Brasas: Latin American Street Food

November 16, 2012. Friday.

I've always loved how diverse the food offerings in Podium were. There's Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Filipino, American restaurants all over this small upscale mall. And just recently I've discovered a new addition to Podium, Brasas which serves Latin American Street Food as their name mentions. I got to try out eating here a couple of weeks ago as Kim had me tag along with her co-workers.

At first glance, I thought the place would be serving the usual Tex- Mex fare. I was pleasantly surprised at how different the menu looked like compared to a Tex- Mex joint. For one, the menu had a whole lot of rice meals compared to sandwich wraps. We had to go over the menu at least twice before deciding on what to order, because everything looked good!

Note: Even though we ate with her co-workers, Kim didn't take note and pictures of all orders, so it would be just our orders that would be highlighted in this entry. 

We ordered a regular sized Beef Wrap with extra Monterey Jack cheese.

Beef Wrap (220php) with extra Monterey Jack (30php).

We had the wrap halved since we wanted for us to share both orders we had. I was little disappointed with the size of the beef wrap when it arrived on our table. Considering they had a smaller size for the wraps (pequeno), I expected something a little bigger. Good thing it tasted really good! The meat had this nice grilled tenderness to it that really went well with the tomatoes, onions and bell peppers. The extra cheese provided a nice extra salty flavor to the wrap. The taste was enough to temper my disappointment a bit.

We also got Pork Rice Platter.

Pork Rice Platter. 190php.

Like with the wrap, the serving of the rice platter really looked small. Or at least, small- ish compared most local restaurants. It looked, smelled and tasted good, though. The pork really tasted good, and had a grilled- melt-in-your-mouth goodness that was perfect with the chimichurri. The chimichurri was also really good (much more better than the ones we have tried before) that Kim had to ask for an extra cup of it. Except for the serving size, we really couldn't think of any negatives for this dish.

For drinks, we ordered the Guarapo and Latin Iced Tea.

Guarapo and Latin Iced Tea. 90php and 60php respectively.

The curious kid in me just had to order Guarapo, because it sounded different and new. At first sip, I wanted to spit it out immediately. Guarapo is sugarcane juice with lime. It was sweet but tasted really funky for me. Kim liked the Latin Iced Tea, which had a nice lime flavor to it.

Brasas is definitely a place we would want to come back to and try their other menu items. I'm actually already eyeing the Puerco Asado (slow roasted pork belly). The place is a bit small and cramped, so I'm not sure how packed it gets during the lunch and dinner rush since it is near a lot of offices (including mine actually, haha). Despite it being small, it had this upscale- hole in the wall joint vibe to it that was really homey. It's contradicting I know, but I don't know how to better describe the place. Except for the small servings, Brasas definitely gets top scores from us.

 

Brasas Lating American Street Food
5th Floor, The Podium
ADB Avenue, Mandaluyong City
https://www.facebook.com/brasasphilippines