Rekado Davao: A Work in Progress

My hunger for new places to try and eventually recommend (or not) will not end, at least not in the near future. Davao City has establishments opening faster than I can manage my time to check each one of them.

Last Saturday, I finally had the time to try out Rekado along Jacinto Ext. It's alongside Kopi Roti and Crazy Cravings. I've been passing by this new place for a while now and the architecture from the outside seems interesting. I have to admit, I have high expectations.

We got there at around 6:15pm and all of the tables are either occupied or reserved. (Oh, I didn't know a restaurant on 'soft opening' accommodates reservations.) 

Nobody was there to greet us by the door and tell us we had to wait to be seated. I was the one who had to walk to a table being cleaned to ask if we can take it, and then we were told to wait to be seated. We weren't given the menu to review while waiting. We had to ask for it.

Thanks to @olga_gaye (Instagram) for the photos! 

The menu is simple and was fairly sectioned. I appreciate restaurants with not too many on the menu as it gives me the impression that it is all house specialties, makes it less confusing for me.

We ordered tofu and mushroon as appetizer, garden salad with Malagos cheese, fish and chips, kare-kare, full rack of baby back ribs, and buko pandan for dessert. Our list seems too much for a group of four, considering that their plates serve 3-4 persons as we were told upon ordering.  

When the salad and the appetizer were served, it was okay. The amount of serving met the 3-4 persons expectation, although I wished they were more generous on the salad dressing and the Malagos cheese. The main courses, however, is far from 3-4. The full rack of baby back ribs was cut to half across the rack. Yeah, it was half of the full rack. At that point, I felt cheated.

The taste? Basic. The price? Way above basic. (Point of comparison: You can get the real full rack of baby back ribs at Coco's for the same price.)

Rekado has been on its soft opening for weeks now. I appreciate how the owners are hands on from serving to clearing the tables. I hope blogs like this will give them pointers on customer service as they have a lot of opportunities for improvement.

I would like to try the place again after its grand opening. Maybe by then, they have already brushed up on their service from reception to bill out and everything in between.