Mesa Filipino Moderne at SM Aura

I just absolutely love Filipino food.  Matter of fact I have been to two Filipino restaurants just this week starting with last Sunday at Mesa Filipino Moderne at SM Aura.  

We as a family sought out Mesa at the behest of my younger sister who was craving Pritson, crispy lechon de leche wrapped in pita wrappers with different sauces, the Filipino version of Peking Duck.  I personally never got why some people go so crazy over this dish but to each his or her own.  Mesa even gives you a choice of the second way meaning after enough meat has been stripped for about 16 priston wrappers the rest is cooked - we chose sauteed with garlic.  Just like Peking Duck.

Just like Peking Duck - the Pritson is prepared in front of you

Snazzy, modern interior with interesting touches

Boneless Crispy Pata

Two Way Laing

Pritson

Naturally as the Pritson is the know specialty there were many orders of it being prepared at tablesides.  I couldn't help myself and asked the poor woman slicing the lechon if it was hot.  After all she was handling a newly cooked pig with thin plastic gloves so that couldn't have been pleasant for her.  She just smiled and said "a little".  A few minutes later we had the first batch of Pritson and were asked how we wanted to second way or second cooking and we went with sauteed with garlic (the other choice is sauteed with garlic and chili).

Can't say I was impressed with the Pritson.  Pritson is all the same to me and the extra thick, chewy wrapper took away some of the Pritson flavor.  A novelty of those party Pritson is the myriad of choices of sauce but Mesa for no obvious reason to me only offers three.

Everything else was pretty good though, I enjoyed the boneless crispy pata and scooped all the extra garlic and chili to top everyone's rice.  The laing too was excellent, my mom mixed the too together as she preferred everything a bit wetter - separately one is dry and one is wet.

The Pritson was good for four at 1,500.  Had we not have that our bill would have been a little north of one thousand pesos, quite reasonable indeed.

Mesa is decent Filipino food at an excellent price.