The Alley by Vikings: First Impression
Vikings family
Vikings is a big chain of buffe restaurants in the Philippines, operating a lot of different venues such Vikings, Niu and The AlleyThe Alley has four branches;
- U.P. Town Center, Quezon City
- Cloverleaf, Quezon City
- Ayala Malls Manila Bay, Paranaque City
- BGC, Taguig (visited)
Reservation and queuing
Once you find the restaurant, you first impression is how messy their queuing system is and how hot the halway is. If it's your first time here, as it was for us. You are forced to go all the way in front to ask the staff where to go, then go back and stand in lineThey have two lines, one for reservation and one for walk-in. The walk-in didn't move at all while we where standing in the reservation line, so reservation is definitely the way to go. If they had a sign indicating reservation and walk-in line, the experience would have improved a lot. We saw most coming after us also going straight to the front to get it explained, then going back to queue in the correct line
Once it was our turn, you provide your name and confirm how many you are. Then you'll get a wrist band put on by the staff and escorted to your table
The Alley
Once inside, you can quickly see that the name The Alley isn't just for show and the entire restaurant is built as an actual alleyThere's many smaller restaurants within The Alley, all included in the entrance price with the except of certain alcoholic beverages that comes on top and the entire place gives the wibe of a themed food court
Once at the table, if you take a minute to inspect the table mat. You'll see it's a map of the entire restaurant and showing you where all the different restaurants are. Or if you are as us, won't notice it before you are about to leave...
Once you walk around, you'll find the small restaurants. With a wide selection of different styles of food, each having their own kind
They have a decent selection of sushi, even if they are mostly either based around salmon and crab stick. There's also sashimi available, just ask the staff and they'll cut for you, but ours was a bit frozen inside, so you want to give it a few minutes to proper thaw before eating
There's only a few dishes with sea food, beside sushi, sashimi and tempura. So if it's seafood you're mainly looking for, then The Alley probably isn't for you
Other kinds of food they have a decent selection, ranging from different meat cuts to pizza. Most of the food is decent, but I recommend to take a sample plate the first round as not all dishes might to your liking
Near the entrance, you'll find the drinks. One has a selection in cold drinks, including alcoholic beverages and the other hot drinks, meaning coffee
If it's your sweet tooth that needs comforting, they have a decent dessert selection. Candies, cakes, baked goods, and ice cream scopes of decent quality ice cream
The not so good
With the alley layout they're going for, the restaurant can feel a bit messy and you need to zig zag around to get to all restaurant. Majority of the visitors will not be able to see the live band playing from their seats, due to the layout blocking their viewWe already mentioned the messy queuing system, that they can easily fix with a proper sign or two and that it's very hot before entering, but it's also hot inside. Not as hot as it was in the lobby, but still decently hot. They had a lot of movable aircons inside, so it could just be issues with the buildings aircon system
Our first impression
The restaurant was decently full inside, but there wasn't really lines anywhere and if there was lines. You just go for something else and the next time you go, there's no lineThe food was mostly of decent quality and they had a fairly decent selection of food. We overall had a good experience and wouldn't mind going again