Review Best Posts in Thread: Y-Not

It is owned by a Swiss National. How that can be ? Strange question. You call yourself a RPlongtymer, which I don't really believe. Or else the Y-not Restaurant is only one you know in Duma. Because Y-not has probably one of the best waiters in town. That doesn't mean it's high class compared with western standards. But I know for sure at the Y-not a waitress doesn't' just get a full time job easily. They have to work as a trainee for a considerable time before they get fully employed. Me and a lot of people like the place. The staff is very polite and helpful. But over the years we have noticed that some low class expats treat them like underdogs. So in other words: THE WAY YOUR TREAT OTHERS IS HOW OTHERS WILL TREAT YOU.

 

I'm an expat of many years, almost 18 years and have always found YNot to be the place to go if you want good food and a nice surrounding. The staff, although not up to international standards, have always been more than polite and very helpful. I think some expats expect too much and as time has gone on I have witnessed absolutely atrocious behavour of some who deserve to be thrown out on the street. As for "ownership" Marcos from Switzerland is one of the nicest people you can wish to meet. And he is far from new to Dumaguete as I am sure the older members of us can confirm. So as far as I am concerned, you guys who see fit to criticize can go to hell and get the hell out of Dumaguete. We don't need you here.

 

I consider Y-not an okay restaurant, food over the middle quality for the Philippines, at least for the dishes I like. I find the service good there, never had any reason to complain. I notice over the last year or so, more customers what you call low -class expats are increasing in number, same in Dumaguete in general IMHO. I'm not high society, but feel better when people have a nice behavior, by that I mean show respect to surroundings, staff and other customers, not all know how to behave in public space. That said, I still thought it's the few who have bad style

 

Utopia Sihanoukville in Cambodia came to my mind, one of the funniest restaurant and guesthouse I visited. You can sleep there for 1 $, swimming pool, it's surrounded by food places, everything from Italien, Indian, Turkish and western style food, cheap, around 3 $, you can smoke marijuana or hashish in the restaurant if you are into that. People are a mix from all over the world also from teenager to oldies, I meet many retired US veterans soldier with 700 $ a month, most of them earn what they could carry in a backpack, had a great time in Sihanoukville and Cambodia in general, sorry to go off topic

 

Why Not is sort of like a Dumaguete time capsule. It's a melting pot of patrons which sort of attempts to offer a little something to everyone. It made sense to start out that way because back in the day, Why Not was the only place where you could get all the sorts of things Dustin listed (good pool tables, air con, etc.) Today, Dumaguete has grown but Why Not has largely stayed the same. This is probably fine for Why Not because they seem to continue to serve some decent crowds by doing the same thing they have always done. If it ain't broken...

Unfortunately, offering a little of something to everyone is going to create some strange mixtures. Try to please everyone and you won't really "nail it" for anyone. You'll get drunk disco people hanging out in front of the restaurant. You'll get restaurant people checking out the disco (and good luck!)

Reviews are difficult to do and reviewing Whynot is particularly hard. There's a decent list of things and situations for which Whynot would at the top of your list of places to go. For people looking for those sorts of things, WhyNot deserves the highest listing and a featured spot.

Other places here are much more constrained. Mooon Cafe is open during typical restaurant hours and has a focus of doing one thing well. It's much easier to rate Mooon Cafe because the place is in a much narrower category.

Ratings should also be relative to other places. IMO it's pointless to rate a place poorly because of poor service when the standard for the city is poor service. Better to reserve good ratings for the places which rise above. My rating for poor service is to give no rating. A place which has a 4 star rating from 200 reviews looks better to me than a place which has just a handfull of 5 star ratings.

 

I first went into y-not 2002 when it was a proper bar, It was one of many reasons why I chose Dumaguete. Still a good place to entertain and dine.

 

I go to lunch at Why Not around 11:00am to beat the crowd. Excellent service at that time and food comes out fast enough. They normally have daily specials which have been enjoyable and a large menu to choose from.
Note: I am not Swiss and do not know the owner.