Vikings, SM North Review

Last week, we celebrated father's birthday at Vikings SM North and I was able to compare how this branch fared against its older brother at SM MOA. Having been to its older brother for four times already, I have nothing but high regards for the Vikings franchise as the SM MOA branch has never failed me, even becoming better and better each year.

                   

Vikings SM North Edsa (4th Floor, The Block)

Before going to the restaurant, I lowered my expectation as my initial thoughts were, this branch being a smaller one, would cater lower quality and lesser selection of food. But I guess this wasn't the case as I wasn't able to restrain my gluttonous instincts. I took some pictures and below is the list of food I liked most or were interesting enough to deserve a mention on this post.

Turkey, Lamb and Angus Beef

This was just the first one, we had several more orders of Lamb and Angus Beef as the hours progressed. It was also my first time to eat Angus Beef and now I know what I've been missing all this time! The soft and tasty meat was just pure bliss! I also love Lamb meat and it was perfect here too!

3 kinds of Sauces for the Grilled Meat Section

Their sweet Cranberry sauce gave a good twist to the lamb and angus beef . Nomnomnom!

Cheese Station

It was also my first time to eat so many different cheeses at the same time. Though it would have been better if these had small labels on them, nevertheless I was able to identify some like the blue and mozzarella cheeses - Good job to me! Haha!

Extensive Salad Bar

Spoon dishes

These were interesting enough that I gave few of these spoons a try (mainly for the experience) and yes my hunch was right, nothing spectacular in these.

Create your Own Pizza Station

I found this station cool as it allows you to create your own pizza just the way you like it.

Pesto Pasta

Made from the Create Your Pasta station and using the meat from the Pizza station. It tasted good to me as the pesto mixed well with the all the meat I put in.

Grilled seafood

Shrimp Pomodoro Pasta

The shrimps tasted fresh and was snappy in every bite.

Shabu Shabu Meat

Shabu Shabu Noodles and Vegetables

Shabu Shabu at your table

You'll need to pick your ingredients and soup from the Shabu Shabu station first and they'll then serve this pot (with your selected soup inside of course) and heater to your table. You'll then need to cook the ingredients you initially selected using this hot pot! Cool right?! :) Vikings SM MOA offers this as well but I've never got to try it until last week.

Mango Crepe

Nothing special with Vikings' crepes and I don't know why I always go for this but how often do we eat crepes?

Happy Birthday Cake

It was good that they had customized cakes as their Birthday cakes and the chiffon was nicely baked too. Ate half of my Dad's cake - sorry Dad and belated Happy Birthday to you once again! :)

Vikings SM North Map

As you can see from this map, the food stations are located along the sides of the restaurant (the other stations in the map were covered by my utensils, sorry!) and since the space between the food stations and tables weren't that wide, it was hard to move around freely and we had to be cautious not to bump to the other customers.

To sum up this experience, I have listed the things that worked well for Vikings SM North and the things that they can improve on in the future.

Good Points

● There were station name plates on the different food stations which enabled its customer to immediately identify the type of cuisine the station is offering

● They had a cheese station where I was able to eat interesting cheeses
● They served Angus Beef even on weekdays

● Food on spoons made things interesting

● The Pizza making station offered something new
● Customized Birthday cakes made birthdays more special.

Needs Improvement

● Wasn't able to move freely. There was not much space between the stations and tables and I found it difficult to move around.

● People had to queue in the grilled meat section to order and then wait for their name to be called to get their meat. It felt forever to get your Angus Beef! LOL!

● I may be bias but I believe Vikings SM MOA has a better set-up.

I wasn't expecting much from this branch but it has lived up to the high expectations I have set for the Vikings franchise by offering something new and interesting to its customers and serving good grade food. So if you're used to going to the SM MOA branch but live in the Quezon City area, it wouldn't hurt to go here instead.