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Review of Shakeys restaurant chain in the Philippines.

Their portions are so small, prices are so high, and food is so bland. It's an insult for them to try to pretend to be an American chain, with such small portions and tasteless food. The photos in their menus are deceptive, because the actual food is much smaller and much more bland than shown in the menu photos. That is a typical Filipino restaurant con.

For example, their menu tries to make the food look appetizing.

https://www.shakeyspizza.ph/menus.asp

But in reality, when the actual food is brought out, it usually looks very bland, like this.



Notice how the food is spread out on the plate, leaving plenty of empty space, conveniently allowing them to give you the smallest portions possible, as though stinginess were inherent in Filipinos.

Some of their spaghetti dishes are so small that the height of the spaghetti noodles on the plate is about the SAME level as the plate itself! No f***ing way! Are they out of their fricking mind?! When I complained, they wouldn't do anything about it. I was tempted to throw the plate at the staff!

Even toddlers would find that portion to be too small. Sheesh! Yet they charge 200p for it?! What are the stupid owners smoking? Don't they have any pride? Sheesh. 200p for pasta dishes that have barely any noodles, and are too small for toddlers?! What a stupid ripoff!

Even my Filipina girlfriend complained about such tiny portions and high prices.

This place jips you, and is not worth the price. There are also many 300p meals where the food is very bland, and the portions aren't that big. For example, here is the Captain's Choice combo, straight from their website below.

https://www.shakeyspizza.ph/menus.asp?id=4



My girlfriend ordered that, and it ended up being a small plate with sparsely scattered portions, less than shown in the picture. To make things worse, the fish fillet and calamari rings dipped in batter, were like mostly all batter and contained very little fish or calamari! Now that is a sleazy low level ripoff that street scums would usually pull on you! But a national restaurant chain?!

Sigh. Only in the Philippines I guess.

Then, when you complain, the staff look shocked, as if they are automatons who are not trained to respond to complaints. It's as if Filipino business culture does not acknowledge the existence of complaints, and thus are in denial of reality. So your complaint is not even really heard or understood. They don't want to hear it and are unable to respond to it.

If you complain about tiny portions, for example, they will not make it bigger, but will just say, "That's the standard portion sir. We can't change it." And if you complain about the food tasting like shit, they will not say anything or do anything to try to make it better. They will just look embarrassed, with nothing to say. So much for quality management. lol

So if they can't change anything, then how can they improve anything? Stupid.

I'm sure if you fill out a comment card with negative comments, the staff will throw it away and not forward it to corporate, for obvious reasons.

On top of all that, they also add a 10 percent service charge to your bill, as if their small portions and ripoff prices weren't bad enough already. Isn't Filipino greed so grand? lol

All in all, Shakeys embodies the typical Filipino restaurant chain characteristics - greedy high prices, bland food, small portions, stupid staff who can't do anything but bring food and take money, and no improvement in any of that. Basically, stupidity and disappointment abound in this kind of Filipino restaurant chain.

Yet in spite of all this, Shakeys is everywhere in Manila and its surrounding cities, as though it were the coolest thing. And it is often crowded too. This just makes no sense. But oh well. Again, only in the Philippines...

As a rule of thumb, if a restaurant or food joint is packed and crowded, that is a strong indicator that the food is very good and the prices very reasonable. But this rule is usually true in the US, NOT the Philippines. Shakeys being crowded is just one example. Another is Chow King, the worst fast food joint in the world. Its food is so disgusting and bland, that it is not worth eating even if you were to pay me to eat it! This chain is an insult to the concept of food. Yet in spite of that, Chow King is everywhere in the Philippines and usually always crowded too. Go figure.

What I was told on PinoyExchange Forums is that the reason why Filipinos do not care about taste and quality in food is because they are primarily concerned with NOT being hungry, so they will enjoy any cheap food with no nutrition, such as instant canton, as long as it fills them up and keeps them from being hungry. That's why they don't care about taste, quality or nutrition. Pretty sad isn't it?

Winston,
I had Shakey's with Elsie and we liked it. We had pizza. So their pizza was ok. As far as Pizza goes, it was ok not great but ok. Then we had mango shakes afterwords.
The mango shakes were good.

In all, I would say their food was ok.

That's more than I can say for Jollybee...
The Jollybee champ burger was about the worst thing I ate on my trip. Was that beef? It tasted like some kind of spam injected with 'beef flavor' and grilled. Blah...and it gave me diarrhea as well.
I give Jollybee burgers an F-
Steve said their chicken was ok.

