All of the love flowing for this place has scared me away from posting any negative comments for a few months. For some reason I keep thinking of Uncle Mike's Place even though I did not enjoy my fist experience there. I think my mind recalls it with the wish that there was good Filipino food in my neighborhood.
It was late last year, I didn't particularly want non-American breakfast that morning, but I figured a couple over easies with meat would satisfy. And since the bf was gunning for this place we gave it a whirl.
The place was packed with Filipino families and neighborhood couples mid-morning on a Saturday, and we waited about 20 min for a table. We saw the sign proudly boasting Intelligentsia coffee, but after we ordered were informed that they were out and were brewing more. That was a fine reason until a table that was sat well after us received coffee and we still had none after our meals were served. The coffee could barely be called that - it was so watered down, it was basically hot brown water. I joked that if Intelligentsia knew what this place was doing with their product they'd stop selling it to them. This was such a far cry from Intelligentsia's individually-brewed cups that when we left we went straight to Swim for a real caffeine injection. (Yes, I know Swim serves Bridgeport coffee.)
Onto the meal. I ordered the tocino, having seen plates upon plates of the combo breakfasts coming out of the kitchen during our wait. I really wanted the tocino/loganiza combo, but didn't see it on the menu. After putting out order in, I asked the server if I could get both meats. She checked with the kitchen and came back with a negative response. I was pretty shocked they wouldn't accommodate this request - they could easily have sent out a side of loganisa after they served our meals. Usually a business would want to sell more rather than less, and I found it off-putting and got a sense that they just didn't care, which is the last sentiment I want from a restaurant.*
The flavor of the tocino was good, not great. The garlic "fried" rice was an abomination. Really, how can they call it fried if it never touches the griddle/wok/hot surface other than rice cooker? The rice was obviously steamed with garlic flavor, certainly not fried. I was really looking forward to some charred flavor from the rice but sadly this did not deliver. Everything was a large portion, and the tocino had some char on about half of it. The eggs were not very fresh tasting, some of the least-flavorful eggs I've had in years, which may just speak to the great quality eggs we've been getting recently. But this also detracted from my breakfast.
The bf ordered the half portion of skirt steak and this turned out to be the highlight. The meat was a nice thick cut, really juicy and flavorful after adding a pinch of salt.
We actually thought the coffee was a mistake - that they wanted to serve it as quick as possible and maybe filled our first cups after hastily fetching coffee from a not-fully-steeped pot, but upon having our mugs refilled with the same disappointing brew, came to the conclusion that that's the way it was supposed to be.
I hope my experience was a fluke, I wanted to like the place. But I got off my seat wondering aloud what the appeal was. And I've been stumped these past few months stewing and seeing more glowing reviews of the place. I haven't wanted to commit to another meal to here just to be disappointed, using the "fool me once..." mentality.
There are just so many places to try, and I can't see myself walking into this place of my own accord again.
As an aside, I don't like slamming places after just one visit, but the attitude of the staff and the atmosphere of the place made it seem that this was the norm. There were no clues that they were striving for something better. The staff gave us no vibe, no clues that anything was out of the ordinary. Everything seemed to be running just like it was supposed to be.
*A measure of a good restaurant in my house is one where you can say "they don't fuck around," meaning the food is beyond reproach, you can tell all links in the chain are well-oiled and they make no excuses. If a place doesn't care, they must "fuck around," thereby eliminating them from the acceptable realm of eatingdom. In essence, I only want to eat at places where they don't fuck around.