Last evening I was dining in a Sandpipper ‘s Café, a new restaurant in Dumaguete. Don’t ask me why it is Sandpipper with three “P” and not Sandpiper like the bird. The staff there could not get me any info about that three-P issue.

I knew about the opening last Sunday anyway but a friend of mine could not resist to spam me each time she saw me online on Yahoo, Facebook and other Online-Platforms about the authentic American and Mexican Food and the outstanding Pizza. Well, I tried to put that spamming out of my head and went there at 7:30 pm with Rechel.

Stepping through the door a very positive surprise awaited me. I liked the interior as it gives a nice feeling, good colors and NO plastic chairs, just friendly and warm. The next positive point, three former Casablanca employees, two in the kitchen and the head waiter, so the food should be good and Roy, the waiter was one of my favorites at Casablanca.

I viewed Andrew, the owner of Zanzibar there and he invited us to join their table. Great, so I was able to see and taste even more different food of Sandpipper (by the way, even Google does not know what a Sandpipper is) . First order drinks:

Rhoody: Coke light
waitress: Sorry Sir, we do..
Rhoody: Ok, coke Zero
Waitress: Sorry Sir, we don’t have Coke Zero also
Rhoody: Well, Bottled Water na lang…

Of course things like that can happen, specially 4 days after opening and with about 1001 friggin shops around, and each and every single one of them is selling Coke Light or Coke Zero.

The menu is not really big, but has a nice choice of American, Mexican and local dishes. I asked Andrew and his friend what they ordered and we ordered something different at Sandpipppppper (well as there is no Sandpipper with 3 P’s I thought it doesn’t really matter if I use 5 or 6 or 19.)

So here is our total order at Sandpi_er (2p 3p 10p no p who really cares):

Southwestern Eggrolls
Chicken Fajitas
Kimchi Soup
Seafood Corn Salad
Breaded Pork (American Style)
Pepperoni Pizza
Classic American Burger
Mineral Water

So lets start with Sandpaper’s (just thought to mess up another letter, as “P” is getting boring). The orange description is original from Pandsippers menu:

Southwestern Eggrolls (Have the taste of the south, black beans, corn, grilled chicken, jalapeno and cheese wrapped in our house made flour tortilla)

Well, the house made fluor tortilla had the quality of an average fast food lumpia, but at least it was not fried in old oil so it had an ok taste. The magic cheese must have disappeared into invisibility or non-tastility (wow great new word)  somehow before I had the chance to taste it, or it might be the same cheese like on my burger so I could not taste it due to the lack of exactly this. The filling never saw a jalapeno in its entire life in the freezer. Where do I know about the life in the freezer? Well the Lumpia dough was hot and the filling stone cold …. Anyway, Rechel liked the dip


Chicken Fajitas
(Try one of our most entertaining dishes filled with sizzling beef/chicken, onions, bell peppers, tomatoes, ready to jump into your mouth, wanting for more!)

Hmmmmm, like you see on the picture, nothing was ready, it was more like in a spare-part shop and you need to assemble yourself. After assembling, it really wanted to jump in my mouth… and it did… but I learned out of that mistake and avoided to give the next bite another chance to jump … As there was some Eggroll dip left, I gave the chicken a bath in it, left the bread aside and considered it eatable…

Kimchi Soup (Pipspanders –see at least I use all letters- special dish, so no description in the menu)
The Sandpipper’s (this time written correct -at least that’s what the restaurant thinks-, but only for search engine issues) Kimich Soup is a kind of sourish broth with lettuce, string onions and  well, I guess that’s about it, just leave a comment if you see some more ingredients in the picture… It is a far cry from Kimchi taste, but generally ok… just call it Sandpiper’s experimental vegetarian broth

Seafood Corn Salad (Come out of the box and try our delicious shrimp, fish and squid, mix with lettuce, corn, olives, cucumber, tomato, carrots and cheese. Served with bleu cheese dressing):

I did not taste it, but after investigating the picture I finally found out where the cheese of my Southwestern Eggroll went .. ALL 7 of them !!! Well I could not find the corn, but I assume corn is not that important in a corn salad …

Breaded Pork American Style (Pork fillet breaded with fine breading that will melt in your mouth. Served with Potato wedges and a side of gravy sauce.

