Disappointed with Dinelli

I’ve heard so many good things about Dinelli.

Good selection, good food, good price and since it was near my area – good location as well!

Last Saturday night – together with my new family, we dined there. I have to say – expectations were quite high. But I was greatly disappointed with the quality of service and food we got that night.

We were seated on the second floor – and being the only diners there at the time we were seated, I was expecting a server to somehow come up and down to check on us for orders and some other things. But we didn’t get that.

Yes, the server took our orders – but right after that, we were somehow forgotten. Since there were no servers on our floor – we had to tap on the glass windows to get attention. This happened not once but four times. Our orders then were given one at a time with intervals of 10-15 minutes each. The Alio Oglio pasta was a bitter, the Seabass was relatively small and overcooked, the ribs – tasted bland and seemed like sauce was just poured on it. The steaks that were ordered arrived last and very late and very undercooked! (the steaks ordered were Medium and Medium-well)

Since the orders were given one at a time – my Panget’s steak was given another round of grilling as the steak was still rare. But when my FIL’s (father-in-law) steak arrived – it looked good, but as he cut further – it appeared rare as well. We wanted to complain – but there was no one to complain to, as the servers were all downstairs.

When we asked for the bill – we politely asked for a discount as our orders were served very late and the steaks were both undercooked. It seemed like they forgot the orders and cooked them quickly. We also showed the server how rare the steak was. When she came back – she told us that it was the chef’s fault that the steaks were undercooked and that we were given a 10% discount – when my SIL (sister-in-law) looked at the bill closely – she noticed that the discount was only given to the ‘very rare steak’. We then asked to speak to the Manager, we were told that the manager was not around, but the assistant manager was there instead. The server told us that if we wanted to speak to the manager, we should go down. We were dumbfounded as to why we needed to go down to speak to the assistant manager. We then asked her to have the assistant manager come up instead. This request was REFUSED. We never saw the assistant manager. Instead, the server was the one who handled the complaint.

When the manager is not around, the assistant manager should be the one to front the establishment and handle complaints. But with this – well, we never saw the assistant manager. We were actually suspecting that there was no assistant manager – because if there was, for sure he or she will speak to us. We then asked for a name but was told – to ask it ourselves! How can we ask for the name of a person who doesn’t want to speak to us! After much talk – the ‘very rare steak’ was taken off the bill, the server then apologized for not giving us quality service – she reasoned that they were only two, handling the whole deli/restaurant.

For a first time diner of Dinelli – my new family and I were very, very disappointed. I think the chances of us coming back is very slim – unless of course, the quality of service improves greatly.

Take a look on the very rare steak – this for them was supposed to be a MEDIUM.

Dinelli – Timog
5 Timog Avenue, Quezon City
+632.666.3544 / 3766849