Gilligan's: Quantity over Quality

Have you ever had that moment where you're at the mall and you get really hungry but you have no idea where to eat? You go around looking for a restaurant but they are packed and it would take hours until you got your food? Well, I had one of those moments the other day while me and the fiance were at SM Lanang Premier. We were starving and the closest restaurant was this seafood restaurant called Gilligan's (I guess they derived the name from an old tv series called Gilligan's Island). The waiter that seated us was really friendly, so to me that made me really excited to order because I believe that good service always comes with great food. While browsing through the bulky menu, I was really surprised at all the variety of food they had; from American to Filipino and even some Japanese. I had a tough time deciding what to eat not only because I was hungry and could order just about anything, but they had too many options and the price was quite cheap; ranging from P25-P400. The fiance ordered his usual Nilagang Baka soup because we have this  thing where we try out the soup from all the restaurants we go to and compare it to Hukad's Nilat'ang Baka, which by the way is the best soup I've ever tasted in Davao, ever! (I will further explain on a later post about our LOVE for Hukad)

After much thought, we ended up ordering Nilagang Baka, Cajun Shrimp, 2 pieces of Yakitori, and Crunchy Sisig. Overall, the only dish I enjoyed eating was the Crunchy Sisig because it was very tasty and I loved the crunch in every bite. The other 3 on the other hand were very disappointing. The beef in the soup was hard and me and the fiance had a hard time chewing the meat because it was tough and very stringy. The chicken yakitori did not taste like chicken and the sauce on it was too sweet, kind of reminded me of a dessert rather than chicken barbecue. The Cajun Shrimp though did have potential because the dipping sauce paired really well with the fried shrimps except for the fact that the batter on the inside wasn't quite fully cooked yet. 

Cajun Shrimps

The Aftermath (You can tell I didn't really enjoy the yakitori, coz if i did I would have cleaned the stick)

Nilagang Baka

Overall, Gilligan's would be another restaurant that I'll put in my "I'm never going back there again" list. It's up to you guys to try it out for yourself, they do have a million other choices on the menu. For me and the fiance, Hukad is still the best place to go if you're looking for good'ol Filipino food. 

Hold the garlic, please.

For the past few weeks, the fiance and I have been on a coffee shop venture. We're searching for the best coffee shop in Davao in terms of taste, quality, price, environment, and security. We have experienced a few horrible, decent, and highly commendable ones. While I am the one who rates the food (food is my forte), the fiance on the other hand rates the taste and quality of the coffee. One particular coffee shop in Davao that we have tried thrice is Green Coffee. located along Torres street (they also have a new shop inside SM Lanang Premier). Thrice, yes three times we've tried Green Coffee, but don't assume that since we went there three times it means we love the place, unfortunately, that's a big NO! We only go there because they are open 24 Hours and their numerous outlets. Haha! Yes, we're a sucker for power outlets because my laptop can't run on its own batter after 5-10 minutes of usage (which reminds me I really need to order a new battery).

 Anyways, back to Green Coffee. For the third visit I was in my craving mood for pasta, specifically white sauce pasta, so I ordered their Garlic Chicken Pasta. The lady behind the counter said it would take 15 minutes to prepare the food so I just nodded. What else can I do? I was craving for it and I didn't mind waiting a few minutes just to feed my craving. While waiting for my pasta I was already imagining all the wonderful things that my taste buds would encounter when I finally get to eat my pasta and pair it with warm garlic bread. I was excited, but the excitement died down as I realized the 15 minutes had passed. I kept sipping on my Dark Chocolate with Fine Salt & Cheese, which by the way is not as good as their Green Tea with Fine Salt & Cheese

At last, after 20 minutes or so my pasta arrived. The beautiful pasta smothered in carbonara sauce looked very appetizing, but their garnishing was very poor. They only sprinkled plenty (and I mean PLENTY) of garlic granules on all 4 corners of the plate and a few more on top of the pasta. It would have been more beautifully garnished and plated if they placed some parsley leaves or used some color other than the 2 slices of garlic french bread on top. 

Here's an after image of Green Coffee's Garlic Chicken Pasta after we ate SOME of it.

The name lives up to its taste, it tasted like GARLIC and that was basically it, just garlic. I had to dig around to find the pieces of chicken and it too also tasted like garlic. Don't get me wrong, I love garlic, but when you make a pasta dish or any dish at all, too much garlic drowns out the other flavors of the other ingredients in the dish itself, they might as well have called the dish Garlic Pasta. Even the pasta was not al dente and the sauce was too thick, too think that I had trouble twirling the pasta with my fork. The sauce tasted very starchy and it left me with a bitter garlic taste after every bite, which made me want to gag.

I was quite disappointed and after that I forced the fiance to finish the whole thing, but he also couldn't stand the taste of it so we left Green Coffee with a plateful of food still on our plate. After that incident, we decided to never go back, ever! Not unless we have nowhere else to go on a late night coffee venture.

What took me so long?

After months of pondering if I should start my own flood blog, I finally did it!

Although I had already decided to go through with it about a week ago, the process of creating a name for my blog took some time; I had to make sure no one else had the same name as mine. I googled every single name I could think of and just as I was about to jump for joy, the first website that showed up in the google page was the same exact name I had thought of. Who would have thought that there are that many food bloggers out there who have the same thinking as me. Anyways, moving on I am now happy with my blog name because it fits me perfectly due to the fact that I love spicy food. My capacity to take in spicy food is beyond amazing! If you are not convinced then I guess you'll just have to stay tuned and keep reading my posts then, huh? That sounds good to me.

Til next time,

;)