Lutchi and Mary — Restaurant in San Marcos

I was craving Pork Sinigang and was on my way home. I had already passed Mira Mesa so we looked up for a Filipino restaurant that's close to me. We stumbled upon Lutchi and Mary. Yay, I was excited cause you don't find too many Filipino restaurants up here.

When we parked, I realized it was an old Filipino restaurant I've visited in the past but the restaurant name is different so I figured we would still give it a try.

So it's confusing but here's a tip as it's hard to see the writing on the glass by the counter.

TIP: If you are dining in, order at the counter then have a seat.

During the day I believe they have menu items already prepared. Point-Point style so pick your combo items. The decor is more modern which is great.

Food: •Pork Adobo aka Adsilog Pork, garlic rice and egg • Pork Sinigang

The pork adobo was ok. The garlic rice had TOO much garlic chips and the egg yolk was dried out and overcooked. The pork sinigang is the WORST I've ever had. There was no flavor whatsoever as if they forgot to add the tamarind or salt for that. I had to ask for patis. In addition, it should be called "BONE SOUP." There was a lot of bones and very little meat. **see my photo. I get it when you boil the meat and it falls off the bone but unfortunately the meat was no where to be found.

There is a disconnection with ordering. If you're dining in you need to order at the counter. We walked to the counter and the front worker gave us the menu. We then sat down to decide what we wanted. She was not around in the front and when we did see her she came out to deliver food to a table. Eventually, she told us we need to order at the counter so we did. The sign or should I say the note on the glass that is written says to order Ala Carte there. So that was our fault for not seeing that and also the server should be trained better. When she gave us the menu should have said "let me know when you're ready to order."

For me, all around bad experience here. I dine at a lot of Filipino Restaurants (cause I'm filipino) and other restaurants daily and this is not a place...

It's going to be very difficult for you to find better Filipino food for sale in North County.

I am not a regular here, which, in my opinion, makes the consistency of the quality of the food that much more impressive. When I get a taste for this food, I go here and get exactly what I'm craving.

The dishes I go for:

Dinuguan. Adobo. Lechon.

The Dinuguan: Perfect balance of flavor. I taste every note of flavor that the Chef aims to deliver. Just the right amount of vinegar. Sweetness is a compliment and not its own story. And the main attraction, the blood, isn't "minerally" and coarse.

The Lechon: In my opinion? Approaching perfection. But I'm just an American. An American whose spent enough time around Pinoys to call elderly women Tita and add "po" to my requests. But hey.

The Lechon here is three dishes: Meat. Fat. And Crisp Skin. I don't know how they keep it tasting so good while storing it throughout the day, but they do. The sauce is on the sweet and tart side - an excellent compliment to the fattiness of the dish.

And the Adobo. The damned Adobo.: This is kind of like a cross between curried chicken and smothered chicken to me. They get it really right here. The sauce is piquant and a little sour without being overwhelmingly either of the two. The meat is cooked tender, but still on the bones which have been cracked to release marrow and, subsequently, more flavor. I haven't bought better Adobo than this. Not even in Cerritos!

The food: Excellent. Consistent.

The service: They make you feel welcomed and you get the inclination that they care...

I never write reviews but thought I might for this restaurant because I’m 50/50 on everything and think a little detail will help others. The food was good although some dishes salter than others and they all had the same flavor as if everything was made with the same season all type spice it’s not a bad thing but after a while and when it’s in everything from the noodles to on top of the shrimp it got a little tongue blanding their brown sugar drink is amazing free refills on that..the complimentary potato chips were my favorite. The service was also 50/50 it was my family’s 1st time there, we’re not too familiar with Filipino food so when asking questions about the dishes it was hard to understand what the dishes were so we just went with the big family platter the woman taking our order was not accommodating but our waiter was the biggest sweetheart so she made up for the woman taking our order. The atmosphere was cute I had to grab my own high chair from a corner of the restaurant and I almost dropped a big banner and people were sitting fairly close so it could have ended bad I hoped they could have gottten it to prevent that. The water cups were very small but when we asked for water they brought it out. Overall it was a gooe experience most staff was friendly I’d come back to see if the 3.5 turns into a 5 for 5 people the total came out to 115 we all got very full...