259412 Mon Feb 16 20:32:10 -0800 1998 12 26 International 0 1371532 Can anyone recommend a good primer on Filipino food (either a book or a website or something)? It's the cuisine I know the least about, and I want to get up to speed. I don't need tons of great recipes (necessarily), just a basic guide to the cuisine, all the tangled influences/history, and--most of all--explanation of all those mysterious-sounding dishes. I've been kinda faking it for years, ordering the nine or ten things I know about and pointing at anything else that looks good. Time to get serious... Mon Feb 16 20:32:10 -0800 1998 0 Jim Leff 1 1371533 I like Reynaldo Alejandro's The Philippine Cookbook, which was published in 1982. There is not a whole lot of text outside of the recipes, but it seems pretty clear and a good intro. Ifyou have any time to cook nowadays, I particularly recommend his adobos and noodles. A number of years ago I read in Alan Davidson's journal about an entire book devoted to kinilaw, which is basically Filipino ceviche. It was called something like the "Philippine cuisine of freshness" -- it may pay to try Kitchen Arts and Letters on Lex & 93rd. That may be the nether reaches of the cuisine, and probably is not encountered that much in NY's places. Where do you go for this stuff in NY? We almost went to Renee's by the BQE today (haven't made it there yet), but ended up at La Espiga instead. Mon Feb 16 21:24:50 -0800 1998 1371532 0 Alan Divack 2 1371534 Thanks, Alan Good thing you didn't try to go to Rene's Kitchen today...they were closed (I'm trying to find out if whether it's permanent). On the other hand, the nabe's hopping...there's a good new bakery on the corner now called Krystal's. Nice empanadas, and a very good huge corn muffin-ish disk with hard boiled egg slices the whole swathed in banana leafs. Filipino is one of the few "exotic" cuisines (that is, not well known here) that almost never translates their own menus...it's a drag. Thank heavens I speak Spanish...that helps a little bit. I'm now on the lookout for kinilaw! "Ifyou have any time to cook nowadays..." [hysterical laughter, gasping and sputtering for air] Mon Feb 16 22:05:45 -0800 1998 1371533 0 Jim Leff 3 1371536 There was a three-part series on Filipino cooking by Ray Sokolov in Natural History magazine about ten years ago that explained the aesthetics of the cuisine in a manner that was almost convincing. (I used to live near a Filipino neighborhood in L.A., with scores of restaurants, many of them outposts of Manila originals, but I never cottoned to the cuisine--even as served at the best turo-turo joints. Just try to eat balut without laughing. I dare you.) Other good--if obvious--books to check include Charmaine Solomon's invaluable ``The Complete Asian Cookbook,'' which is as good on Filipino cooking as it is on Sri Lanka and Laos; and the old Time-Life Asia volume, which includes most of the dishes you'll actually see in Filipino restaurants. Tue Feb 17 10:14:12 -0800 1998 1371534 0 jonathan gold 4 1371736 One thing mystifies me about Filipino restaurants in Los Angeles. Those that I have been to so far serve from an assortment of dishes on a steam table, including the noodle (pancit) dishes. I lived in Baguio City, Philippines for three years (1963-1966) and never went to a restaurant that used this "steam-table" approach. Same for restaurants in other parts of the Philippines, including Manila. The food was always made to order, with the exception of stews and other dishes involving long cooking times, which were served from the kitchen, not from a steam table in the restaurant. So, why, I wonder, is the steam-table approach so seemingly universal among Filipino restaurants in Los Angeles, and it this the same for Filipino restaurants in other parts of the United States? By the way, I have found the quality of Filipino restaurant food in Los Angeles to be distinctly inferior to the quality of restaurant food in the Philippines. Mon Apr 19 21:05:20 -0700 1999 1371536 0 Tom Armitage 5 1372033 My wife and I ate at a couple of roadside cafes in the Philippines- you know, the kind of place you find in bus stations and markets and near jeepney stands. