Lasita has gotten plenty of love here but just for those unaware: they are located in the middle of Chinatown’s Far East Plaza, the same space shared by Howlin’ Rays, Now Serving, etc. there is a paid underground lot, metered street parking on all four sides, and a large paid lot across Hill St.
Lasita does upscale Filipino food. Their previous incarnation was Lasa, a fine dining restaurant that operated in the same space from 2017-2021 (Lasa closed during the pandemic and chef Chase Valencia pivoted to a slightly more casual concept with Lasita but they still do a prix fixe for larger groups). I had been to Lasa before but not Lasita; my wife and I were originally supposed to go in January of 2024 but she got COVID and we just never followed up…until now.
We got reservations for the patio section since the evenings are warm now but they have indoor seating too. The patio, despite being close to the crowd in line at Howlin’ Rays didn’t feel loud at all.
While it must have hurt to have to close Lasa, the food at Lasita is just as good as what I remember from Lasa: inventive without feeling pretentious. I especially thought they had excellent execution on the balance of flavors in every dish. We had:
- Salt and vinegar shrimp chips: pretty much that…classic shrimp chip texture but tasted like salt and vinegar potato chips. Clever and a nice opener. 7.5/10
- Adobo-marinated olives: I personally don’t love the taste of olives but the marinade here helped mellow it out. I expected this to be more aggressive but it turned to be more mild. Not my favorite but that’s not because of the execution. It’s just my relationship to olives as an ingredient. No score.
- Stone fruit and cucumber salad: deceptively simple, this combined sliced peaches, cucumber, cilantro, toasted brown rice and a sauce with just the right hint of fish sauce without overpowering the dish. A great mix of flavors and texture. My main nitpick is that I would have liked a slightly larger serving, especially as it was the only real vegetables we had during thie meal. 8.5/10
- Rotisserie roasted lechon: no need to put lipstick on a pig for a good lechon. Just use good quality pork belly, season properly, and wait until the skin is crackling but the pork is still juicy and tender. This was decadent and especially with just two of us, I was glad the serving wasn’t bigger. 8/10
- Grilled hamachi collar: for us, this was the star of the show. We generally love collar – just had fresh tuna collar in the week in fact – and hamachi is a good choice as it has a nice, mild flavor, is neither too fatty or lean, and the sweet/savory glaze on here blends beautifully with the crispy skin/fattier bits. 9/10
- Garlic rice: I’ve tried making this at home and I never get it anywhere near as good as restaurant examples like this. This was dangerously good. Put a pot in front of me and I would have tried to finish it. 9/10
- Atchara: a small ramekin of pickled vegetables that provided a sharp bit of acid to cut through the richness of the other dishes. My nitpick is that I would have liked a serving closer to size of the olives dish because I wanted to included a little bit with every bite. 8/10
- Buko-pandan sago: this tapioca pudding dessert was solid, with those pandan notes playing against the toasted coconut pieces and I didn’t taste like they added too much sugar as this wasn’t remotely cloying in the way an over-sweetened dessert can be. 8.5/10
You can check their website for dish prices for everything above.
We really liked the meal and 100% would go back, probably with a larger group next time.
by soulsides
Dining and Cooking