Shakeys pizza is so so. But kind of small and expensive. Mango shakes are good anywhere, even for 10p at a street stall. Anyone can blend ice and mangos in a blender. It doesn't take any brains to do it. As long as the mango is fresh, nothing can go wrong. Simply blending it with ice will make it taste good.

You should try Shakey's ripoff baby sized pasta dishes, or their fried dishes, all of which are small, unsatisfying, and a ripoff. Then you'll see why we hate Shakey's. lol

Btw, that Jollibee Champ Burger you're talking about is Dianne's favorite item there. She says it's delicious. She is a picky eater too, so I assumed it must be good. Oh well, at least it's big so you can't complain about its size.

Kwitcherbitchin and just don't go. Here in Haiti, the prices are higher, portions are smaller, and food quality is much worse. Sometimes, they forget to take your order. Drinks are often served luke warm too. And most places don't have air-con.

Rock wrote:Kwitcherbitchin and just don't go. Here in Haiti, the prices are higher, portions are smaller, and food quality is much worse. Sometimes, they forget to take your order. Drinks are often served luke warm too. And most places don't have air-con.

But it's not just Shakeys. Over 90 percent of food you pay for in restaurants in the Philippines turns out shitty, as though they were trying to make it bad on purpose. Thus the whole eating out experience is more often than not a disappointment. That's a major downside to the Philippines. But again, their attitude is "Who cares?" so nothing ever improves. Shakeys is just an example of this.

Winston wrote:

Rock wrote:Kwitcherbitchin and just don't go. Here in Haiti, the prices are higher, portions are smaller, and food quality is much worse. Sometimes, they forget to take your order. Drinks are often served luke warm too. And most places don't have air-con.

But it's not just Shakeys. Over 90 percent of food you pay for in restaurants in the Philippines turns out shitty, as though they were trying to make it bad on purpose. Thus the whole eating out experience is more often than not a disappointment. That's a major downside to the Philippines. But again, their attitude is "Who cares?" so nothing ever improves. Shakeys is just an example of this.

I think Haiti is worse. How would you like to order a dish and be told nearly an hour later that they can't serve it cus they're out of gas? How would you like to pay higher prices than the Philippines for chicken meat that's clearly not fresh and perhaps even spoiled enough to make you sick? How would you like to pay the equivalent of 50 P for a small banana which will probably only be edible for another day or two? How would you like to enjoy the above dining experiences in the sweltering heat cus air conditioning is too expensive for most restaurants?

Rock wrote:

Winston wrote:

Rock wrote:Kwitcherbitchin and just don't go. Here in Haiti, the prices are higher, portions are smaller, and food quality is much worse. Sometimes, they forget to take your order. Drinks are often served luke warm too. And most places don't have air-con.

But it's not just Shakeys. Over 90 percent of food you pay for in restaurants in the Philippines turns out shitty, as though they were trying to make it bad on purpose. Thus the whole eating out experience is more often than not a disappointment. That's a major downside to the Philippines. But again, their attitude is "Who cares?" so nothing ever improves. Shakeys is just an example of this.

I think Haiti is worse. How would you like to order a dish and be told nearly an hour later that they can't serve it cus they're out of gas? How would you like to pay higher prices than the Philippines for chicken meat that's clearly not fresh and perhaps even spoiled enough to make you sick? How would you like to pay the equivalent of 50 P for a small banana which will probably only be edible for another day or two? How would you like to enjoy the above dining experiences in the sweltering heat cus air conditioning is too expensive for most restaurants?

Why are you in Haiti then? Is there anything good there? lol Are the chicks approachable there? Have you met any hot black chicks?

Winston wrote:

Rock wrote:

Winston wrote:

Rock wrote:Kwitcherbitchin and just don't go. Here in Haiti, the prices are higher, portions are smaller, and food quality is much worse. Sometimes, they forget to take your order. Drinks are often served luke warm too. And most places don't have air-con.

But it's not just Shakeys. Over 90 percent of food you pay for in restaurants in the Philippines turns out shitty, as though they were trying to make it bad on purpose. Thus the whole eating out experience is more often than not a disappointment. That's a major downside to the Philippines. But again, their attitude is "Who cares?" so nothing ever improves. Shakeys is just an example of this.

