jin loves to eat: Bistro Filipino ♥ ♥

How do four hungry women eat at an order-all-you-can modern Filipino bistro?

They order four appetizers, four soups, four main courses, four desserts, wait patiently for the blogger to finish taking her food photos, and then they dig in.

Our appetizers:

Appetizer # 1: Sisig Basket – spicy pork sisig stuffed in crispy rice baskets topped with chicharon with quail egg shooter. Looks cute but tastes rather ordinary.

Appetizer # 2: Ubod Spring Roll – crispy lumpia cone filled with chorizo, prawns and ubod topped with spicy vinegar sorbet. Crisp but a bit oily.

Appetizer # 3: Palabok Bites - yum

Appetizer # 4: Three Kinds of Mango Salad – Mesclun salad tossed in Dijon bagoong vinaigrette topped with dried, green & ripe mangoes, tomatoes & kasuy crusted kesong puti. Fresh, crisp, sweet, tangy, soft, chewy goodness.

Our soups:

Soup # 1: Prawn Sinigang Martini – cold prawn sinigang gelee poured with hot lemongrass coconut cream garnished with seared prawn. Love the creativity, the play on hot and cold, liquid and jelly.

Soup # 2: Pakbet Puree - oven roasted squash and eggplant puree garnished with crispy okra, ampalaya leaves and bagoong cream. Simply delicious.

Soup # 3: Shitake Mushroom - adobo shiitake mushroom puree topped with creamy garlic foam drizzled with white truffle oil. Can’t really smell/taste the truffle oil but still quite nice.

Soup # 4: Tomato Monggo Soup - thick tomato and mung bean puree topped with parmigiano crisp and labahita. Very good.

Our main courses:

Main Course # 1: US Angus Beef Kare-Kare - slow roasted US beef short plate in kare-kare sauce with stuffed banana heart, grilled eggplant chutney and steamed pechay. The beef is soft, but the whole dish lacks the “ooomph!”

Main Course # 2: Wagyu and Lengua Estofado - Wagyu beef cheeks and US beef tongue braised in red wine tomato sauce with potatoes and grilled vegetables layered with rice tutong crisps. The meat is so tender it gives in to the slightest pressure of my fork. Bravo.

Main Course # 3: Binagoongan Crispy Pata - Boneless crispy pork with creamy bagoong sauce served with grilled onions, tomatoes and asparagus with garlic turmeric rice. The sauce could use a stronger bagoong taste, but the pork is done so perfectly with the skin so sinfully crispy and crunchy I finish the thing before I remember to ask the waiter for more bagoong.

We decide to skip Main Course # 4 in exchange for 3 more desserts.

Tee hee hee.

But that is how we real women eat.

Our desserts:

Dessert # 1: Molten Chocolate - Belgian molten chocolate cake with carabao vanilla ice cream center. Too boring.

Dessert # 2: Suman Cake - coconut panna cotta rice cake drizzled with latik glaze garnished with toasted coconut and fresh mango. I quite like it.

Dessert # 3: Deconstructed Sans Rival - layers of dayap meringue and pastry crème on chilled mango soup splashed with Grand Marnier orange liqueur. Not good.

Dessert # 4: Spanish Chocolate - slow baked tsokolate-eh in celadon tea cup topped with almond cream. I have mixed feelings about this. I still like my tsokolate-eh in its original liquid form.