The Failure That Was KITARO

After marveling at the cool lights and sounds over at the Ayala Triangle Gardens, it left Mom and me totally famished! It also did NOT help that hundreds of families were having their Sunday night family dinner at the restaurant row! So we were left to find a restaurant in nearby Salcedo Village.

Since it was a Sunday, understandably a lot of the food establishments were closed. It was also a bit late, we were walking around at 8pm...and believe it or not even Starbucks was closed!

We were about to give up on our food hunting, when we saw a lone restaurant still open, its bright lights drawing us to it like moth to fire. It was a miracle...or so we thought.

Kitaro over at the Salcedo Carpark Building was the only resto open, and we were so hungry we decided to just go for it. We saw families, who I think came from the lights and sounds show, waiting for their food.

Their interiors were cozy and bright, and it wasn't really hard for us to find a table. The set-up was ideal for families since they had long tables .

But as soon as we got to take our seats, well...that's when the problem started. There were no servers around, so I had to take the menu from their counter. It was fine, maybe they were busy, so I let it pass.

We ordered our usual favorite Japanese food, Maguro Sashimi, Tempura Udon, and Mom ordered the Teriyaki Chicken Bento Box.

I started looking around, and noticed that 4 out of the 5 families that were there were still waiting for their orders. They had been there before we arrived, and they still had no food. Then I saw that there were only 2 servers that night, and that was why it was SLOW!

There were even 2 gay dudes (no offense meant) who were hungry as hell. They were given menus but obviously there was no server to take their orders so they bailed...A GOOD CHOICE! When they left, I overheard one of them say in a snooty manner, "Ang tagal!" ("It's taking forever!")

We waited a good 30 minutes for our food to arrive, and if you're hungry 30 minutes IS FOREVER! I followed up everything thrice. And when the food arrived this is how it looked:

Maguro Sashimi, that did NOT LOOK FRESH!

Tempura Udon. The noodles tasted like FLOUR, the soup was so-so, and they had so much vegetables and "garnish" you couldn't understand what it really was.

Teriyaki Chicken Bento Box. This took forever for them to make. The chicken was hard, obviously not fresh from the stove.

This totally sucked! I LOVE Japanese food, and will eat at ANY Japanese resto in any given time. But after that experience with Kitaro at the Salcedo Carpark I WILL NEVER EAT THERE AGAIN!

We left and didn't leave a tip. And walking out we saw the 2 gay dudes happily eating at the Mini Stop Convenience Store right beside it. And I wished we just ate there, they have good fried chicken and we would have paid LESS!

If anyone from Kitaro's management gets to read this, please do something about your service. It's really disappointing. Thirty minutes for food, then end up tasting crappy is really bad PR!