Yummy Mesa

The wife and I first tried out Mesa when it was still on soft opening, and to be honest, I didn't really find the food good.  But faced with three friends who had a craving for food somewhere they haven't tried yet and somewhere conveniently located (convenient usually means somewhere in the mall), we decided to have our kid's (overdue) birthday celebration and one of her "godmother's" (much more overdue) birthday treat at Mesa.

"Godmother" Omar was the other birthday celebrator.

Mesa is at the Ayala Terraces, and is owned and operated by the same people who own and operate La Mesa Grill at SM.  Their facade promises Filipino Modern, and they did deliver on that promise.

Mesa is a quaint place that had big tables obviously targeted at family or barkada dining.  And this is what you'd first notice when you enter the place; each table has groups of 6-8 people.  There is an area for twosomes and couples right outside the main door, and it's al fresco, but seeing that it was a hot and humid summer night, we opted for the air conditioned comfort inside.

Mesa is not really a cheap place, but it's not outrageously expensive either.  Not bad for the price of the food, the ambiance and the taste. 

Our first order, the Tofu Sisig, is not really that appetizing to look at.

In fact, forced to described it, it looks like somebody's regurgitated dinner.  But one taste and I fell in love with it.  It is yummily cheesy!

Omar ordered Crispy Fried Tilapia with Four Sauces, and we were awed by the presentation.  We obviously didn't expect it would be served in easy-to-eat bite-size pieces.

Take heart, the feast is not just for the eyes, but for the palate too.  This was really one of the best fish dishes I've tasted thus far.

The pregnant friend was actually late for this dinner and texted ahead to get her something spicy. Or any chicken dish, because she's such a chicken person (that if we didn't know any better, we'd be compelled to think she'd be growing feathers very soon). It was an either/or, so the wife ordered this:

Garlic chicken. And for the third time, we were simply awed.  This was mouthwatering as well!

A little disappointment was the Crispy Boneless Pata, which was the most expensive dish we ordered that night at PhP400.  It wasn't crispy.  It was CHEWY. It was even difficult to slice through it using a knife.  Needless to say, there are better crispy patas in town.

Food was running low and the pregnant friend still wasn't sated.  Besides, we ordered 8 servings of rice for all 5 1/2 of us (the half being the three-year-old imp who can only consume one-fourth a cup of rice). And because we never really anticipated that their cup of rice was bigger than most restos.  So we added this:

This two-in-one beef dish (forgot what it was called) was half gone by the time I remembered about taking a picture.  One bowl was a dried and fried beef dish, while the other was a curried one, which reminded me of Indian curry, but it was really, really good.

All-in-all, the food is great, the price is okay, the waiters were attentive.  A group of five grownups coming into Mesa famished and hungry spent PHP2,000 for great food with drinks included, came out complaining how difficult it was to walk with their very full tummies.

Here's our rating ( = perfect)

Food:

Service:
Ambiance:
Washroom: (clean, one for female and one for male, spacious)

This post was written by A.

Tsim Sha What???

Tsim Sha Tsui. There, I got it correctly. I used to just call it "Chin chan su" because they all sound the same to me.

But really... I have this rule about never eating anything or at a place whose name I cannot even pronounce. And I should have stuck to that rule.  In fact, if it were not because of a pregnant friend who got a really serious craving for dimsum, and specifically dimsum from Tsim Sha Tsui (and who was already 'wet-dreaming' about it days before our date), and a husband who was very curious about their conveyor belt all-you-can-eat buffet, I wouldn't have gone there.

The pregnant friend

Their buffet costs 390-something pesos, without the drinks, and I knew it was too expensive.  One order of steamed fried rice (normally PhP35) and one order of spring rolls or quail egg siomai (normally PhP35) are already enough and filling for me.  And that would have cost me less than PhP100.  I knew that thinking up of something else to get that's worth the remaining PhP300 was going to be very hard.

 This conveyor belt made Harbor City fare worth more than 3x as much.

If you notice, the conveyor belt had big spaces where there's no food.

Anyway, we did give it a try.  And I have to say it's better for you to actually not go for the all-you-can-eat buffet unless you have a super elastic tummy capable of expanding into five times its original size.  Go take a regular table instead of sitting around the belt.  That way you wouldn't regret paying 400 bucks or more per head for something you can get for only around 200.

Overpriced food that's not even worth the doggie bag.

The food wasn't great, sorry.  My husband says it's a glorified Harbor City, or Dimsum Break. In fact, I like Harbor City more.  The entire three hours we were there, we were actually hoping something worth the expensive bill would come out of the conveyor belt.  But it didn't come.  Sad to say, there were only around five or six different kinds of food that rolled out.  Okay, I am being mean... Five or six is way too few, but it should give you a picture of what to expect.  The worst part?  They rolled out only two kinds of dessert!  One was the usual sesame seeds-covered botchi (does anybody actually still eat that?) and the other was that gelatinous cake (supposedly in ube and in almond, but they didn't taste like what their colors said).  We saw the dessert cart pass by -- with all the yummy-looking stuff, like egg tarts and mango float -- and asked the waiter whether there's chance any of those desserts would come out of the buffet belt soon.  But he said you have to pay for those separately. OHHKAY.

At least, they tried to impress us with the interiors.

So I guess by the first paragraph of this review you can already tell we don't give it two thumbs up. No sense wasting any more space here, really. We would just like to warn you that the conveyor belt is a bait! So don't be deceived. 

Tsim Sha Tsui, by the way, is located at the second level of Ayala Terraces, along the lines of Hukad and Mooon.  

This post was written by F.