Solihiya

Solihiya is one of the new restaurants in Greenbelt 5 and specializes in fancified panciteria food. I am a great fan of good panciteria food, and I really wanted to like the restaurant (I had been batting almost zero in my food trip in Greenbelt 5; with most restaurants I've tried having been expensive and not really that good).

We ordered the shrimp diablo (my memory gap is widening); I do remember the diablo part since the dish was covered with sauteed chilies. Supposedly spicy shrimp popcorns (cornflour battered pieces of shrimp), the dish had neither shrimp nor spice. It felt like we were eating fried batterballs.

We also ordered kangkong with chinese bagoong; I found it salty but then again, what would you expect with bagoong. But my friends liked it.

Our last dish was steamed fish fillet. It came late, like thirty minutes after we had almost polished off the two orders which came ahead. It was very apparent that the waiter had forgotten to put in the order in the first place; the dish could not have taken more than five minutes to cook. The waiter gave some flimsy excuse that the fish delivery was late that day (a likely story). What was disappointing, however, was that the owner or manager was right beside us when all of this was transpiring (our table was next to his hidden office) and he pointedly ignored us. No apologies, no we'll do better next time. Just as disappointing was that the fish was not worth the wait; bland and pasty white, it lacked the umami usually found in chinese steamed fish. (We slathered on the soy sauce and sesame oil to no avail; the fish was internally bland).

While waiting for our orders, we were served a trio of appetizers. Pickled singkamas, spicy sweet dilis, and pickled quail egg. It is a testament to the restaurant that the appetizers were the highlight of our meal.

Solihiya is just one of a long list of restaurants in Greenbelt 5 that have failed to live up to expectations. It should not come as a surprise now given the mall's fantastically low batting average for its restaurants (expensive but unsatisfying food, more pretention than substance).

BTW, solihiya apparently means the woven rattan used to cover chairs. The restaurant used woven plastic strips to evoke the natural wicker, a foreboding of things to come?