Brazil! Brazil! @ BGC/Serendra

Ah, so I'm supposed to write a blog every weekend to share some of my foody experiences but unfortunately I've been a bit busy lately.  I missed writing one last weekend but I have some time this weekend so here I am writing again.  Yehey!

My wife has been cringing lately at our credit card bills and I saw the reason why.  We've been consistently eating out for the past few months every weekend and we're racking up some good mileage.  We've decided it's a bit too much and we'll only eat out once a week.  It'll make eating out so much more fun and exciting.

Anyways, last weekend, I decided to take the wife out for a late Valentine's dinner.  Cheapskate that I am, I bought a voucher for P800 (dinner valued at P1,500) at MetroDeal for a valentine's treat dinner at Brazil!  Brazil! located at Serendra.  For those not familiar with Serendra, this is located right across Market! Market in Taguig at the heart of Bonifacio Global City AKA BGC to those who want to be hip.

Metrodeal is a local voucher/discount seller of pretty much anything.  They sometimes have very good deals on dinners, hotel packages, trips to Boracay, and the great thing here is that most of the deals are 50% off and even more.  You might want to check it out if you haven't yet.  Here is the link, but for some reason it's not working right now.  Metrodeal  They must be temporarily down for something.

So back to my story...everything is nice and planned out.  Take the wife out for dinner.  Enjoy the ambiance of a new place.  Enjoy dinner, the food, and enjoy a nice chat with the wife.  So we get there ahead of time of our reservation, the staff was kind enough to show us to our seats quickly.  The place is packed, most likely because it's a Friday night, but it isn't that uncomfortable kind of packed like some other places I've eaten at.  I really hate those.  The seat that she gave us was a table designed for two people, most likely specially done for the voucher promo as we were sitting next to other diners with the same food.  We were seated right next to the ice cream container and right behind me was the salad bar.  This restaurant being an eat all you can place there were always people to the left of me getting ice cream.  So close, that sometimes they would bump me in the elbow.  I just tucked in my elbow for the rest of the night.

Our reserved table for the night.

Brazil!

Salad Bar thingy

I gave the waitress our printed voucher, she makes me sign it and voila!  We're done with that and the waiter ask us if we want wine with our dinner or iced tea.  We of course go with the iced tea as we both no longer drink alcoholic beverages...long story.  The waiter arrives and gives us the drinks, with a small plate of sauces for the dinner, and a tossed salad to begin with.  So far so good. 

The Salad!

Iced Tea!  And some water!

The salad and iced tea were your run of the mill tea and salad.  Nothing really spectacular about it except that it came with the meal and was quick to get to the table.  I had a better salad at Eat n' Go at Megamall.  They have this really great deal for two people but that's another blog. 

By this time we were really hungry already and the salad just came in time to quench some of that hunger.  We quickly gobble up the salad (well, it's the best description I can provide because the salad didn't live long) and then we waited for the main food experience.  And we waited.

And we waited.

And we waited.

And we waited.

And we waited.

And we waited.

While we were waiting for our food to arrive it gave me some time to check out the place.  It wasn't a really big place.  A bit too small for my taste.  It had a festive motive with masks hanging around on the walls.  Most of the interior was of an earth colored palette of oranges and browns.  The crowd was of a more affluent clientele with a few foreigners mixed in.  The couple's sitting to the right of me (left for my wife) were already enjoying their dinners, which was very mouth wateringly torture.  I'm not really sure why this place is called Brazil Brazil! except for the masks could be somehow be related to festivities there and maybe the type of food they're selling...but it just somewhat looked like a good ol' American 4th of July BBQ feast to me...

Masks there were above our table.

Where's our food?

While waiting for our food.

So while we were waiting for our food, the salad now a long forgotten memory, our stomachs grumbling, I first thought that maybe it does take this long as I could see the table next to us eating a somewhat large assortment of meats.  We do a bit of more chatting.  We wait.  We wait.

