We’ve been waiting for months to go to La Mesa in Dee Why. Philippine cuisine is one of those cuisines that you don’t often see a lot of although we’ve heard it’s absolutely delicious so when we discover that there is a restaurant within 15 minute’s drive, dishing up authentic Philippino favourites we thought that our intrepid Hooter’s pals Queen Viv and Miss America would be more than up to the visit so we venture to La Mesa one howling, rainy Saturday night.
The small room is full with customers and warm lighting and numerous paintings and artifacts adorn the walls and counters. We’re shown to our table and I’m glad we booked, to be sent outside again into the howling wind is not something I’d relish.
Calamansi juice $3
We’ve started off with drinks, Calamansi juice ($3) to be exact as I’ve only heard of the name, never tried the drink and of course the well loved young coconut juice. The citrus Calamansi juice is like a cross between pineapple and other tropical juices. It’s light and sweet and unusual.
Young Coconut juice $3.50
The young coconut juice is mildly sweet but not overpowering so, and filled with slices of young coconut, Queen Viv’s favourite which she happily scoops up.
Mixed entree $7.80
Miss America, my husband and I order the mixed entree ($7.80) to share as Queen Viv is detoxing. There is a spring roll, pork/chicken skewer, prawn cake, fried quail egg and beef tapa with a vinegary dipping sauce and a sweeter chili dipping sauce. The spring roll is fresh and crispy; the pork/chicken skewer is tender and smokily flavoured from the grill; the fried quail egg is nice if not wowing as it’s a boiled quail’s egg with a bit of batter; the beef tapa is delicious and richly flavoured. The star is the shrimp cake, made of prawns, sweet potato and pumpkin it is deliciously squeaky and tasty. Next time I’ll order 4 of these and be quite happy.
Chicken Adobo $12.90
We’re waiting about 20 minutes for our mains and when our hosts, the owners I presume, notice that we’re looking around for our food, it appears gratefully a few minutes later. The Adobo chicken ($12.90) is the first to arrive, in a fish shaped bowl which holds the pieces of simmered chicken. The flavours are delicious yet slightly unusual with sugar cane vinegar, soy, garlic and black pepper. It’s everyone’s favourite at the table and every drop of the sauce is eaten once the chicken disappears.
Crispy Pata $17.90
The Crispy Pata ($17.90) is a gigantic dish, a prehistoric looking relic of Flintstonian proportions. There are some huge pork bones and lots of soft, tender pork meat and delicious pork crackling. It’s fall apart good and despite knowing how bad for your health pork crackling is for you to eat, you just do and do and do.
Caldereta $13.90
Rice $2.50 per person unlimited
The Beef Caldereta ($13.90) arrives next, it’s a bright red sauce with smallish chunks of beef, strips of red capcisum and olives. The unusual flavour in it is from most surprisingly, liver pate combined with tomato paste and bay leaves. As we chose hot upon the waiter’s recommendation, it is indeed fairly fiery but never too much so. I have a major, unabating craving for this the next day.
Tinolang Yaman ng Karagatan $19.90
The Tinolang Yaman ng Karagatan ($19.90) is the last main to arrive and it is a huge cavernous bowl on a stand filled with an excellent variety of seafood including half a crab, prawns, mussels, calamari, salmon and white fish in a delicately fragrant broth strong with ginger, garlic and lemongrass. It’s not powerful, but it’s delicately perfumed and the soup is restorative.
We take a bit of a break as we need to rest our stomachs but as your eye tends to do, it wandered over to the dessert menu which showed an interesting range of sweets.
Halo Halo $7.50
The Halo Halo ($7.50) is a milkshake glass full of shaved ice, milk and ice cream with delicious morsels of fruit and beans at the bottom. It’s a little difficult to eat and would have been better served in a bowl where you can scoop up the deliciously sweet morsels of unknown fruit and jellies. It’s like a more delicious version of Ice Kacang and I abandon all loyalty to the Ice Kacang in favour of this new dessert. The little squares of sweetneed exotic fruit are delicious and trying to get to these at the bottom is hard but a rewarding task. Even the vanilla ice cream is delicious with more creaminess than the normal icy generic vanilla ice cream that places will give. I want this waiting for me when I die and go to wherever it is that I will go.
Special Biko $3.80
I try the Special Biko ($3.80) with young coconut and jackfruit. Unfortunately I can’t actually see any jackfruit on tonight’s version, only young coconut. It’s a warmed rice cake made of black sticky rice enriched with coconut milk. It’s good and comforting if not spectacular but then nothing can really follow the Halo Halo.
