Sampling Filipino Night Club Food with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
We have always had a Filipino restaurant that doubles as a nightclub at night in one of our strip malls in Marina, California that does karaoke, dancing, and dinner.
The nightclub has changed names and owners over the past
twenty years that I have lived in the neighborhood, but Filipino nightclubs
resemble one another as does the food, so I am writing up a nostalgic
restaurant review about the spot where I discovered Filipino food with my
daughter Florence that no longer exists.
The review for Fiesta Manila is an excellent introduction to
Filipino food. The following restaurant
review appeared in The Monterey County Weekly (Circulation: 200, 000):
Love that Lumpia
Hidden in a U-shaped mall off Reservation Road in Marina
(California). Fiesta Manila has been
quietly perfecting its Filipino Cuisine – one of the world’s first fusion
cuisines. All the customers at the
restaurant were Filipino the day I went, which I took as a sign that the food
must be as tasty as what they would cook at home.
I used the “turo-turo” system of pointing at what I wanted
to order from the hot table in this small eatery that evokes the “carinderias”
that dot the 7, 000 islands of the Philippines.
Fiesta Manila’s co-owner advised me that the portions easily serve two
as she set out a Rabelaisian feast for my daughter Florence and me.
Menu items change daily at Fiesta Manila, but lumpia,
pancit, and pork adobo are always offered.
Lumpia, the egg rolls of the Philippines made with the same ingredients
as their Chinese cousins, get spiced up with sweet-chili dip here.
Pancit, savory transparent rice noodles stir-fried with
scallions, green beans, and carrots reflects another Chinese contribution to
Philippine cuisine. The dish gets its
bright, orange color and flavor from a sauce of shrimp juice and annatto seeds.
Fiesta Manila serves scrumptious pork adobo, the national
dish of the Philippines. Pork adobo is
made from vinegar, soy sauce, and garilic.
This stewing sauce does not taste sour.
It has a slightly tangy-savory flavor.
Reynaldo Alejandro speculates in The Philippine Cookbook that Mexican
puerco en adobo is related to a Spanish dish brought to the islands.
The restaurant’s longanisa sausage recalls Spain’s pork,
garlic, and paprika sausages. These
sausages were mild-flavored and tasted great with the coconut juice I ordered.
The restaurant’s longanisa sausage recalls Spain’s pork,
garlic, and paprika sausages. These
sausages are mild-flavored and tasted great with the coconut juice that I
ordered.
These Spanish also brought beef from the Americas and other
foods like tomatoes and peppers to the South Seas; they show up in Fiesta
Manila’s unctuous mechado beef stew made with soy sauce.
The owner also served us indigenous Malay fare in a dish
called lanka, otherwise known as jackfruit stew. I had never eaten this before. It reminded me of tender, somewhat sour
artichoke hearts.
The stew is made with coconut milk and shrimp paste. The coconut milk tempers the pungent flavor
of the shrimp paste, leaving a sweet tang in the mouth.
A Philippine meal would not be without fish, and I loved the crunchy, tart taste of the bangus milkfish. The owner told me that San Miguel beer from the Philippines goes well with this food.
Next, I tried pinkabet, which the owner’s wife suggests for
vegetarian guests in addition to stir-fried soy, which her husband whips up in
the kitchen. Pinkabet could be described
as a Southeast Asian ratatouille. It is
made with squash, spinach, eggplant, bitter melon, and green beans in a
shrimp-flavored sauce. The sweetness of
the squash balances the bitter taste of the melon.
The owner’s wife asked me to try sin-kiang soup. Tamarind juice polishes off this soup made
with barbecued ribs. The salty, sweet
pork had a caramelized crust and tasted better than lollipops. One thing that I noticed about Filipino food
is that it is mild unlike the chili-hot dishes of many Southeast Asian
countries.
The one dish I did not care for was the Filipino fried
rice. The scallions, corn, and carrots
in the brown rice made it look appetizing, but it was bland. I prefer salty, hot flavors, so other people
might find that rice to be just fine.
You should leave room for “Halo-Halo” dessert. “Halo” means “mix” in Tagalog, which is
exactly what goes into this layered Filipino sundae of caramel custard, diced
gelatin, presented jackfruit, ice cream, crushed ice, and sweetened beans. The crushed ice makes it taste lighter than
it is.
I must say that I had never thought of using caramel custard
in a sundae before, but it certainly marries well with ice cream.
I am more interested in food and ambience, so the
utilitarian décor did not bother me. I
was more impressed with the Holy Child altar above the cash register than the
linoleum floor, which was perfectly clean.
End of Article
Just as a note – there is starting to be an American food
writing tradition that I feel has been established with these books:
M.F.K. Fisher
Laurie Colwin
Mark Kurlansky
Jay Jacobs
Colman Andrews
Anthony Bourdain
Ruth Reichel
By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks, Teen in China, and Marrying France
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