A revisit to Taki Ongoy for our 15th anniversary date night out. First off, to Tom’s comment, it wasn’t bad the previous visit (other than one dish), it was mostly just really expensive, and we knew that going in. But we wanted to go out for a really nice “nikkei” evening, and we’ve been to La Mar and Osaka many times, so, something different.

But let’s parse it all out. Service was, at the least, not flu-laden. It still had its missteps. Our waitress forgot our wine order, and then got a bit flustered when we had our appetizers on the table, but wouldn’t eat them until the wine arrived – and even then we took our time, we’d wanted to have a nice glass of wine before we even dug in, and weren’t about to be pushed to hurry up just because they wanted to jump ahead to main courses. Even after we’d flagged her down for the wine after the apps were on the table, it still took them almost ten more minutes to get it to the table. And for some reason, the place seems to want to keep their shiny floor spotless, so every time someone walked through the room, a young woman with a damp cloth on a squeegee would run out from the back and shine over their footprints. Very annoying to have someone constantly mopping in the dining room when you’re eating, and far less classy than just having some shoe smudges on the shiny floor.

The menu is now on a tablet (I don’t think it was the last time, though maybe I just don’t recall that), and is organized in a way that each section off the main menu only has 3-4 dishes in it, so you have to constantly return to the main menu and select another section. Poor organization, and a real pain when you are trying to figure out what you want to eat.

The food was all very good. But still quite expensive. I’d say it hovers somewhere between the prices at the two other Nikkei spots mentioned above, but not as good as either, which means this was probably the last visit. The above four dishes, plus a shared dessert, and a bottle of wine, a couple of waters, and tip, and we’re talking 5500 pesos ($89) – pretty much the same, in 2020 peso terms as my solo visit last year. Unfortunately, I’d forgotten about that discount card they gave me – should have come back and read my original review beforehand. (And in reply to Tom’s comment, The Fork 50% offer is for their festival celebration, which hadn’t started yet when we went, or, wasn’t being offered at this place that night.)

Minor things about two of the dishes that I can nitpick on – the ceviche that’s completely uncured until you mash the fish down into the leche de tigre yourself, and which was heavy on lemon rather than lime; and the creme brulee, which flavor-wise was excellent, with it’s chocolate chili hit, had clearly been bruleed and then refrigerated, so that the caramelized sugar topping was no longer crunchy, it was melting into the custard below. Favorite dish was the stuffed chipirones, baby squid with prawns and charred corn.

The place has become very touristy, and from surrounding tables, I don’t think I heard anything in Spanish – it was all English, German, and Portuguese. The elderly British couple at the table next to us, clearly “in their cups”, spent our first twenty minutes there loudly talking about the various places they’ve eaten on their trip, at a volume that could have been heard outside, and then spent about five minutes walking around the dining room with their phones out, going up to other people’s tables, saying, “ooh, that’s pretty, let me just take a picture”…. Bizarrely, no one seemed to mind.

So, in the end, no, I just don’t think I recommend this place. Too many missteps, and too expensive for the quality of what you get.