I think Haiti is worse. How would you like to order a dish and be told nearly an hour later that they can't serve it cus they're out of gas? How would you like to pay higher prices than the Philippines for chicken meat that's clearly not fresh and perhaps even spoiled enough to make you sick? How would you like to pay the equivalent of 50 P for a small banana which will probably only be edible for another day or two? How would you like to enjoy the above dining experiences in the sweltering heat cus air conditioning is too expensive for most restaurants?

Why are you in Haiti then? Is there anything good there? lol Are the chicks approachable there? Have you met any hot black chicks?

I think you mean "Have you met any hot chicks (or hot Haitian chicks)?".

Winston wrote:

Rock wrote:Kwitcherbitchin and just don't go. Here in Haiti, the prices are higher, portions are smaller, and food quality is much worse. Sometimes, they forget to take your order. Drinks are often served luke warm too. And most places don't have air-con.

But it's not just Shakeys. Over 90 percent of food you pay for in restaurants in the Philippines turns out shitty, as though they were trying to make it bad on purpose. Thus the whole eating out experience is more often than not a disappointment. That's a major downside to the Philippines. But again, their attitude is "Who cares?" so nothing ever improves. Shakeys is just an example of this.

So is there any good places to eat? If it is that bad, there should be a good opportunity for someone to open a decent restaurant with good food. If it is as bad as you say, probably a lot of other people have noticed as well, and you could make a killing serving good food.

You said you were trying to lose weight. Have you thought of not eating out for a few months to lose weight? You should look at this guy that just drank homemade fruit and vegetable juice for 60 days and lost 60 lbs. His site is http://www.fatsickandnearlydead.com. He has a DVD about his adventure that you can get on BitTorrent. Here is a tracker URL: http://concen.org/tracker/download.php? ... ad.torrent

You will probably have to sign up for concen.org, but you only need a username and password. BTW, ConCen has thousands of conspiracy files available

Winston wrote:

Rock wrote:

Winston wrote:

Rock wrote:Kwitcherbitchin and just don't go. Here in Haiti, the prices are higher, portions are smaller, and food quality is much worse. Sometimes, they forget to take your order. Drinks are often served luke warm too. And most places don't have air-con.

But it's not just Shakeys. Over 90 percent of food you pay for in restaurants in the Philippines turns out shitty, as though they were trying to make it bad on purpose. Thus the whole eating out experience is more often than not a disappointment. That's a major downside to the Philippines. But again, their attitude is "Who cares?" so nothing ever improves. Shakeys is just an example of this.

I think Haiti is worse. How would you like to order a dish and be told nearly an hour later that they can't serve it cus they're out of gas? How would you like to pay higher prices than the Philippines for chicken meat that's clearly not fresh and perhaps even spoiled enough to make you sick? How would you like to pay the equivalent of 50 P for a small banana which will probably only be edible for another day or two? How would you like to enjoy the above dining experiences in the sweltering heat cus air conditioning is too expensive for most restaurants?

Why are you in Haiti then? Is there anything good there? lol Are the chicks approachable there? Have you met any hot black chicks?

I'm here for a new experience. I don't mind bad food and/or service for awhile. In PI, I never complain about the food either cus I think its adequate. And I wanna point out that its far from the worst on the planet. I've been to a few countries which I think are much worse for eating including this one. Fast food wise, there's a local chain here which I think is worse than anything you have there.

Girls are approachable but language barrier is a pain in the ass - Haitian Creole or French. But you can find a local English speaking guy to go out with you and help you to talk to others, translate, etc. for a beer or two and maybe 10 bucks at end of evening. I have seen some hot black girls here. 5% or so of the population is lighter skinned cus of mixing in past with Syrians, etc.

I'm gonna try to bus over to Dominican Republic from here to see what that's like.

Winston wrote:

Review of Shakeys restaurant chain in the Philippines.

Their portions are so small, prices are so high, and food is so bland. It's an insult for them to try to pretend to be an American chain, with such small portions and tasteless food. The photos in their menus are deceptive, because the actual food is much smaller and much more bland than shown in the menu photos. That is a typical Filipino restaurant con.

For example, their menu tries to make the food look appetizing.

https://www.shakeyspizza.ph/menus.asp

But in reality, when the actual food is brought out, it usually looks very bland, like this.



Notice how the food is spread out on the plate, leaving plenty of empty space, conveniently allowing them to give you the smallest portions possible, as though stinginess were inherent in Filipinos.

