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Showing posts with label Lola's Kusina. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lola's Kusina. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

Sampling Filipino Family Food with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget and Savvy Mom Ruth Paget





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



Ruth Paget Selfie