Not so crazy about Krazy Garlik

The concept of having garlic as the hero ingredient in almost everything in the menu (including the dessert) sounded very promising, and I believe this was the charm that made people want to flock to Krazy Garlik. Including C and I, of course. We've been talking about trying this place out for a while, and it took us about a year to walk the talk.

And maybe for good reason.

Last Friday, we headed to Newport Mall to catch Zombadings (don't laugh, we knew Eugene Domingo was gonna be there and we've heard good reviews so we really wanted to watch it), and we figured we should give Krazy Garlik a shot once and for all).

C thought the interiors of the restaurant were a bit disjoint, with the furniture and lights looking cosmopolitan and the menu, the logo, and the wall accents looking cartoonish. I thought the mismatched elements added to the craziness, which was good. Or maybe I was rationalizing.

I really liked the Alice in Wonderland wall frames

More of Alice on the other side

Like I said, very promising

I am personally a big fan of garlic, and so as much as possible, I wanted to order dishes that had lots of garlic in it. We'll deal with the breath problem after :)

For appetizer, we ordered the Garlic and Anchovy Affection. Six pieces of crostini topped with generous servings of garlic, anchovies, and bits of red and green bell pepper. The pieces of garlic were very soft and almost melted in my mouth, and I was pleasantly surprised that there was no bite coming from the garlic at all. The crunchy crostini balanced the softness coming from the garlic. I thought though that the saltiness of the anchovies overpowered the taste of the garlic, perhaps a little too much. It sure compensated for the bite we were looking for, that it was almost painful on the tongue. Half a clove of garlic served as the centerpiece. The small pieces of garlic inside were also as soft and as bite-less. Yum! Overall, I'd say I was happiest with this one.

Garlic and Anchovy Affection (P195)

You can't get any more garlic-y than that

The rest of our meal arrived after a long 40-minute wait. C and I were becoming restless already and we were worried we wouldn't be able to make it to our movie. We waited long enough to actually notice the little details happening around us.

Like the cute garlic stuffed toys beside us, this one in particular was missing one eye

The irregularly-shaped glasses

The interesting trivia about garlic in the menu

And the birthday celebrant outside, for whom the servers sang a happy birthday jingle to the tune of the latest billboard songs

What made us even more annoyed was the fact that the table to our left got their orders ahead of us, even though they arrived about 20 minutes after we ordered. We had to follow up with the waiter before our orders eventually came.

The Spaghetti Aglio Olio was decent, with pieces fresh garlic and some crushed, sauteed garlic, and two pieces of garlic bread. The taste was as expected, garlic-y and oily. The serving was a bit small though, really just good for one person. Nothing too crazy.

Spaghetti Aglio Olio (P295)

The Garlic Snowflakes Pizza was our biggest disappointment. I don't know if we just had high expectations, but at the minimum, we were expecting for the actual pizza to look as close as possible to the photo on the menu. Look at the menu below, and the actual pizza below it, and you be the judge.

The photo on the menu

The actual Garlic Snowflakes Pizza (P495)

It tasted alright, but not that great for what we paid for. At least the crust was crunchy and had almost burnt edges, which I really liked. But the combination of the garlic flakes and pineapples didn't do it for me (but I also don't like Hawaiian pizza, so that might not be a fair comment). For a dish that's called Garlic Snowflakes, the pieces of garlic flakes were far too few. And the shrimp. They were MIA.

In the middle of our meal, the head waiter approached us to apologize for our late orders. I appreciated the effort, but when he explained that it was late because the pasta and the pizza were freshly cooked and really took a long time, his effort suddenly didn't seem enough. Well, Mr. Waiter, the table beside us ordered pizza and pasta, too, and their orders came before ours did, despite the fact that we ordered way ahead. Plus, freshly-cooked meals are minimum requirements for any restaurant that charges as much as yours does. So I'm sorry, but we can't accept that explanation.

Anyway, needless to say, we didn't have such a grand time at Krazy Garlik. If anything, we went crazy waiting a long while for our order, which, honestly, wasn't really worth all the wait, and the price.

THE GOURMANDE'S SCORE: 2 out of 5 (the Garlic & Anchovy Affection saved their rating)