Turon $4.50
Lastly we try the Turon ($4.50), a fried banana ladyfinger with the appearance of a spring roll. We asked for ice cream with this ($1 extra) which it really needs as the ladyfinger is starchy and floury. I should think that regular bananas would be better in this if the lady fingers are as starchy as these were. It would have been lovely otherwise with the super crackly pastry and ice cream.
We exit, our stomachs full, into the howling cold night. But for once we don’t notice, as we’re too busy talking about the food we just ate.
La Mesa Phillipine Cuisine
Shop 2, 874 Pittwater Road (corner of Oaks Avenue) Dee Why Sydney
Tel +61 (02) 9972-9877
Lunch: 11:00-3:00pm
Dinner: Sun-Thurs 5:00-9:00pm; Fri-Sat 5:00-10:00pm
Surcharge for credit cards 2.5%. Corkage $2
I thought that the Crispy Pata deserved another close up food pornographic look don’t you?
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11 Comments | Add your own
Great find, there seems to be very few good quality well priced places on the northern beaches.
I’m saddened that the banana’s were dry and floury! There should be a law against that I think.
Hi Cappucino-Thanks!
I was really happy to find somewhere nearish to us!
Haha yes it was a bit disappointing, especially since the rest of it was nice.
A Filipino friend of mine taught me how to make Adobo and I must say the sauce is the best part! I could just eat that and rice and be perfectly content
Hi Alexandra-How wonderful, is it easy to make? Yes we made sure to finish every drop of that sauce
Oh wow.. that Crispy Pata just looks so mega-sinful. So it was just a plate of meat with no vegetables? It looks like something to share. Growing up in a European family.. pork was heavily featured in our diet and coming second.. or maybe equal first place was chicken (My Mum would buy them alive).
The Halo Halo looks like a meal in itself. I’m not sure if I’d like the jellies and unknown fruits though?? You never know, I could be pleasantly surprised?!
That’s good that the rice is unlimited and you just pay per rice-eating head
The Caldereta is probably something I’d just taste.. I like heat..but not hot-hot where my nose starts running! The dish looks quite oily too.
I’ve never had Adobo anything so I’m curious about the taste. My late fathers last wife was Filipino and she put me onto squeezing cumquat juice onto cooked fish..but I may have already mentioned this when you featured cumquats in another post? I see that in the dictionary they’re also spelled kumquats.. so I’m not entirely sure which is the correct way?
You always feature interesting drinks too -muchly appreciated!
Hi Maria-Yes mega-sinful is the way to describe it completely. It was just meat and fat and not a scrap of vegetable.
Wow, your mum would buy chickens alive? She sounds like a real cook! I know of so many European mums that cook everything from scratch and spend a lot of time preparing meals. Was your mum like that?
Hehe I was a little undecided about the unnamed fruits and jellies but they were fantastic. I kept fishing down the bottom of the glass for more!
The caldereta was a little hot but not too hot (for me at least) but it was a bit oily.
Yes I do recall you mentioning cumquats or kumquats. I am not sure how to describe the Adobo sauce, perhaps a blend of soy, vinegar, chili, garlic and herbs. Very good and a little unusual
Thanks! I try and feature anything interesting and sometimes the drinks are very unusual!
Thanks always for your generous replies Lorraine
I bookmark my comments now to check back and see if there’s a reply!
Yes, my late Mum did make many things from scratch which was how she was taught when she was growing up. I will always remember her pastry which was like filo pastry.. stretched out like a table cloth.. literally hanging well over a big, round kitchen table.. transparent with elasticity. Holes could easily occur! With that she’d make what I guess are very light ‘filo style’ long strudels which had plenty of fleshy “pie skin” on inside when eaten. She’d do continental cottage cheese fillings (is that Quark?)… more tangy than our English style cottage cheese. And she’d also do mashed pumpkin, cinnamon and sugar as a filling. I think I loved the cheese the most back then because I would often get indigestion from the pumpkin one. I’d love both now.. and would probably team the pumpkin one with some icecream.
Hi Maria-I do love reading your comments! Wow, your mum sounds like a fantastic cook. I bet things just don’t taste as good as when she used to make it. Mmmm pie skin! I love the layers in filo and puff pastry but I’ve never been brave enough to make my own. That’s the stuff I put in advanced, advanced cooking!
Oh yes I love Quark. You can get it at DJ’s city store. I used to buy it and eat it in place of cream cheese and mascarpone. Is the continental cheese one like the cheese strudel filling? I adore that. The pumpkin one sounds heavenly, like pumpkin pie which I also love.
Actually the cheese one was a savoury one.. it was just the flavour of the quark mixed with some raw eggs and salt and baked from memory.
Hi Maria-Ahhh I see, more of like a feta style cheese filling but smoother? That sounds fantastic!
hello. you have vary nice food
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