Lasa by Lamesa

My husband has wanted me to try Filipino food for the longest time (does Dale Talde's halo-halo in Brooklyn count? I suppose authentic Filipino food doesn't have Cap'n Crunch...), so when Lasa opened up nearby, we decided to check it out.

Restaurant: Lasa by Lamesa
Location: Wychwood
Meal: Dinner
Day: Friday
Son's Age: 24 weeks

This place is cafeteria style, so you go to the front, order your food, and pay, then you find a table and sit down. At this point, they don't have their liquor license. I figured that taking my baby to a new, cafeteria-style restaurant early on a Friday night shouldn't be too hard. Apparently I wasn't the only one because there were quite a few families with babies that also showed up!

Accessibility: ⭐️
The woman at the cashier lamented that they did not have high chairs yet, but noted that they would get some soon, so for the time that I was there, they weren't quite ready for babies. That's not an issue for us since my son can't sit up unassisted yet, but the restaurant is also quite small so we had to do some maneuvering to get his stroller to the table.

Luckily, since the restaurant was quite new, there weren't a lot of people, so we had no problem choosing a table and then parking the stroller there. If it were busier, I don't know that this setup would be as easy. Oh, and no, I didn't bring an empty stroller - he was a bit fussy so my husband took him out right away. The washrooms are also in the basement, which means that it definitely isn't stroller friendly.

As you can see, there is literally no counter space and definitely no change table. The good news is that they are single bathrooms so if you really need to change a diaper, you could probably put the toilet lid down, but it certainly won't be easy. 

Service: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

With a cafeteria-style restaurant, service is pretty limited. Water, cutlery, and condiments are self serve. As such, I'd say service was fine but not memorable. 

Food: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The food was brought to us on a tray. We ordered the BBQ pork skewers, the Lasa salad, the chicken adobo, and garlic rice.

Oh, and of course, the lechon kawali - crispy pork belly.

First of all, those pork skewers are fantastic. They are marinated in 7up, ginger, and soy sauce, and I could eat them forever. Next, the salad is ridiculously good. It has tofu, mango, avocado, and cashews. I suspect it's not quite authentic but it's definitely one of the best salads I've had. The garlic rice was quite nice and a welcome substitute to plain white rice. If that had been the extent of my meal, the I would have given the food five stars. Unfortunately, I found the lechon kawali to be quite dry. I tried dipping it into vinegar, and then tried soy sauce, but neither improved the dish. The chicken adobo was fine but not particularly outstanding. Those two dishes brought down the quality of the overall experience for me. They did not, however, hinder us from ordering dessert.

I mentioned that I've had halo-halo before, so when I found out that they had it here, I had to try it. This was also really good - taro ice cream with shaved ice, fruit, and Rice Krispies (okay seriously, is this authentic or not? Now I'm rethinking my earlier question about the Cap'n Crunch). It was a perfect ending to the meal.

Overall: ⭐️⭐️½
I'm sticking to my rating system where I average my ratings of accessibility, service, and food, which makes this 2.5 stars. I feel like that doesn't really reflect my experience because overall, the atmosphere was really great for a baby (provided you don't need to do a diaper change) and parts of my meal were extremely enjoyable. That being said, I feel like I was lucky it wasn't crowded, because the accessibility is pretty much nonexistent.