Filipino Mexican Food - No, It's Not Fusion

Mike minutes before Reggie took him to the airport bound for Los Angeles.

Today I went to work at HPI and my American co-worker Mike left Cebu bound for Los Angeles. For dinner, I went to Mooon Restaurant with Maartje, Anniek, Rob, and Reggie. The restaurant serves Mexican inspired food. I was curious to see what Mexican food in the Philippines was like—I wasn’t expecting much.

Chimichanga was decent and was probably the best "Mexican" dish at the restaurant.

Mexican Filipino fish taco. The tortilla didn't taste good and had a weird texture to it.

Rob drinks some beer.

Maartje laughing intelligently with her glasses.

Beer tower with tap brought to your table.

I ordered a chimichanga, burrito, and a taco. It sounds like a lot, but in the Philippines, portions are smaller compared to Los Angeles. The burrito was slightly bigger than a tequito which is tiny compared to the “dos manos” (two handed) burritos you can order in Los Angeles. Generally, the food was really bad. The tortilla was unexplainably bad—it was thin and flakey and didn’t taste like a tortilla. Even the generic mass produced bad tortillas in Los Angeles were better. Similarly, the “nachos” were also bad. The beer towers you can order tough were good.

After dinner we went to a nice cafe which served properly made espresso coffee and well made pastries. It was exciting to see some interest in the culinary arts in the Philippines. After a cappuccino we all went to Loft—a bar lounge—where we had a few beers on the patio with another friend Walter.


- jason