Sampling Filipino Family Food with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget and Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
Strip malls have many good ethnic restaurants in them. They usually have lots of parking without
time limits, modern plumbing in the restrooms and kitchens, and larger dining
areas, so the tables do not have to be tightly wedged together.
As I drove my daughter Florence home from her charter
Waldorf School in Pacific Grove one day, I looked for the Filipino Restaurant my
Filipina co-worker told me about and queried the editor at the Monterey
County Weekly (Circulation: 200,000) to do a review. This was the
year 2000. I am not quite sure they knew
what that cuisine was, but wanted to find out.
So, off I went with my family to try another Asian
cuisine. The following is the Weekly
article I wrote:
Filipino Feast:
Lola’s Kusina Serves up South Seas Island Charm
When my Filipina co-worker told me that she eats lunch at
least once a week at the newly opened Lola’s Kitchen, I knew I would have to
try it.
The restaurants hot table with 20 steaming entrées
appears daunting at first, but the chef quickly explains the various
delicacies. Choosing among Lola’s many
offerings is a first-class problem.
The owner of Lola’s was introduced to the cuisine of the
Philippines was introduced to the cuisine of the Philippines by his Filipina
wife. He said they make all their dishes
fresh every day at 11 am with new batches cooked up two hours after that.
We chose the two-item combination plate, which comes with
rice or pancit, Filipino rice noodles.
My husband Laurent ordered coconut juice, and I ordered a chocolate
energy drink called Milo.
We chose the two-item combination plate, which comes with
either rice or pancit, Filipino rice noodles.
My husband Laurent ordered coconut juice, and I ordered a
chocolate energy drink called Milo.
Florence ordered à la carte; two lumpia, Filipino egg
rolls and one entrée of rice. We used the
Filipino “turo-turo” method loosely translated as “point-pint,” to order our
food.
My two entrées were salted pork cooked with shrimp
paste and kare-kare, beef-and-tripe in peanut butter sauce. The shrimp paste called bagoong, made from
salted and fermented shrimp, gave the pork a sweet taste. I almost thought the dish contained coconut
milk due to the salty-sweet flavor.
I liked the kare-kare a little less, but that is because I
did not know how to season it. I was
expecting the peanut sauce to be hot and spicy like Thai peanut sauces.
I had forgotten that Filipino food, unlike its Southeast
Asian cousins feature mild flavors. A
quick look in Reynaldo Alejandro’s The Philippine Cookbook reveals that
diners usually add bagoong to this dish at the table.
That would no doubt add a sweet, salty tang to the spongy
tripe and beef salad over green beans and boiled eggplant.
My husband and daughter both selected adobo, the national
dish of the Philippines. Adobo refers to
a method of cooking with soy sauce, white wine vinegar, garlic, and peppercorns.
The vinegar mellows as it cooks and helps preserve food in a
tropical climate. The chicken and
ingredients boil together, but then the chicken is usually broiled while the
sauce gets reduced before being added back to the chicken.
In Lola’s version of this dish, there remains a slight tang
of vinegar along with a sweet taste, when makes me suspect that some sugar goes
into the preparation.
Diners skeptical about trying Filipino food would probably
like the mechado, a beef stew, which Laurent ordered as his second entrée. Basically, this is a dish of boiled beef with
tomatoes, bell peppers, and potatoes that have been cooked with soy sauce and
seasoned with garlic. There is just
enough salt in this dish to bring out the full flavors of the meat and the
vegetables.
Diners new to Filipino cuisine would probably like the
pancit (rice noodles) that Laurent chose instead of rice to accompany his
order. Boiled pork gets simmered with
the noodles, along with shrimp, scallions, and whatever vegetable the chef
might like to add that day. The savory,
slick noodles are like an entrée by themselves.
Florence’s dish was made up of long, thin lumpia egg rolls
that came stuffed with ground beef, carrots, corn, and peas. Since my daughter does not care for these
vegetables, she did not like the lumpia even though she ate them to be polite.
The owner suggested that on her next visit, she might try
the Shanghai lumpia made with ground pork as these contain no vegetables that a
child might dislike.
Florence liked the homemade leche flan better than her
vegetables. Lola’s thick flan is
homemade and exudes a delicious juice that tempts you to ask for a spoon to get
every drop.
Laurent ordered this as well and declared it too rich to eat
at one setting. It went into a take-home
container for midnight snacking.
I ordered maya blanca, which does not appear on the
menu. It certainly pays to ask, “What
desserts do you have today?” in a place like Lola’s where things are being
freshly made throughout the day.
Lola’s version of maya blanca turned out to be a thick,
coconut pudding cake made with sweet corn.
The corn gave the dessert texture. I thought that putting vegetables in pudding
form might get our daughter to eat some of them. This was another dessert that I took home for
midnight snacking.
Lola’s Kusina features a special “Seafood Day” on Fridays,
but the owner is quick to point out that the restaurant serves seafood daily.
End of Article
Books you might want to look at for information on Filipino
cuisine:
-7,000 Islands: A Food Portrait of the Philippines by Yasmin
Newman
-The Philippine Cookbook by Reynaldo Alejandro
Note: Lola’s Kusina
is small, buy maybe they could do a reserve-ahead-and-pick up system for
sandwiches. I like fried bangus fish – maybe
that could be turned into a sandwich with a pumpkin muffin with nuts and a
gazpacho.
By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks, Teen in China, and Marrying France
Click here for: Ruth Paget's Amazon Books
Click here for: Ruth Paget's Amazon Books
 |
| Ruth Paget Selfie |
