Mesa Inasal | Buendia

Mesa Inasal I visited was in Buendia or Gil Puyat Avenue to the young.  Its an inasal based fast food chain that I haven't researched much yet.  The area is a busy thoroughfare so if you decide to come with a car, you'd be in for a problem. See the parked car in front.

I chanced upon this place as I was hungry going to Roxas Boulevard so I decided why not.  Going in, the place is hot. Literally hot.  They have airconditioning but somehow this place is hot.  I wanted to back out but since the nearest decent restaurant is a bit far, I stuck it out hoping the food was any better.

Prices are inviting.  They have competitive meals that I chose to have Bulalo.  Its not usual for a fastfood restaurant to have this so I'm not expecting anything good or bad.

The place is packed during lunch time and it wasn't easy for me to get a spot.  It's difficult to review a place when its hot but still.  Service was a bit on a sad note.  My food took a while to be delivered and judging from the messy tables, they were understaffed on a sunday lunch schedule.  I noticed a rag on the table away from me and it sat there for more than 10 minutes.  My table was still not clean and was filled with the previous diners and a lady cleaned it up after 10 minutes.  She took the rag I saw and wiped clean my table, then simply left that rag on the table beside me (which was still not cleaned by the bus boy).  That rag stood for another 10 minutes until the bus boy finally came to clean the table beside me.  Wow 20 minutes before the both tables were cleaned.  And I'm trying to review the place nicely.

My food arrived with a big leaf of cabbage in the soup.  I was wondering why the presentation was like this.   Usually they have the cabbage leaves on the side with the beef in the middle as center piece.  When I lifted the cabbage leaf (yes cabbage leaf - just one cabbage leaf), underneath was a small portion of beef and some vegetables (yes some).

I wondered, this is what my money then could afford me.  Maybe thats why they had to cover the beef with the cabbage leaf.  Now on to the taste.  Taste was ..... hmmmmm.... it was...... wait I had to add in a dash of fish sauce and a quick sprinkle of pepper.  Now it had taste.  Just to cut the review short and spare me with words, it was now delectable.

To summarize,  food serving is a questionable item, delivery was a bit long, taste was .... service was a bit slow.  You judge if I'm going back here again in this branch.  I hope the other branches are better for their business sake.