After seeing what seems like hundreds of advertisements all over SM (yes, an exaggeration, I know), I decided to head on over to Mesa to try their beef kare-kare one of their advertisements mention.
I love kare-kare, so there isn’t too much a restaurant can do to mess it up. Beef kare-kare? Yes, please. Just throw some beef and peanut butter in a pot with a few vegetables and I’m more than happy to slurp it up as long as it isn’t like I’m licking a sugar-cane field or licking a rock.
So, what’s my beef with Mesa? No beef! That’s what!
When my friend and I entered the restaurant and the waiter came up to us, we ordered kare-kare. The waiter simply repeated “kare-kare” to us. Unbeknownst to us, they serve different types of kare-kare and they didn’t bother to ask which one we wanted.
As well, we asked how many people does it feed. The waiter said “2 or 3”. Great! There are two of us, so we thought we could chow down on some delicious beef kare-kare and go to town on it.
No.
The kare-kare was then served to us and immediately we knew something was wrong. We asked the waiter if it is the correct order and he said, “kare-kare”. Yes, OK, it was indeed kare-kare, but it wasn’t beef and it definitely wasn’t enough meat or vegetables to feed three people.
 |
| Definitely Pata Kare-Kare |
It is quite obviously pork leg (“pata”). I know what it looks like, you know what it looks like.
We thought perhaps it was simply our mistake and that they probably had different kare-kares so there isn’t much we can do about it. Fine. But when the bill came, wow! They charged us for “oxtail” and not “pata”. That’s the most expensive kare-kare in the place.
When the waiter came to our table, I asked why did they charge us for oxtail. The waitress said, “that is oxtail.”
I responded, “But it is pork.”
“Yes, sir. It is pork.”
“Then why did you charge us for oxtail if it is pork?”, I replied.
“Oxtail is pork.”, she said.
No, ma’am. No, Mesa. Oxtail is not pork.
It is in the name! Ox = working bovine. Tail = something that hangs off the butt of an animal.
How in Lord’s name is pork a “working bovine” and how is the leg a tail?
Only at Mesa. And just in case you don’t want to take my word for it, here:
ox·tail
ˈäksˌtāl/
noun
the tail of a cow.
meat from this, used especially for making soup.
Obviously I know what oxtail is. I lived on a farm, I ate beef my whole life, and I have cooked oxtail myself, even my own kare-kare had oxtail. This was definitely not oxtail.
After some argument with the waitress, nothing changed and nor did their manager want to charge us the correct amount for the pata.
I then decided to contact Mesa through Facebook and through their customer service phone number. Neither places wanted to resolve the issue in a professional manner.
Ratings:
Atmosphere: 1 out of 5 - The place is expensive compared to most restaurants in Bacolod City yet the place uses cheap fabric on their seats. The fabric looks like it was bought from the 30 peso rolls of material you can find at Gaisano Main, you know what I’m talking about. This is not to mention the colors of the fabric, yuck. They definitely do not match and are actually complete opposites (blue and orange) but the blue isn’t solid, it has different shades of blue. This is what led me to believe the Gaisano theory. Two fabrics that don’t match and with random patterns that make the place look like a $2 “lady of the hour” house. This is not to mention their crazy slanted glasses for water.
Price: 1 out of 5 - Seriously, the food wasn’t that great and they charged us for the wrong food. They don’t even serve shrimp bagoong with it, instead they serve anchovy ginamos like you can buy downtown for 5 pesos (but they give you about 50 centavos worth). All in all, it felt like I could make the same quality or better for about 30 pesos (and that’s including the price of the pata). Yet I spent around 500 pesos for the overpriced garbage.
Taste: 2 out of 5 - Like I said, I love peanut butter, but the soup was still off. Just something doesn’t taste right. The ginamos was the only savior, but as I said earlier, I could buy the ginamos for about 5 pesos downtown.
Service: 1 out of 5 - They didn’t even try to fix our issue.
Recommendation: Stay far, far away from Mesa in SM Bacolod City. It is by far the worst restaurant I have eaten at in the city. Worst service. Worst price. And the taste isn’t worth it.
Actually, I haven’t posted on this blog for a long time until now. And the terribleness of this restaurant is what made me post. Disgusting. The manager needs to be fired immediately with an overhaul of their customer service.