It was new for me that a breaded pork actually uses fine breading to be breaded… One never stops learning, Anyway, the dish was a Vienna Schnitzel, 10 peso less than in Casablanca, but only a quarter of the size there. It is served with brown goo The Potato Wedges were RAW in the middle totally not eatable … funny that at this moment the waitress came to our table:

Waitress: Sir, everything ok?

Andrew: Well the Potatoes are raw.

Waitress:  But Sir, everything ok ?

Rhoody: hmm, if potato wedges are raw and uncooked, no it is not really ok.

Waitress: ok. (and was never seen again until we paid the bill)


As weird as it may sound for my valuable readers, but THAT was the good part of the dining experience so far … next:

Classic American Cheese Burger:

It is hard to describe and I am not an American, so maybe this is a classic American Cheese Burger and I have just no clue and Sandpfizer is correct and an American Cheese Burger is a sweet Burger Bun with a Burger Paddy stretched with at least 70 % other ingredients but not beef (I would say something like cardboard or sawmill leftovers), topped with a slice of cheep Lee Plaza Form cheese.

Don’t get me wrong, the Burger Paddy itself had a good size, but a bite in it makes the Burger Delight Chilly Cheese Burger for 4 am drunkyards at the Boulevard for 29 Peso appear like a Michelin 3 star dish compared to Sandpipers Classic American Cheese Burger. Everything more than 2 mm below the Paddy surface was raw and red, that is actually why I can estimate the 70 % of the ingredients!!! Then again, I am not American, so what do I know about All American Burger.

The Pepperoni Pizza.

The Size ok, but definitely no 14 inch like promoted (if that is 14″, my little Rhoody is 10 inch…. diameter). The Tomato-sauce was cheap-shit sweet philippino Spaghetti sauce, the Pepperoni also imported from Lee Plaza and the Mozzarella definitely the cheap local one and nearly without taste. Fluffy American style dough but tasteless what is (given the whole dining experience) actually a very positive point.  When the bill came I thought I got hit by a horse. That piece of sh_t (insert “i’ at the appropriate position marked with an underscore) cost fucking 445 Peso.

I apologize to my valuable readers and if you read my older posts you can see that I usually @#%@ or xxx this kind of words, but fuck me crazy, some of that stuff was just one tiny step away from food poisoning.

I can’t understand that 2 cooks working for years in Casablanca forget each and everything about food and its preparation and don’t even get a simple potato wedge correct on the plate. What a shame….

But I am also a lucky one. A friend of mine ( who is actually a trained chef with international accreditation) went there today at 5 pm. He could not believe the Horror Stories I told him about Sandpipper. They stole him 580 Peso for a ham and egg pizza out of his wallet.

He send me following text after his visit: Hui, waren gerade im saddingsda und haben ne Pizza fuer 580 Peso gegessen. Ausser dass das voll teuer is gebe ich dir recht.

Translation: Hey, we just were in sandwhatever and had a Pizza for 580 Peso. Next that this is expensive, I totally agree with you.

So let’s recall the good points of Sandpiper : nice place and a lot of headroom to improve. Rechel mentioned also one waitress had sexy legs … sus, I missed that

Anyway,I almost forgot there was at least one thing which was totally authentic:

4 Bottled Water really came as water in four bottles… recalling all the other stuff, at least I hope it was water at sandpipper (sandpiper’s) Restaurant in Dumaguete

Cheers

Rhoody

PS: For my spamming dear friend:

Whenever a relative, friend, lover etc works or opens whatever place, even a flee-circus for 7 legged retarted spiders doing backward somersaults,  keep your suggestions out of my profiles, chats and out of my freggin life !!!

PPS:Dear valued readers,  I even tried a polite Version for Dumaguete Info, If you are interested how to get that fuck up into a polite way, just click here

PPPS: This report is based on my private experience at one visit with 7 dishes and shall not be used as a general critics of the Food served at Sandpippers Restaurant in Dumaguete