Macoste

The first time I’ve dine in at IHOP is when I visited the US in 2008. Aunt Hattie in San Diego drove us in National City for breakfast before heading out for some shopping.

Since then, I’ve been longing for an all-day breakfast experience in Manila – not to mention the overflowing coffee.

When I heard that IHOP is about to set their foot in Manila, I got excited. I love to get hold of the infamous Red Velvet Pancakes that the Americans have been enjoying since last year. So, I called up my good friend Janie to have breakfast last Saturday.

The place is kind of near from our office. If it’s not only of the Morning breeze, I won’t be walking all the way to 30th cor 9th from 24th cor 4th.

There was not much customers yet when I arrived. The hostess directed me at the main dining area upstairs for my table. Since Janie is not yet around, I’ve decided to have coffee first while taking photos of the menu. I was already on my third cup when she arrived, so we scan through the menu and ordered.

It was quite frustrating that our orders arrived an hour from the time we placed it (mine arrived 30 plus minutes, I estimated). Some folks who arrived before we do were almost done for the day. We tried to keep our cool but my pancakes are getting colder. So after more than 5 times of follow up and when the Manager approached us the second time, Janie already expresses her frustration. Imagine that they just opened a day before we dine in, they should’ve learn something from their experience if they were overwhelmed with customers and orders.

As compliments, the Manager served us the most ugly looking pancake I’ve ever seen. But, you get what you get. Choosy pa ba?

So we ate, and I decided to order take away for Dwayne. When we asked for our bill, we were surprised that the pancakes that were given to us was billed to us and they’ve punched for additional orders on my take away. I reached out for my take away and found out that it has extra buttermilk pancakes on it. Imagine on how long it took for it to be corrected.

Don’t get me wrong, we were not the only customers who were complaining that day. Few folks from other tables in our area had the same from how they deal with the servers and talk to the Manager. I know that this could be just a soft opening but, they should’ve expected the worst and learn from Day 1. I can’t remember how its done in the US, but we think that the problem has to do with passing of orders from servers, to whoever punched it in on the system and to the Kitchen. That results to confusion on who took our orders and who should be accounted for on our table.

I would be coming back after few weeks and check if there will be any changes. But I’m happy that they’ve arrived in Manila and its just few streets away from my work. I can now eat breakfast all day – less the Red Velvet pancakes.

Macappleboy