I am extremely disappointed in the service. When I arrived it took about 5 minutes for me to be seated on my reservation for 11:45 am. It is Metropolitian restaurant week so I was excited to try a Michelin star rated restaurant that I hadnât experienced yet. Their were a lot of flies in the restaurant because of the open doors and birds flying too. The food was a 4 out of 5. The duck noodle dish was slightly saltier than I think it should have been. I left and called the restaurant 7 times because someone decided to change the tone of my reservation online. No one answered the phone. I sent an email too.
My girlfriend and I have been here several times, usually having a great experience. This past Restaurant Week visit was quite disappointing. It was very busy, which was expected. The blue crab curry was excellent as always. The ribeye was tasty but not very tender. Restaurant Week portions were small, which we anticipated and planned to order something else from the regular menu (crispy whole fish, something we have ordered nearly every time we've been there). However we were told we cannot order from the regular menu; the entire table must be ordering from the Restaurant Week menu or the regular menu. The reason apparently being that the two menus require separate points of sale. And? How is this our problem? You're refusing more money because you don't want to charge to two things? We split the check anyway, which seems like it would require the same amount of extra button pushing. Why would it even matter? This is the first time I've left hungry. So yes, I recommend going to Kaliwa, but don't do it during Restaurant Week.
Not good. Very loud. Food fair at best.
Sometimes smoky from the kitchen
Staycation at a nearby hotel and we booked it to have a special meal!
Disappointed in our visit to Kaliwa. Two things stood out: 1) when the pescatarian in our group asked if she could do the chicken fried rice without chicken, and just have some more veggies instead, the waitress said no, unless she was okay with a $5 up charge. Absurd considering the cost of veggies relative meatâ¦and she didnât even bother to talk to kitchen/chef/manager. 2) the Pad See Ew was the blandest such dish Iâve ever had. Usually it comes out with a brown tint to the noodles, thanks to the sweetened and reduced soy sauce in the sauce, but these noodles looked AND tasted absolutely plain and bland. When I politely said they were a little bland and asked for some sort of sauce, the waitress gave me the side eye and instead of offering me options (for sauces, to say nothing of a different dish altogether!), she just stood there staring at me and then just brought me soy sauce. All around disappointing experience, but for the lovely weather while we were seated outside. Also bizarreâour entrees (for 3 people) came out one by one, all by one wait staffer, across the span of 5-7 minutesâ¦bizarre service.
Kaliwa came highly recommended, but I unfortunately wouldn't return. The food was worse than the average Thai restaurant, and at least twice as expensive. Friends who had visited the restaurant previously were surprised that the food seems to have changed since they last ate there.
I had high hopes and booked dinner for my family of 4 to celebrate my husband's birthday. The service was disinterested and "low energy" at best. The server forgot our drinks, didn't tell us the kitchen was out of things until 10 minutes after we ordered them, etc. The location and decor of the restaurant are great, the food is okay. But I'd recommend going to a good restaurant that specializes in one of Thai, Philipino or Korean food, rather than this mishmash of all three. It was more like a Jack of all trades, but master of none. I wanted to like it but left regretting that I picked this place for a birthday dinner.
Food was horrible. My meal was inedible and smelled rancid. They did take it off my bill but it was too late to order something else.The other two meals our group ordered were just bland. Also no noticeable air conditioning inside. It was hotter in there than outside. I would not return.
Food was good. Atmosphere nice. Service was slow and kept forgetting to bring things (at one point different parts of 3 meals and a drink). One advantage of slow service is they werenât chasing us out the doorâ¦we couldnât get anyone to bring us the bill!