out of frozen fish and I must agree that their croquetas look rather thicker.
I usually return the dish if it's too much for me, i.e., too much mayo, not enough salt, uncooked / raw, a bit spicy. I ask the waitstaff nicely if they could modify it for me and they usually do.
Re: authenticity, it's quite hard to find an authentic restaurant in Makati / Fort area without looking into the background of the chef-owner / chef. I'm not sure if they even show-off where the chefs had their training (and hopefully, it's not just a 2-week training in Napa or Provence). Most restaurants that I tried there either serve fusion cuisine or deconstructed traditional cuisine either from locally-trained chefs or from those who took short classes abroad. I'd like to go to a restaurant that serves authentic / classic regional cuisines but I guess I need to do more readings/ background check on the chefs.
Love your food entries. I subscribe to your posts to keep myself abreast on where to go and where not to go in Makati. Keep them coming ;-)
Hi Thea, i usually don't post too when the food is so-so but when it's bad and expensive, I sure would. :)
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