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| Robinsons Place Bacolod, where Moon Cafe is located. |
Moon Cafe is fashioned as a Mexican food restaurant with various Mexican artifacts originally from Iloilo. The waitresses are dressed in traditional senyorita costumes.
Of course, that's about where the Mexican influence stops. Even though many Mexican foods are served, such as burrito, chimichanga, quesadilla, fajitas, tacos, and more, they are nothing close to being authentic. Actually, the restaurant tends to use the same cheap ingredients that you might find in a street vendor's food in the US, except in some ways even cheaper and even less authentic.
Even though some of the food has outrageous prices (180-210 for various dishes), they do not serve appetizers (No free chips and salsa? Come on!) nor do they serve side dishes such as rice and beans you would find in an authentic restaurant.
To further the point, their salsa is simply made of tomatoes, soy sauce (not even close to being Mexican), chili powder (make a Mexican cry), and onion powder (again, make a Mexican cry). They could easily make the salsa "Filipino style" by putting sili peppers and red onion in the salsa instead of the powder. They could also easily preserve it using calamansi juice or vinegar. I honestly have no idea why they use soy sauce.
As well (another bad point), the menu lies. Where the menu states "serves 3" or "serves 2", they do not mean the food is big enough to serve two or three people, it means they serve 2 tacos or 3 tortilla shells. That is not even close enough to being able to serve 3 people, especially without wrappers or side dishes.
Where Mexican food is spicy and flavorful, Moon Cafe food is flavorless and sweet. They use soy sauce where ever they can.
Then, you have the drinks. Where you would normally find Corona served "Mexican-style" (in a beer glass with salt around the rim and a lime on it's edge), you receive simply the beer in a bottle for a hefty 160 pesos.
Even though some dishes cost as little as 80 pesos, it's a waste of time. The food just isn't that good. They use cheap ingredients, have too high of prices, and the food is very little.
One might make the argument that it is simply Filipino-Mexican food and that's the reason why they put soy sauce everywhere and make the food sweet and not spicy, but that doesn't excuse the restaurant from using cheap ingredients and lying on the menu.
Then, you have the waitresses and waiters who simply stand at the counters and gossip while they are waiting for someone to call them. If you do wish to visit Moon Cafe, I suggest not getting a table near the counter.
My advice? Stay away from Moon Cafe.
