Food Review #1: THE ALLEY by Vikings
- Klaudine Gomez
- Jan 14, 2018
- 6 min read
Today, a lot of food parks and restaurant are popping everywhere. From cafes with cool interiors, to game-themed restaurant, there are a lot of choices where you can hang out with friends and family. There are those where you can play old school video games while having a drink with friends, or you can choose from different kiosks of food in one place. There's also where you can pamper yourself, have a hair treatment and mani-pedi, while having coffee and snacks, all in one place. What would be really tricky to all of you guys who wants to start a business, is to think of something different that will set you apart from the rest. Is it your food menu? or the interiors of your place? Or could it be the promos, the prices, the group deals? Whatever it is, you must find a way to draw everyone's attention and make them try your offers.
It's been years since buffets became a thing. I think it's really difficult for the owners to entice food lovers to try their restaurant. Like if I were to consider trying them, my number 1 question is "so what's new?" Well, THE ALLEY by Vikings is certainly different. From the design to the foods, it's really something new to try.
First off, the interiors. One thing I'm sure everyone who've tried and will try The Alley, is that it is very pleasing to the eyes. It's nice to be eating when your surrounded with aesthetically designed interiors. From the lights, to the chairs and all around the world style of food kiosks, it's really awesome! I specifically love the Italian, Chinese, Japanese themed "stores". I love the different sitting options, there were those under the tree, or in a bus, or in these mini houses.
Secondly, the food! So of course what's more important than all these beautiful designs, and chairs and lights, is of course the highlight of the day, FOOD! I wasn't disappointed, but I'm not that eager also with the food choices. So I first got the ones nearest from our seat, so that's Hakaw, Tempura, Roasted Duck, Salmon, and Bagnet. I wasn't too crazy over the duck and hakaw and bagnet. The bagnet has nothing special to it, neither did the hakaw, and the duck was gummy and really hard to bite into. I ended up not eating the roasted duck because I really couldn't get a piece, even a small one, because of how chewy it was. Buuuut!!! I loved the tempura! We came back for seconds because it was so good! The batter was really tasty, albeit a bit salty but I still fancied it. And compared to other buffets, you don't need to wait for a long time to grab a plate of tempura and yet still not get any because there's a lot of people wanting to grab as much tempura as they can. Fortunately, in The Alley, you don't need to wait for so long, they have enough cooked already to avoid long lines, and they'll ask you right away how many pieces you would like. In our case, since we didn't say any, they just gave us 3! Another dish I also loved was the salmon. It was really nice and we came back for seconds since it was really tasty and a good break from all the fried dishes that we tried.
So for our second round, we got the steak, and a slice of pizza, there was also the tempura again! So for the steak, it was so tasty! Like all others, you would have to order your own plate and it comes with a side of mashed potato and steamed vegetables. What's good with this is it look like you're dining in a steak house (if there was wine) and you just ordered your own dish. The vegetables were a little on the bland side, the potato was also bland but I think it works because the steak sauce were really tasty. The steak was a matter of fact really flavorful. Needless to say, it was worth it just from the steak itself. 2 servings of this steak would give you your money's worth. Well for the pizza, I have nothing to say but it was good. It wasn't that amazing, just a normal pizza with cheese topping and all that. There was just nothing extraordinary to it. And of course, the tempura again. I'm really going crazy over the tempura. haha LOL! because in all the buffets I've tried, I think this is the first time that I enjoyed the tempura.
I also tried the burger, wings and fries of LOST AND POUND. The burger was good enough although I felt like it was cooked already for a few minutes because it was cold. And the wings! Gosh, it was so sad to look at. It lacked color, and taste and it was cold. This i'm pretty sure of, the chicken was sitting in there already cooked and just waiting for someone to order. So who would want a cold chicken? You can clearly see from the photos how sad looking the chicken is. The only thing freshly cooked was the fries. The fries was the savior of this dish, since it was fresh and still hot and together with their blue cheese dip, really tasty! You can order a tower of fries and have it with a bottle of cold beer. I wouldn't mind waiting since there are a lot we can do for the mean time, so I really don't understand why they would serve us cold chicken. Also, it was way past the lunch time rush, so they could prepare us new ones, instead they gave us the already cooked chicken and burger, and just fried a new batch of fries.
Lastly, for the dessert, I got ice cream from the cart, and also one from the Hunneycomb area. We also got chocolate cheesecake in a mini glass and choco flakes. Oh and the creme brulee too! First off, I was really disappointed with the creme brulee. This was what pushed me to try The Alley and yet they really don't taste good. It was too lemon-y, and partnered with burnt sugar, really did not go well with me. The choco flakes were nice, the ice cream was amazing. It was also cool when served to us, with the smoke effect and all that! There was also Taho available which was cool! There are also beers, both bottled and in can, and different choices of sodas. What also amazed me is the tea and coffee section of Nord's. It was really fun since there are a lot of varieties to choose from. Twinning tea is also available and you can order lattes and cappucinos and frappes. The cappucino tasted a lot like Starbucks which is a plus, though I wasn't able to try the frappucino, I bet it was good too! There's also shake available, unfortunately there's only one kind of shake per day and it was Melon, unlike in other buffets where you can choose from their fruit selections.
The sad part is, there are no seafoods. The fresh seafoods were absent, maybe because the theme is street food so I think that's why? So for seafood lovers, I'm not sure if you'll love the dining experience. There were dishes though that have seafood, like the tempura, hakaw, salmon, seafood broccolli, and baked oysters. But crabs and lobster,clams and other seashells, all were no show.
I would give the food 3.8 stars. Well I'd give it a 4 but the wings and creme brulee disappointed me so much.
I'd give the service a whopping 4 stars. I don't have any issues with their service except for the fact that they refuse to give us better seats (we were originally seated in this corner where everyone can pass us by on all sides and with too little space for 2 people). We thought the place was already fully booked because I kept on requesting to be seated in a better table but they seemed to be hesitant. But the other half of the place didn't even have any seats taken so I'm really not sure why they won't grant us our request. They didn't want to budge at first but then later on gave us better seats with much spacier room. Other than that, everything was fine. The waiters were always with smiles on their faces and shared a good laugh with us. A few even tried to photo bomb on some of our photos with peace signs and all that! It wasn't irritating at all because they were just having fun on their work, so that's okay for me. They would also give random jokes which would lift the spirit of the place. I personally think that although a place is beautiful to look at, the people inside, the waiters and staffs are what make people come back. Who would want to dine in a place with snobbish staffs? or where you can't even talk to even just to ask questions?
So all in all, I loved my dining experience. I'd recommend it especially to everyone looking for something different and unique!
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