Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Food Delivery in the Philippines: Taking Off!

Growing up with Chinese food delivery and McDonald's has made me a big believer in food delivery.  I like the flexibility and options it provides me.  All I need to do is power up my PC and with a click I can have the food I'm craving for.  Up until a few years ago food delivery in the Philippines was non-existent.  It was very frustrating not being able to order for food when you really wanted it.  Especially at 2am in the morning and you really really wanted that hamburger.

Now it's a whole different story.  Everybody is getting into the game.  I now have accounts at 5 different food delivery sites from McDonald's, Chowking, Quickdelivery.ph, Yellow Cab, and others.  I'm very sure there are more to come.  It's a blooming industry and I think if you have/own a restaurant, it's time to consider getting delivery service.  In today's business atmosphere every and any edge you can get above the competition is a must.  The strong survive, and the strong right now deliver their service on demand.

I'm actually really surprised at the quality of service our online delivery sites provide.  The websites are professionally designed, easy on the eyes, and the menu's are universally complete.  Their call center people are absolutely professionals.  Must be because we have so much experience in the call center industry.  Anyways, service is always great.  They always call you within 3-5 minutes to make sure they have all the details of your order correct.  They never get it wrong since I'm the one clicking and choosing my order but it's nice knowing that they check up on it either way.

Two issues I have with the delivery service though is, one, that they never find my delivery address and two, you only have two or three choices of food places after 9PM.  Usually only McDonald's and Jollibee.  There must be something very hard about my location that they always get lost.  But that's a small thing compared to the service they provide.  When you crave and have that itch...it must be scratched.

One service I can recommend from experience is http://www.quickdelivery.com.ph/.  I'm sure you've seen the motorcycles around with the numbers 212-1212 We Deliver Twoanyone.  You just go to their website, sign up, choose your delivery area, find the restaurant you want, and order.  It's that simple.  Someone will then get in touch with you to check your order, and then after 30 to 40 minutes someone will deliver your yummy food to your doorsteps.

As per Quick Delivery's marketing team:  "Quick Delivery has over 300 restaurant partners in over 500 locations throughout the country."

One foody place we tried out for fun was the Empire Deli Restaurant in Taguig.  They're located at Unit 103B, GF The Venice Piazza, Upper Mckinley Road.  Their menu consists of pasta's, sandwiches, and main courses.  I've never been to the place itself, but basing it on the food, I'd stay it's a winner.  You can check out their menu with the link here:  Menu

My wife ordered the Fish and Chips and I ordered the Blackened Dory.  Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures to post as we finished eating before I thought of taking pictures.  Must've been hungrier then I thought.  Drats.  It cost us about P550 or so but I was very pleased with the taste and serving size.  The Blackened Dory was in a clear plastic container with the deli sticker on top.  The container was microwavable so that was a good thing.  The delivery guy...of course got lost and it took about 50 minutes for the food to arrive.  The dory was peppery and the mashed potatoes went well with the fish and beans.  My wife on the other hand, wasn't too keen on her fish and chips.  She said it was more batter than fish and the chips (fries) were ...well, just fries.

Overall though, I did enjoy my peppery blackened dory fish meal and I would recommend it.

There are more online food delivery services online but these are the ones I have the most experience with.  Excellent service, availability, and tasty food brings me back for more.  You should try it yourself.

Chowking
Yellow Cab
McDonald's
Pizza Hut
Jollibee

On closing, Pizza Hut has this deal where they will deliver their pizza on time or it's free.  Well, if they deliver to my place, it's usually late.  One time, the delivery guy arrived ten minutes late and when he took off his helmet I could see in his eyes that he was about to cry.  I must admit, it caught me off guard.  When I told him that it was Ok and I wasn't about to claim the free pizza, he couldn't hide his smile and gave me about 20 lollipops.  For the kids he said.  Hmm.  It's just a guess, but I think they charge the delivery guys for the pizza if they are late.  So guys and girls, be nice to the people who deliver and serve your food to you.  It's fun to receive free stuff and free food, but if it's at the expense of others, be kind.

You can email me at:  chickenromano@gmail.com


Tuesday, February 7, 2012

A new Year...a New Hobby: Blogging

It's always fun starting something new.  May it be fishing, reading a new book, falling in love (for those younger people out there), or simply getting yourself a new hobby.  My new hobby, as you may have noticed, is now blogging. It's less time consuming than my other hobbies, less stressful (even releases stress), and gets my brain a work out.  And it gives me an opportunity to write about things that I think can be useful to others.

What will I be writing about you may ask?  That's a good question.  My high school English teacher once told me, "Write about something that you like.  Something that you know about."  She was also the one who told me that life experience is the best way to find something to write about.  At age 16, writing was hard to do.  No wonder.  Maybe my teacher was right about that.  At age 32, writing does come easier.

So what will I be writing about?  I thought about that long and hard.  A few things came to mind...

  1. Food
  2. Travels
  3. Sports
  4. Women
  5. Kids
  6. Work
  7. Photography
Of course the above does not come in any chronological order.  You may even strike out number 4 because my wife will be reading this blog.  Now that I think about it...I know nothing about women.

I now had a short list of things to write about.  But it was still too long.  I needed to focus on a subject.  Maybe two subjects, but not more.  So my old brain got clunking again and I finally whittled the list down to two subjects:  Food and Traveling.  Why those two you may ask again?  That's simple...

I love traveling.  I love eating.  I think of myself an expert when it comes to eating. I've done it for over 32 years.  Come on, how much more expertise should I be getting?  Well, of course I'm not a chef.  I don't know what the main difference between a red onion and a white onion is...besides its color of course.  But what I do know is this, what tastes good and how the ambiance of a place can affect the whole dining experience.  Traveling is of course self explanatory.  Everybody loves to travel.  And fortunately, I'm allowed to travel at least once a year by my boss.  Take a guess who that is?

My wife and I eat out at least once a week.  That's quite expensive actually.  But we just can't help it.  I don't have any other expensive hobbies as of the moment and we enjoy it.  So why the heck not right?  It does add a bit to the waistline but I manage to keep it to a certain adorable size.  So one day, while we were waiting for our food at "unnamed restaurant", my wife turns to me and says, "Since we eat out every week, why don't you start writing about it?  Maybe even someday someone will offer us free food so you can write about it."  Bless her heart.  She's so practical and I love her for it.  And I thought about it.  I said it was a good idea.  And so here we are.

I promised myself (and to my readers, hopefully there would be more than 10 by the end of the year), that I'll write at least one "review," "comment," and/or "experience," call it whatever you want, about a place, resto, venue, business, or whatever constitutes food, fun, and adventure.  Now, don't come running to me and complain about bad grammar or wrong sentence structure.  I really don't care.  This is my blog.  I'll try to make it as honest as possible and as interesting as I can.  I don't want to bore my readers of course.

In the next few days, weeks, and even months, I'll come up with a better web design.  I'll even buy a better camera so that I can fully show the world and my readers what I'm talking about.  What's a photographer with no camera worth right?  I'm currently in the process of choosing a criteria on how to judge a place/business.  For now, I'll use whatever I can think of at the moment of writing.

Since I haven't taken down any detailed notes of the places I've been to in the recent past, my first few blogs won't be as detailed as I want them to be.  That'll change of course as we go along.  I'll fine tune and zero in to what is good and get rid of what I think is boring.  For now, sit back and enjoy reading my blogs.  Bon Appetit!  Guten Appetit meine Freunde!


You my email me at:  chickenromano@gmail.com