A bit of traveling around Southeast and East Asia has been enough to let me theorize that Mexican food has a surprising amount in common with Southeast Asian cuisine, particularly that of the Philippines and ASEAN’s mainland.

Mexican and Thai cuisines both use generous amounts of cilantro for its herby, fresh, citrusy flavor. Grilled, charred and roasted meats are common sights both in Latin America and on the streets of Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok and Taiwan. Acidity and tang, too, are important counterbalances to our region’s rich sauces and Mexican moles and birrias.

So, it was a singular delight to test my food hypothesis by partaking in a Mexican-Pan Asian feast cooked up by chefs Cara Davis and Luis Chikiamco at Discovery Primea’s Flame on Monday, 31 March.

Part of the luxury property’s quarterly Elements of Flavor guest chef series, this eight-course meal came with sake pairings and showcased Davis and Chikiamco’s deep understanding of the cuisines they drew from. The chefs between them spent almost a decade training and working in Mexico. Davis currently runs Hálong Asian snackbar in Makati, while Chikiamco is executive chef at the night’s host, modern Asian cuisine-serving Flame on the 16th floor.

Ode to Mexican and Asian cuisines

The meal started with Far-East Elote: Blackened baby corn with dollops of smoked chipotle butter and onion ash aioli and dressed with yuzu and fermented honey. The perfectly charred corn and sauces that backed a punch of flavor in a spoonful boded well for the rest of the menu.

I tucked into this appetizer as I did any delicious bit of street food on my travels, and as I would each subsequent serving at this table — eagerly and perhaps a little hurriedly. Is it street food if you’re not devouring it, often standing up? I promise, I didn’t go that far at Flame!

Next, the first highlight of the night: Lapu-lapu ceviche with coconut milk, yuzu, makrut lime leaf, lemongrass oil and radish for crunch. While still unmistakably a ceviche, it also reminded me of one my favorite Thai dishes, Tom kha gai. Lesser known abroad than its fiery red cousin, Tom yum, Tom kha gai is a wonderfully coconutty and creamy counterpart to our own sinigang. But, aside from the mouth-puckering sourness that limes provide, you also get hit with earthy, pungent lemongrass, lime leaf and galangal.

I was so intrigued with this expert bit of fusion that I asked Chef Chikiamco how he and Chef Davis had devised this menu.

“It’s an ode to what Mexican and Asian cuisines are, but without disrespecting their origins,” he said. “It’s about paying the right respect to the ingredients and pairing them well to come up with something that people can relate to.”

“We wanted familiarity, but in new forms,” Chikiamco added. “Chef Cara and I thought about all the things we liked about Mexico and what symbolized Mexican cuisine, like pork, seafood [and beef].”

The ceviche, which was paired with the smooth and bright Kubota Senjyu sake, certainly achieved that for me, helping me understand what an authentic Mexican ceviche would be like through hijacking my nostalgia for Thai chicken soup.

There was more seafood to come, as we were served grilled octopus with mongo and granola salad and roasted bell-pepper and chorizo foam. Octopus, like squid, can be unpleasantly chewy, but this was tender and perfectly flavored by the creamy, smoky foam.

The next course, black pepper and coriander king prawn, was also perfectly charred and came on top of a rich, heavily spiced plantain mole. The thick, flavorful sauce reminded me of the innumerable sauces of ASEAN cuisine: Curries, kalderetas and satays.

Japanese kindmedai (golden-eye snapper) followed, served with Mexican nam phrik and a green mango salad. The Kubota Hekijyu Daiginjo was a heady pairing, going toe-to-toe with the oily, incredibly savory fish.

The crispy pork belly that followed highlighted some of the best of what Pinoy and Thai food have to offer — incredibly crunchy, blackened skin with a hint of five-spice flavor gave way to tender, fatty meat. Green mango provided a tart accent with the fish; this time, a mix of fresh and grilled pineapple served as the much-needed foil to this umami bomb.

Dishes thoroughly enjoyed

Next up was a hearty showstopper: Beef short rib “al pastor” with a Filipino adobo sauce and a collection of fusion-forward accompaniments — foie gras sticky rice tamales, charred corn and gochujang, chicharron made from tendon and flat leaf parsley and pickled red onion salad.

The density of ingredients and techniques on the plate made it a little difficult to zero in on culinary callbacks and points of fusion, but that’s okay. Food doesn’t always need to be analyzed and picked apart. This dish asked to be thoroughly enjoyed.

Dessert may have been too sweet for some, but it was the perfect cap to a meal that understandably eschewed stronger sweet notes in favor of ratcheting up umami and acidity. The pyramidal flourless Mexican chocolate cake, shaped in honor of Yucatan landmark Chichén Itzá, was delightfully picante in the style of that nation’s traditional drinking chocolate. It carried comforting notes of cinnamon, vanilla and — if I’m not mistaken — clove.

The spiritual experience of eating this cake reminded me of the theorized religious purpose of the Mexican pyramids. The cinnamon granola and horchata ice cream the cake was served with only increased my devotion to this fantastic dessert.

Eight courses later — plus miso and yuzu-forward petit fours that pleasantly attacked the senses with intense saltiness and sourness, respectively, lest you forget the bold statement chefs Davis and Chikiamco were making — what was the result of my experimentation? (Read: Happily scarfing down what the expert chefs served me.)

Just as the ceviche course used my familiarity and love of Thai food to introduce me to more Mexican ways of preparing it, the entire menu succeeded in making Mexico feel less like a far-flung, exotic destination and more like a food experience only a hop, skip and a jump away from NAIA, KLIA, or Suvarnabhumi airports.

Even within ASEAN, cuisines and food cultures vary wildly and deliciously, but the more you travel and taste, the more you develop an understanding of what ingredients and techniques connect Thai and Vietnamese cuisines, for example, or Filipino and Indonesian.

Big thanks to the chefs and Discovery Primea for teaching this infrequent traveler about the boldness of Mexican food in a culinary language I understand!