Some of their spaghetti dishes are so small that the height of the spaghetti noodles on the plate is about the SAME level as the plate itself! No f***ing way! Are they out of their fricking mind?! When I complained, they wouldn't do anything about it. I was tempted to throw the plate at the staff!

Even toddlers would find that portion to be too small. Sheesh! Yet they charge 200p for it?! What are the stupid owners smoking? Don't they have any pride? Sheesh. 200p for pasta dishes that have barely any noodles, and are too small for toddlers?! What a stupid ripoff!

Even my Filipina girlfriend complained about such tiny portions and high prices.

This place jips you, and is not worth the price. There are also many 300p meals where the food is very bland, and the portions aren't that big. For example, here is the Captain's Choice combo, straight from their website below.

https://www.shakeyspizza.ph/menus.asp?id=4



My girlfriend ordered that, and it ended up being a small plate with sparsely scattered portions, less than shown in the picture. To make things worse, the fish fillet and calamari rings dipped in batter, were like mostly all batter and contained very little fish or calamari! Now that is a sleazy low level ripoff that street scums would usually pull on you! But a national restaurant chain?!

Sigh. Only in the Philippines I guess.

Then, when you complain, the staff look shocked, as if they are automatons who are not trained to respond to complaints. It's as if Filipino business culture does not acknowledge the existence of complaints, and thus are in denial of reality. So your complaint is not even really heard or understood. They don't want to hear it and are unable to respond to it.

If you complain about tiny portions, for example, they will not make it bigger, but will just say, "That's the standard portion sir. We can't change it." And if you complain about the food tasting like shit, they will not say anything or do anything to try to make it better. They will just look embarrassed, with nothing to say. So much for quality management. lol

So if they can't change anything, then how can they improve anything? Stupid.

I'm sure if you fill out a comment card with negative comments, the staff will throw it away and not forward it to corporate, for obvious reasons.

On top of all that, they also add a 10 percent service charge to your bill, as if their small portions and ripoff prices weren't bad enough already. Isn't Filipino greed so grand? lol

All in all, Shakeys embodies the typical Filipino restaurant chain characteristics - greedy high prices, bland food, small portions, stupid staff who can't do anything but bring food and take money, and no improvement in any of that. Basically, stupidity and disappointment abound in this kind of Filipino restaurant chain.

Yet in spite of all this, Shakeys is everywhere in Manila and its surrounding cities, as though it were the coolest thing. And it is often crowded too. This just makes no sense. But oh well. Again, only in the Philippines...

As a rule of thumb, if a restaurant or food joint is packed and crowded, that is a strong indicator that the food is very good and the prices very reasonable. But this rule is usually true in the US, NOT the Philippines. Shakeys being crowded is just one example. Another is Chow King, the worst fast food joint in the world. Its food is so disgusting and bland, that it is not worth eating even if you were to pay me to eat it! This chain is an insult to the concept of food. Yet in spite of that, Chow King is everywhere in the Philippines and usually always crowded too. Go figure.

What I was told on PinoyExchange Forums is that the reason why Filipinos do not care about taste and quality in food is because they are primarily concerned with NOT being hungry, so they will enjoy any cheap food with no nutrition, such as instant canton, as long as it fills them up and keeps them from being hungry. That's why they don't care about taste, quality or nutrition. Pretty sad isn't it?

I NEVER been out the country but it's a known fact that American food serves bigger portions and so maybe you're just used to getting more food on your plate being that you were born and raised in America.

On a side note, I remember the fist time I went out on a dinner date with a Japanese girl and she told me the food serving they gave her would be enough food to last her for 2 days.

Winston wrote: Over 90 percent of food you pay for in restaurants in the Philippines turns out shitty, as though they were trying to make it bad on purpose. Thus the whole eating out experience is more often than not a disappointment. That's a major downside to the Philippines. But again, their attitude is "Who cares?" so nothing ever improves. Shakeys is just an example of this.

And your post goes right along with a well traveled buddy of mine who told me the same thing about the Philippines which is why I could never move there permanently because I love food, and just like sex, eating food should be a pleasurable experience.

For example, about 2 weeks ago for the first time I tried a BBQ joint that is owned by a guy I know and I was so blown a way by the taste and quality of the food I went into a mild euphoric state of mind; the feeling lasted into the next day.

Hook wrote:

Winston wrote:

Rock wrote:Kwitcherbitchin and just don't go. Here in Haiti, the prices are higher, portions are smaller, and food quality is much worse. Sometimes, they forget to take your order. Drinks are often served luke warm too. And most places don't have air-con.

