Food: Giligan's Restaurant at Festival Mall, Alabang

Giligan's Restaurant at Festival Mall in Alabang is a go-to place for after-office dinners, gatherings and light drinking sessions. I can't recall how many celebrations were held here when I was still employed in my old company. Just that there were too many -- birthdays, promotions, girls' night-outs, bosses' dinner treats, get-togethers, informal meetings. Thinking about those makes me kind of nostalgic now.

The best thing about this restaurant is the cheap but great food and the laid-back easy ambiance. It's a grilled-sizzling type of restaurant as most of their menu fares are cooked that way. It's not too noisy and they don't play blaring music so you can still hear each other clearly. But it's not quiet either that you'd be shy to make loud noises because the restaurant is bustling with sounds of other people having fun.

I remember that we would often go here in big groups (more than 20 people), talk loud, laugh our hearts out (sometimes while pounding our hands on the table) and just have a great bonding time with everyone and not be concerned about disturbing the tables around us. Because chances are, they are having a good time themselves and usually don't care.



I still go here, after I resigned from work, sometimes with my husband, sometimes with my family but mostly during lunch hours when it's more quite. The food is always good, the serving sizes are big enough and the prices are affordable. We even held our pamamanhikan in one of their closed rooms for a more private gathering (not really pamamanhikan, but the getting to know of our families before we got married).

Just recently, we ate here to sort of celebrate my dad's birthday. It wasn't a planned dinner, they just went to buy some groceries and my husband and I were actually somewhere else. Then they asked us to come to Festival mall for dinner. And the celebrant wanted to eat at Giligan's.

We had the following:

Chicken Lollipop

I've had this numerous times before and was a little surprised that it was flat-out tasteless. Obviously, the chickens and the breading weren't flavored.

Fish Fillet with Fries

It's still good. It has the right crunch outside and the right softness and juiciness inside and the mayo-tartar dip that came with the dish was a good complement to the dish. Although I noticed that the serving size was reduced.

Grilled Salmon Belly

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to taste this one so I can't comment on it.

Sizzling Mixed Seafood

This one I was looking forward to as it was the first time we ordered it. But I was disappointed when it was served. It didn't look appetizing and the taste was just mediocre. I didn't like the black sauce, obviously had squid ink, that the seafoods were swimming in. And by seafoods, I mean few slices of squid, fewer mussels still attached to half the shell and much fewer pieces of shrimps. The only redeemable thing about this dish is how soft the squids were, which only meant that they were cooked right.

Kare-Kareng Gulay

I love Kare-Kare and this wasn't the best Kare-Kare that I've had but it was good enough considering it had nothing but vegetables. The peanut butter sauce was very flavorful albeit a little sweet than I preferred. I think this was intentional so it would counteract the saltiness of the bagoong (shrimp paste). But I think it would do well on its own.

Prior to this dinner, my husband and I went here quite a few times and had the other "usuals" like Sizzling Pork Sisig and Pork Barbeque. 

Overall, I could say that the taste of the dishes (including the ones I featured here) had retrogressed although somehow they managed to keep the prices, only slightly higher, if not almost the same as they were years ago. In trying to stay affordable, they sacrifice a little of the quality of the food, which I guess is inevitable.