| Rating: | ★★ |
| Category: | Other |
From the point of view of a northern Quezon City resident, any place near Taft Avenue. (specifically the DLSU area) is already very far. It was for this reason that I expressed some reservations about going there for some after-shift unwinding. What momentarily escaped me was the fact that my work place was in the Makati Central Business District, which was a lot nearer to Taft Avenue than I imagined it to be. At 4 am, a taxi ride to the place from RCBC Plaza costs roughly only P55.00. Very accessible for those who are just wrapping up from a night-long bout of shift work from the CBD.
Due to my unfamiliarity with approaching Manila from Makati, I completely lost track of the side streets that the cab driver used in going to Providence. All I know is that the actual street is named Leon Guinto (which runs parallel to Taft Avenue) and, as already mentioned, the place is quite near DLSU.
The place looks somewhat classy from the outside, with generous use of neon signages and glass panels. Security is quite strict in inspecting bags for all walk-in customers - which, if you really think about it, is a necessity in any Manila business establishment that serves alcohol.
The interior though, is a disappointment. Anybody who thinks space maximization is a good idea should go to Providence to see its ugly side. Seemingly every nook and cranny has been converted into a room, with capacities ranging from two to twelve persons. What's worse is that these "rooms", with all their blaring videoke machines, do not have adequate sound proofing, and most of the walls are mere glass panels, which lessen a group's privacy.
The lack of hygeine is also a problem. To those who are fussy about bugs, you should be warned that roaches (of the smaller variety) are a bit of a problem for this place. Periodic fumigation of the premises is normally enough to solve this, but Providence looks like it hasn't had one for years. While the servers are helpful enough, they have this annoying mindset of doing too little when asked to clean a room up for the next set of occupants. In our case, we found out that the waiter's version of a "clean room" involved leaving the table unwiped, and with empty beer bottles of the previous occupants still visible in one side of the room. This makes one doubt the cleanliness by which the food was prepared - which is rather unfortunate because the food tasted quite good.
The videoke machines are those that are still operated with token slots - same as those one normally sees in tricycle terminals and roadside carinderias. They're easy enough to operate, and tokens are provided by the management for a certain fee. Some of the tokens they supply are duds though, so one needs to have them exchanged for working ones every now and then. Since the system is far from computerized, this is one videoke bar that still makes use of voluminous song lists that are only partly in alphabetical order.
One can easily observe that the reason why people patronize this place is the low price. I actually didn't get to see the price list for the food, drinks and videoke rates (I didn't spend anything as it was a birthday treat by an office mate) but I conclude it must be considerably low, because no person in their right mind would visit this place if it had regular prices.
Providence would probably rank higher in everyone else's lists, but personally, I don't mind paying a few more bucks for better service and nicer-looking premises. I'm ranking it 2 out of 5 stars.
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