Not One Of My Favorite Places..

La Vie Parisiene...C'est magnifique..! Not really...I personally dislike this restaurant a lot. Not every blog can be a happy one, and i tend to speak whatever is on my mind. Hey, i'm Dutch! However, these are not empty words. I will let you know why this place is beautiful on the outside and pretty bad on the inside. It was a couple of days ago when my family wanted to visit this place, and immediately on the call, i didn't wanted to go. However, i have a job to perform, i have to let the people know my views on places here in Cebu. So, i didn't want to lose that opportunity.

On the outside, this place is beautiful. It has unique theming going on, lighted trees, lighted chairs and this probably has to do with the fact that Paris is the city of lights. It is an intriguing place to go to, it's good for photo shoots and a new environment to be in and to be very honest, it's a nice place to drink a bottle of fruity wine. But the food, the service, the staff, it is such a big let down. A couple of months ago, i was ranting on my Facebook page about what this restaurant did to me, i thought it was so unprofessional of a restaurant to do this and not to mention that this restaurant is owned by a very wealthy family in Cebu. To make the long story short, i went there with my father to have lunch and we and another couple were the only people in that place. When my order came, they wrote down on the receipt that was taped to my sandwich: "guy in black shirt". I mean, which restaurant does that?

So i wasn't looking forward to going here again, but perhaps they had a bad day, i'll give them another chance. So we went there.

It was me, Suzette, my brother and his girlfriend, and my parents were on their way. We walked into the open restaurant outside and we sat down, expecting that someone would come over and help us. We waited for about 20 minutes and no one came. Honestly, it didn't matter, we were still waiting for our parents to come over but still, it's a restaurant. I'm here to be served, so someone should come over and ask us what we want to order. So it seemed that we had to go inside and order ourselves. Since this place is a wine bar/deli/bakery. I felt like having a bottle of Merlot. The menu said that it was P265. Which is pretty cheap for a bottle. I go inside, wanting to order the bottle. She charges me P325, i said excuse me, i believe the bottle is only P265. She then says: "That menu is wrong, we are supposed to take them out today". I think by myself, why don't you do that then? Later that evening, that menu that was supposed to be taken out was placed on every table by one of the servers. Seemed deceptive.

As i mentioned, this place is a wine bar/deli/bakery. However, on the same property are two establishments, they are all owned by the same owner. There is a pretty expensive French restaurant, haven't been to it yet and there is a pizza place. They all seem to belong together but they don't necessarily fully work with each other. We ordered pizza for that evening, three pizzas to be exact. Now, the slogan of that pizza place is that they serve pizzas from all over the world. So they take popular flavors from specific countries and incorporate that into a pizza. They used to have 80 flavors and therefore 80 different pizzas plus other dishes. The menu was massive. It seemed that they have cut down their menu a lot and were only left with less than 20 pizzas.

From the top to the bottom, we will start off with the pizza from Turkey. It is supposed to have shawarma meat and shawarma sauce. But i could not recognize any of those flavors in the pizza. However, the tomato sauce was good and the crust was nice and thin, which i like. But in terms of the meat, the flavor of the pizza. I couldn't find it. Which is a let down because shawarma pizza's are actually very good, shawarma meat has a very dinstinctive flavor, instantly recognizable and pretty delicious. Unfortunately, it was not there. It was tomato sauce and mozzarella.

The second is the pizza from Mexico. Same nice thin crust and same nice tomato base. It had red onions, cayenne pepper, beef and chorizo. Red onions were there, cayenne pepper was definitely there, beef was there but i couldn't find the chorizo! Chorizo has a big flavor and you can instantly recognize it but all you could really taste was tomato sauce with cayenne pepper.

The last pizza, is a chocolate and pear pizza. Yes, indeed. Dessert on a pizza, why not right? Disney has a peanut butter with jelly and marshmallow pizza on their menu in the theme park. So it could work...Unfortunately, the chocolate was bland, and the flavor of the pear seemed to be missing as well, even though they were right there on top.

A word of advice, they seem to expect you to eat the pizza with your hand, they don't give you plates or utensils. So when you pick up the slice, things fall off, it gets messy. So if you go and order a pizza, you might want to ask for utensils and a plate. And tissues, they don't give those either.

There are just little things that could just go better in this restaurant. The staff, no one seems to smile, no one is really attentive, it seems like they don't care. One time i went there, i asked if they had Sherry Wine, which i personally like a lot. The lady working inside the wine storage area said no. I said, do you know what Sherry is? She also said no...So i showed her a Sherry Vinegar which they did have. I showed it to her, she said: "oooohhh, we don't have that". So no product knowledge as well.

Now, we ordered 2 - 3 bottles of their fruity wine, which is actually pretty nice, i enjoyed it very much. We had raspberry, peach and grape. If you are going here for just the wine, you will be fine. It could get very romantic for dating purpose. In fairness, this place can really deliver that. It will be a very good spot for dating.

But that's about it then. Customer service, staff, pizza's, and sandwiches are all a bit mediocre. Wine, and the environment are pretty good.

So, if you would still like to make a visit to this place. I shall let you know where it is.