Mesa's Great Meals

May 15th was a special day for our dear friend June Recto. It's his birthday. So he had  a special treat courtesy of Sarita who thought it would be a great idea to go out for dinner at Greenbelt. Originally, it was to be held at Yakimix. but since both of us have had our fill of fresh seafod while we were in Leyte, the next choice was at Mesa Grill in Greenbelt 5.

Mother June, Sarita, Jojo, Fides and myself were present for the dinner. After the usual gift-giving, we started to get hungry on that muggy evening and for starters we had pomelo salad. A tangy mix of pomelo slivers, grated coconut, friend garlic  wrapped in banana leaves and dressed with a vinaigrette laced with coconut milk.

Next came a platter of Pansit Palabok. Glass noodles slathered with a shrimp based sauce and garnished with crispy fried garlic chips, chives, slivers of hard boiled eggs and crushed chicharones. Traditionally, palabok is salty but normally balanced with the juice of calamansi. This platter was well balanced and so yummy.

The next order was for grilled mussels topped with a creamy cheese sauce and some crumbled garlic chips on top. Needless to say, the dish was so good it didn't take five minutes to devour everything on the plate. But that was just for starters anyway... there was more to come...

Bangus belly done bistek style came next. You could feel the milk fish fat melting in your mouth. The onions rings were the perfect foil to the oily sauce it came in. The gravy had a little soy sauce mixed in with calamansi for that added zing to it.

y favorite dish was the baby squid cooked adobo style in its own ink. It was very tender t the bite with lots of garlic flavor thrown in. It was the perfect partner for the fried rice with slivers of mango and shrimp paste.

First time you heard of Two-way Laing? Laing is a traditional Filipino dish from the bicol region that's made out of the edible leaves of yam and slow cooked in coconut milk and spiked with the hot taste of local bird's eye chili. This dish came two ways ( as mentioned) one serving had the coconut milk sauce in it while the other serving was a dried up version.

We had spicy prawns as well. The huge prawns were pan-fried and then added with a red chili-garlic paste on top and garnished with a local variety of sili'ng panigang to it. It had a sweet-spicy taste and aroma that's enticing to the diner.

Crispy Pata was served conveniently without the bones. It takes the labor out of enjoying a fried crispy pork hock dipped in tangy vinegar/spy sauce dip with little fuss and effort. The pata was fried to a crispy golden brown

Then to cap off the dinner we had buko/pandan and Batangas coffee jelly for dessert. While I had Turon served with mango ice cream and wrapped samosa style. It was an evening of fun laughter and good food to celebrate a friend's birthday.

It was just too much fun!