We found Lu’s on a busy, wet Friday night after a string of unexpected turns. Firstly, the rain had prevented us walking to our intended destination, and it apparently prevented the taxis coming our way, too. We ended up walking through Power Plant Mall, where every restaurant we liked was packed. And then Jean remembered a little place around the corner…
And there we were. At Lu’s. All the tables were occupied or reserved. I sighed, preparing to turn on my heel and walk out into the rain, disappointed again. ‘But if you don’t mind sitting upstairs..?’
Upstairs proved the best possible place to sit. Above the madding crowd, in comfortable padded seats, we all breathed out, sipping gratefully at our Gin & Tonics, white wines et al. (My husband has just reminded me to mention his cloudy Blonde served in a salt-rimmed glass with lemon that ‘made it more than a beer’.) Annoyingly, I had forgotten my glasses, so found myself alternately squinting and widening my eyes at the menu until I achieved a balance that allowed me to inspect our choices.
Described alternately on various foodie web pages as Moroccan, Mediterranean, or both, it is a creatively eclectic menu blending any number of international dishes in unusual and often unexpected ways. Lu’s opened only 18 months ago. The menu was created by the original chef Luis (hence the restaurant’s name). Although Luis has since moved on, current chef, Enrique Moreno, is developing the menu in the same vein of international fusion.
Thus our first appetizer reeked of the Middle East: a trio of dips that included the ubiquitous creamy, slightly smoky hummus and garlic-laden baba ghanoush, yet accompanied by a splash of Spain in the form of pico de gallo in little crispy cups which worked like a refreshing sorbet between its heavier eastern messmates. And the roasted eggplant was like no baba ghanoush I had ever tasted. A good dash of chilli, and more than a hint of lemon gave it a novel and irresistible zip. I admit I was tempted to wipe the plate clean with my fingers.
The Vietnamese rice rolls were bite-sized and crispy. One style was packed with shiitake mushrooms, the other with prawns and chicken, the pair accompanied by two sauces – one vinegar based, the other a fascinating, piquant blend of orange and mint.
The third dish we chose finally lived up to the misnomer of Mediterranean – a melt-in-the-mouth plate of delicate zucchini blossoms, fried in a fairy-light batter and filled with a creamy goat’s cheese.
There was talk of continuing in this tapas style eating over a bottle of deeply red, deeply flavoured French wine. But in the end we succumbed to the main courses, which again, showed no signs of conforming to the label of either Moroccan or Mediterranean, but blended both with a Filipino twist, with often surprising but tasty results.
Good old Australian lamb medallions wrapped in bacon were accompanied by miso butter, an asparagus risotto (swirled on the plate, as creamy as mashed potato) and zucchini flower tempura: a sublime merger of east and west. My own meal, a newcomer to a list of old favourites, was a dish of contrasts. Sounding suitably Asian (sweet and sour tamarind prawns with green mango fried rice), it ended up making me think Deep South and gumbo. 
Jean felt the same about her pasta. From the aptly named ‘carb closet’ the angel hair pasta with prawns ‘al ajilo’ was a fusion of cultures redolent of Thailand more than Italy. And at last something truly Moroccan… or was it? A North African lamb and bean stew with merguez. A little on the cool side, but tasty. It was like opening presents at Christmas – expecting that Santa had brought you what you had asked for, and finding inside something completely different, but on consideration, better.
So of course we had to try dessert! And we weren’t disappointed: our choices from the ‘happy ending’ proved to be exactly that. A familiar-sounding lemon cheesecake, that somehow exceeded expectations with its minimalist crust and overflowing filling of lemony lightness; a deliciously deconstructed mound of apple pie with butterscotch (or was that butterscotch with apple pie?) and my firm favourite, two morsels of baklava made with apricots and walnuts, that avoided that cloying sugary sweetness so that the clarity of the dried apricot and walnuts took me on a nostalgic flight to my childhood in South Australia where most backyards boasted an apricot tree, a walnut tree or a lemon tree… if not all three!
An unexpected turn. A good result!
Lu’s can be found at Joya South Tower, Rockwell, Makati
Reservations: 0915 246 8420 or [email protected]