Gold Ribbon

 

Magandang gabi! (Good evening. If you’re reading this at a different time..well. Hello there.) I’m finally blogging about a Filipino restaurant. Yay! Filipino foods are always present in my blog because I’m Filipino and really most Filipino food gatherings consist of big feasts – how can I not blog about my own food culture?

But wait… after all the restaurants I’ve blogged about in the past few years I’ve only had one tiny mention of a Filipino restaurant in this post I’ve unearthed from my archives. Okay, that was a long time ago but what’s with the drought in posting about Filipino restaurants? Let’s see. There really aren’t a lot of Filipino restaurants around, it’s not like trying to find a Chinese restaurant or Korean restaurant here in Auckland. Second, why pay for something you can eat at home. My mom’s a pretty good cook. We might not get exactly the same ingredients but nothing tastes like my mom’s home cooked meal, right? I come to these places in a freakishly biased way.

But hey, you still have to give things a try, right? And it’s still good to come to support your fellowmen,right? So this is where we ended up when my friend asked for a Filipino restaurant. She always brings me to Chinese restaurants so it was my turn now.

Karaoke music on the screen, haha. No, I didn’t sing. I was waiting for someone else who might entertain us.
It was both easy and hard to order. I knew what everything was on the menu but what do you choose to introduce someone to our cuisine? I also have this inner struggle of whether I should order in Tagalog or not. My friends speak their own language when we go to their respective ethnic restaurants. But then…not all Filipinos speak our language so.. ended up ordering in English with some po and opo thrown in (respectful speech). But then they might’ve though I didn’t know how to speak Tagalog. Ah well..
Inner rant aside, our food arrived quickly. We were 1 of 3 parties in the place anyways.

First off, our fresh spring roll or lumpiang sariwa. That’s peanut sauce around it. It’s good and filling by itself really. Probably my favourite from the dishes we had that day.


Next up, sisig! I got the pork sisig that came with fried egg and rice. It came in all sizzling and the sight of it made me almost literally drool. I’ve always liked sisig ever since I was younger. People would usually eat this as a beer match. It was tasty but I probably needed more rice as it was slightly salty than how I would like.


Last one is the pancit palabok. I liked their pancit palabok before so I was quite disappointed to come back and taste this one. It tasted a bit like it came from a not so nice packet.

I hate to end a post with a sad dish so here’s what we had for drinks.
Deliciously sweet ube milkshake and refreshing sago’t gulaman (tapioca pearls and jelly).

It’s funny to think that I used to drink sago’t gulaman from a small plastic bag with a straw outside the school gates (don’t tell my mom, I wasn’t allowed to have street food when I was little hahaha – that never stopped me though. Ooh rebel. Hahah.) A simple sweet drink bringing back (rebellious?) childhood memories. ~
Ah the simplest things are the best, aren’t they?

Have you tried some Filipino restaurants nearby? If you’re Filipino do you also become critical of restaurants because you know the food they serve so well?