Hello Halo

Although there are 200,000 Filipinos here and numerous restaurants, they tend to be cheaper joints found in more immigrant-heavy areas. Lamesa, meaning table in Spanish and tagalog, is the first upscale Filipino restaurant in downtown Toronto. I dropped by Friday night to check out its menu about 2 months into its opening.

Adobo Pork Roll

Tuna Empanada

A $35 daily tasting menu got you a 3-course meal. For appetizers, I picked the Shrimp Pancit Canton ($8): sauteed shrimp, canton noodles, beans, carrots, and cabbage; and Green Mango Salad ($8): sour mango, carrot, radish with a bagoong caramel. For mains, the choices were Salmon Sinigang ($23): green beans, eggplant, tomatoes, and a daikon puree with a sour tamarind sauce; and Short Rib Nilaga ($23): cabbage, green beans, and a bone marrow potato puree with a ginger base.

Shrimp Canton

Mango Salad

First up was an amuse-bouche composed of deep-fried spring roll stuffed with adobo-style pork cheek. The roll was nicely crispy with earthy, meaty tones from the pork. A nice start. The noodles were chewy and greasily good with plumb and tasty shrimps. The mango salad had a nice bite to it, thanks to the (toned-down) shrimp paste accompaniment. These appetizers were the stand-out dishes.

Salmon Sinigang

Short Rib Nilaga

Both the salmon and the short rib were average. There was nothing to differentiate them from the all the other restaurants in town offering Continental/French-style cooking. For these prices, I'd rather have 3 more appetizers dishes.

The pre-dessert dish was more successful: small bite-site tuna empanada with plantain and creme anglais. The desserts suffered the same issue as the mains. They were tasty enough: Jackfruit creme brulee ($7) and Ovaltine Chocolate Mousse ($7) with sweet rice crisps but not memorable. Change the Jackfruit to, say, Durian, now you're talking!

Jackfruit Creme Brulee

Ovaltine Chocolate Mousse

The amuse-bouche, appetizers, and pre-dessert, which played up the distinctive Filipino flavour palette were more enjoyable (agreeing with me is the food critic at the Globe and Mail). Lamesa has to offer more of these instead of second-rate Continental cuisine. I would also prefer more tapas-style selection since $23 for a small piece of fish or pork did not make a good impression.