The Alley by Vikings: First Impression

All you can eat buffe, with a design fitting the name
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 Alley

The 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 line

20240720_1001_669b30b2151a9.webp

They 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

20240720_1001_669b2f616353a.webp

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 alley

20240720_1001_669b321c7b106.webp

There'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

20240720_1001_669b33b3e0f8c.webp

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...

20240720_1001_669b356be4523.webp

Once you walk around, you'll find the small restaurants. With a wide selection of different styles of food, each having their own kind

20240720_1001_669b362aecc8a.webp

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

20240720_1001_669b37630eea0.webp

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

20240720_1001_669b39a01b6e5.webp

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

20240720_1001_669b3ae92f5bd.webp

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

20240720_1001_669b3bd4118e5.webp

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 view

20240720_1001_669b4044e572b.webp

We 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 line

20240720_1001_669b417f7e2ed.webp

The 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

We sometimes publish affiliate links and these always needs to follow our editorial policy, for more information check out our affiliate link policy

You might also like

Waking up during the night to pee could mean you're peeing wrong
Health

Waking up during the night to pee could mean you're peeing wrong

Comments

Sign up or Login to post a comment

There are no comments, be the first to comment.