Serendipity Tea Bar, San Pablo City

I finally got around to checking out Serendipity Tea Bar here in San Pablo City. I've been passing this place regularly and always wanted to try them out. If you're looking for it, it's right next to that big Indian temple that's being constructed near the corner of the San Pablo Diversion road and Maharlika Highway, walking distance from SPC Medical, 7-11, and Liempo Republic.

The first thing I immediately noticed was how young the clientele was. Practically every customer in there was clearly 20-25 years younger than me. I guess it's safe to say it's a hit with the young adults because the place is almost always full with them. Irrationally, I felt kind of out of place for a brief moment. But I guess that's just silly.

True to it's name, it's a TEA bar, not a cafe. So there's no coffee in here. Their specialty is their milk tea, which I hear is very good. I say "hear" because there's probably not a chance that I'll ever check it out for myself, being lactose intolerant.

Ilyn ordered Yakult Peach with Nata De Coco. She said it was very good although she came away with the feeling that it was spiked with something because half an hour later her adrenalin shot up and was pretty much bouncing off the walls for the next hour. I don't mean "spiked" in a bad way of course. Perhaps it had caffeine? Whatever it was, Ilyn was kind of a little too excited and talkative for a while.

As for the food, I ordered Seafood Pasta:

It had shrimp and squid and as a whole it tasted quite nice. It's not something I would lose my head over, but it was good enough for me to want to come back and try what else was there.

Ilyn had Seafood Pesto Pasta:

She said that it was OK, not overwhelmingly awesome, but was simply all right. I tasted a bit of it, and it tasted like pesto. Like I expected anything more.

Now I almost didn't want to write this review because I already had a feeling I wasn't going to rave about it, but I thought well, I can't just rave about things on this blog. I really have to be honest.

And so yes, here are some of the not so nice things I experienced here.

The staff was friendly and helpful enough, so I had no problem with that. The first problem is probably the fault of my own expectations. You see, Ilyn had written down the menu on her notebook the first time she ate here some weeks ago so she can show it to me.

What I immediately noticed was they had a "Garden Fresh" burger. I assumed it was a vegetarian burger because other dishes from other restaurants with the "Garden Fresh" tag was vegetarian. Like Greenwich's Garden Fresh Pizza for instance.

So I looked forward to ordering that, along with their onion rings, which Ilyn said was very nice.

Imagine my disappointment when it turned out the Garden Fresh Burger had a beef patty, but just had a lot of greens and other vegetable stuff in it. No fault to them, of course.

However, they also told me that their onion rings was unavailable. Ouch. You see when reviewing restaurants, I have a scale that goes from 1-10, 10 being excellent. As soon as I enter any restaurant, they have an automatic 10. Points would be subtracted every time I was disappointed.  When they don't have an item available that's listed on the menu, that's a major disappointment for me. So I subtract one point.

I thought OK, I'll just have a pasta. I chose Pasta Bolognese. Also not available. OUCH. Subtract another point. This wasn't looking promising.

So I settled on the Seafood Pasta. I also ordered Chef's Salad, but I didn't like the dressing too much. In fact, I wasn't able to finish it.  Subtract half a point. At least I was able to finish the pasta, which I actually liked. It's not something I want to try again though, but it was pleasant enough for me to try other things on their menu.

One last thing. They didn't have a change for my money. I don't know, maybe it was just me, but I swear I could hear the dude in the kitchen in kind of a pissed off voice saying that they couldn't possibly have change for my money. I didn't want to make an issue of it, so I let it pass. Subtract 2 points.

In fairness the dude who served us was very nice, and very friendly. In fact, he remembered Ilyn from the last time she visited.

All in all, I wouldn't say it was a completely awesome experience. But it was an OK experience, and like I said, I wouldn't mind trying it again. I just hope that I no longer hear "not available" anymore. That's actually one of the big no-nos a restaurant can commit. And yes, always have change. I hope they can fix that.