And when my tummy starting complaining I called one of the waiters over and told him that we haven't received our food yet.  What's taking so long?  All he does is nod, says he'll get the food right away and goes off somewhere.  So we wait.  We wait.  And since we're waiting I took a look around to scope out the place some more.  I turn around and see the this same dolt of a waiter doing what waiters there are supposed to be doing.  He never even went to get our food!  So being the nice guy I am I figured that he "DID" tell someone that our food hasn't arrived so we wait.  And we wait...and we wait.  I looked at my watch and we were now waiting a good 40 minutes for our dinner to arrive.  This is too much.

So I look over to get the attention of another waiter and I noticed that all the waiters were tending to two big tables carrying meats on big hooks and were carving meats onto plates of other customers.  Apparently, when you're eating on a voucher, they don't treat you as kindly.  Must be a societal trait were if you pay for service that is cheaper, you will receive shabbier service.  Taking mental note.

So I forcefully call the attention of one of the waitresses and tell her as kindly as I could in that situation that our food hasn't arrived and it's now almost 45 minutes and going.  We want our foody and we want it now!...Please.  Thank you.

So she goes off to do what she must do.  So we wait.  We wait.  We wait.

And then I couldn't wait any longer.  Waiters going off somewhere and not even telling us how long it would take for our food to arrive....  It's too much.  I'm hungry.  And hungry equals I'm pissed.  So I look around and saw the manager.  I raise my hands like a schoolboy and waived it side to side like I was at a concert of the Back Street Boys to get his attention.  He sees me and starts trotting towards me in a somewhat irritatingly slow motion kind of way when all of a sudden the previous waitress I talked to intercepts him and rushes to our table.  "Sir, your food will arrive in about 3 minutes."  Finally!  An answer.  So we wait.

Fortunately for her, the food did arrive in about that time frame and we thankfully got to eat.

Glorious food!

 The food consisted of a variety of meats.  Sausage, grilled chicken, pork chops, some type of tapa beef, and paella rice underneath all that meat, with two cobs of sweet corn.  I really digged the grilled chicken and rice.  The sausage wasn't bad either as I grew up in Germany where they have some of the best sausages in the world.  The platter was surprisingly good enough and filling enough for two very hungry people.   The couple next to us even had some left overs and took it home with them.

This is meat!

The combination of the meats with the sauces and rice was really yummy.  Although, I wouldn't be able to really say that this is really Brazilian food, it was good enough to entertain my taste buds.  Especially for paying only 800 bucks for a meal for two.

What I really did want to try but couldn't, was that big meat the waiters were carrying around with them and slicing onto people's plates.  Since we weren't there on the eat all you can scheme I just had to sort of look at the meat.

Imagine the Schwarma meat being grilled and they took it off the hook and carried it around with them.  That's what it reminded me of.  Waiters carrying around a big log of grilled meat.  I suppose I would have to come back with the wife here sometime.  Not to re-experience the shabby service we received, but for the food.

So now full of good food and happy again, we asked for our desserts and me not being much of a dessert eater really did enjoy the ice cream.  It was sweet and creamy.  Just the right thing to have after eating all this meat.  I wonder where they get their ice cream from.  I had the strawberry flavor while my wife decided on the green flavored one...don't quite remember what it was, except that it tasted great too.

Thus, being satisfied, and now eating ice cream, a new couple arrived for the same voucher dinner at the table to the right.  Me, being the very good observer, immediately clicked on the stopwatch on my Fossil to time the arrival of their food.

Salad and drinks made it right on time just like ours...and darn it!  It only took their dinner 15 minutes to arrive!  What an aggravating thing to happen.  I would have thrown the waiters a dirty look but I was happily fed and no longer minded.

We left about 5 minutes later and just kind of quietly slipped out of the restaurant.  I turned to my wife and mentioned that it's sort of strange leaving a restaurant without asking for the bill.  Kind of feels like you didn't pay for the meal even though you know you already gave the voucher at the beginning.

All in all, I would recommend the restaurant for its food, but not for its lousy service.  We'll definitely go back there someday, but not this year.  I'll have to forget the feeling of lousy service first before I'll step into that place again.