After my first gym workout in months, I was ready to gain all the calories back. I was with a local and she wanted to hit up one of her favourite restaurants, Mesa Filipino Moderne. It's located on the 2nd floor of the SM City Mall.
We dropped in on a Sunday (around 11:00am). It got busy soon after we sat down. The inside is clean and modern, which isn't too surprising given the mall location. Service is fast and friendly. They refilled our waters multiple times.
The menu is massive with appetizers, sisig, soup, salad, meat, crispchon, fresh catch, seasonal products, vegetables, noodles and rice. There's also drinks and desserts.
- 2x Plain rice (45 PHP) - steepest plain rice I've come across. Splurge the extra 5 pesos for garlic rice. Yikes.
- Tawilis with mangga on spoon (155 PHP) - 10 pieces of crispy tawilis with slivers of ripe mango. It came with a side of shrimp paste and tamarind sauce. The sardines were lightly fried and mango added a touch of sweetness.
- Kare-kare beef and tripe (325 PHP) - beef, tripe and vegetables cooked in a rich creamy peanut sauce. This also came with shrimp paste sauce. Tripe had a great chewy texture. The peanut came through in the sauce but it was still bland. You need to add the shrimp paste to give it some flavour. This was my favourite dish of the three.
- Binagoongang baboy ni kaka (260 PHP) - pan fried pork belly sautéed in shrimp paste with grilled eggplant. The pork belly was fatty. That's just how they like it in the Philippines. Grilled eggplant was the best part but the sauce was too salty and sweet for my liking.
It's "fancy" Filipino dining. Good to try some different dishes but I'll stick to my hole in the wall spots. read more