Balibago Meat and Deli – a Review

I was in the mood for a nice lunch with some cold cuts, cheeses and some fresh bread, so I went down to newly opened Balibago Meat and Deli.

The actual deli stuff in the shop was not up to speed in my opinion... But the lovely lady at the counter told me they are going to get more stuff in the Deli with time.

I was expecting to buy cheeses and lots of cold cuts, but the only cheese they had were blocks of mozzarella... and he only had a few cold cuts already sliced and vacuum packed.

The cold cuts I bought were pre-sliced and vacuum packed on a little Styrofoam thing... when opened it all stuck together and disintegrated when trying to separate the slices... It looked like this was sliced, vacuum packed and then frozen...

These products were cheaper than similar products in Brettos, which is really good as Chef Frank is actually smoking his own products and making everything here himself. I just wish we can avoid the post slice freezing 

Home Made Salads

I bought a pack of ham salad and a pack of egg salad, both reasonably priced and they are both very good. Mu favorite was the egg salad… They had other salads in the cooler and a lot of different kinds of pickled herring and pickled sausages which I will have to try next time.

Home made Smoked Products

I did buy a lot of his home smoked meat products... Which all looked awesome and prices were very reasonable…

Among the stuff I bought were smoked pork loin and 2 different kinds of smoked bacon. We had some of the porkloin for lunch and it was delicious, something I will definitely return to get more of…

Home made soups

Dutch Style Split Pea Soup
Bean Soup with Ham
French Onion Soup
Goulash Soup

These looked delicious, and at the moment they have a promo where you actually get a FREE 350 gram container of home made soup per P300 you spend in the Deli. Each of these soup containers are regularly priced at P140-P150. This was a very good deal and I ended up spending around P4000 so I got 13 free containers of home made soup to stick in my freezer at home – I can’t wait to taste them.

The imported stuff like breads and tinned stuff from Europe

I bought a can of kippers for P179, to compare I went down to Brettos right after my visit here and exact same brand of kippers were P165. I also looked at a packet of bread and like the kippers the prices were higher in Balibago Meat and Deli than they were in Brettos.

Conclusion

The imported stuff selection was smaller than Brettos and priced higher, so that will need some fine tuning before I dig in to that.

The home made stuff though, I am sure that will be a hit, I think Frank needs a wider selection, but this is a good base to start out from. I missed some imported salamis and some imported cheese for my lunch today, but I hope they get some of that in stock soon.

The free soup container per P300 spent was great deal and I recommend you check this place out while this promo is still going on. The soups can be frozen so they make great lazyday TV dinners on a lazy hung over Sunday evenings.

Good luck to Chef Frank in this venture, we sure have room for alternatives to Brettos, so with a little fine tuning and a lot of hard work I hope Frank will have a hit here.

Bongo