But it's not just Shakeys. Over 90 percent of food you pay for in restaurants in the Philippines turns out shitty, as though they were trying to make it bad on purpose. Thus the whole eating out experience is more often than not a disappointment. That's a major downside to the Philippines. But again, their attitude is "Who cares?" so nothing ever improves. Shakeys is just an example of this.

So is there any good places to eat? If it is that bad, there should be a good opportunity for someone to open a decent restaurant with good food. If it is as bad as you say, probably a lot of other people have noticed as well, and you could make a killing serving good food.

You said you were trying to lose weight. Have you thought of not eating out for a few months to lose weight? You should look at this guy that just drank homemade fruit and vegetable juice for 60 days and lost 60 lbs. His site is http://www.fatsickandnearlydead.com. He has a DVD about his adventure that you can get on BitTorrent. Here is a tracker URL: http://concen.org/tracker/download.php? ... ad.torrent

You will probably have to sign up for concen.org, but you only need a username and password. BTW, ConCen has thousands of conspiracy files available

Sure there are, but they are the exception, not the rule. When you live in the PI, you eat at a handful of places you know. The PI is not a good place to go "exploring for food". No way.

There is a chain I love in Manila called Mexicali. It serves fresh Mexican food with good portions and reasonable prices. There are lots of vegetarian items on there too. I showed the menu to Rock one time when we were in Mall of Asia and passed by Mexicali. He liked it and wanted to eat there, but the girls we were with preferred to go to a pizza place instead, so he didn't get a chance to try it.

I wouldn't open a business in the PI. It's very high risk, stressful, and the chances of you getting cheated, taken advantage of, fined, etc. are VERY high. Very few people are gutsy enough to open a business there and deal with that. The risks are too great.

If I drank fruit juices all the time, my body would feel deprived of carbs after a while . But it's a great suggestion though.

Rock wrote: I'm here for a new experience. I don't mind bad food and/or service for awhile. In PI, I never complain about the food either cus I think its adequate. And I wanna point out that its far from the worst on the planet. I've been to a few countries which I think are much worse for eating including this one. Fast food wise, there's a local chain here which I think is worse than anything you have there.

Girls are approachable but language barrier is a pain in the ass - Haitian Creole or French. But you can find a local English speaking guy to go out with you and help you to talk to others, translate, etc. for a beer or two and maybe 10 bucks at end of evening. I have seen some hot black girls here. 5% or so of the population is lighter skinned cus of mixing in past with Syrians, etc.

I'm gonna try to bus over to Dominican Republic from here to see what that's like.

We all like new experiences. But shouldn't you be seeking out new PLEASURABLE experiences rather than new negative experiences? lol

In the PI, you only hung around expat joints that served food. And of course, you came with me to places that I recommended you eat at, which would not be bad, otherwise I wouldn't have taken you to them. lol

If you went out food exploring to restaurants in the PI where local Filipinos go, on the other hand, you might be saying something different right now...

There may be countries with worst food than the PI, but still, the PI is known as having the worst food in Asia. That much is certain. Every expat I've talked to concurs with that.

Plus, keep in mind that you only tried the best of PI food, not the average typical type, which you said you didn't want to try. lol. Remember? I told you to order some meals at Chow King so you could get an idea of the crap that Filipinos like. But you didn't, cause you said you did not want to KNOWINGLY order food that you knew you wouldn't like. lol (understandably of course)

Thus, you haven't really tasted all the crappy food that mainstream Filipinos eat. lol

So have you found any P4P action available there? Do you get a lot of attention there for being a foreigner or white guy?

Anyway, stay safe and give us all a trip report.

1. I usually don't do this but I went out to a club tonight and kinda blew off my top. I ordered an orange juice at the bar and reminded the bar waitress 3 times over the course of 30 minutes each time she walked past my table that I was still waiting. I was damn thirsty too cus it was hot in that (open air) club. Finally, I got up, went to her bar, sat right across from where she was standing while staring her down, and told her I wasn't going to leave my seat or change my body posture until she prepared and gave me my juice. I also spoke rather loudly. She finally moved her ass and got me my drink but I guess I made a new enemy, big deal. Compared to what I sometimes encounter here, PI customer service is in a different league.

2. Perhaps the average quality of PI girls (appearance) is even worse than the food quality there, lol?