Lazy Juan
Reviews · · · ·Rating: 3
We ate dinner here in August 2025.
Vegetable lumpia
Roast pork belly
Caramel flan
Ube balls
Nobody was expecting much from Juan. This place is very unassuming, we almost walked past them, and they had a very generic look. When we arrived we weren’t even sure what kind of cuisine we were getting into, and the menu didn’t help much with a mixture of western food including all day breakfast, the word Juan which was giving Mexican energy, and then a bunch of unfamiliar words on the menu. We eventually calculated that this place serves Filipino-ish food.
The staff were extremely nice. Delightful even. We heard them singing Happy Birthday to the table behind us, and we made sure to clap along enthusiastically at the end. Despite this, there were a couple of areas where it would have taken next to nothing for them to elevate our dining experience. We were given water and two glasses (fantastic, thanks) but the glasses were hot out of the steriliser. Maybe they were the only ones left? Nope, we saw the glasses pile and there were heaps, they can’t have all been hot. Also for some reason the flan came out in a takeaway container - yes we appreciate that it was stored that way in the cabinet, but it would have taken nothing for you to slip this into a bowl.
The food was surprisingly good. We bravely order the lumpia with no idea what that was - turns out it’s spring rolls and they were bloody good. Crispy, hot, fresh, and not greasy, with a vinegeary dipping sauce yum yum. The pork belly was on the dry side, but was raised up by having two great accompanying sauces - God knows what they were, one was called Mr Thomas sauce - they were both hella tasty.
We got dessert, which is a nice change of pace for us. And while ube isn’t the Fee-Rex’s favourite flavour, these balls were freshly fried, had great textures, and were covered in this freeze dried powdered mix of ube and witchcraft that was really marvellous. The flan was wicked. It was so flavourful, had a soft texture, yeah the sauce was a bit thin, but it certainly tasted a lot better than it looked in its clear plastic container.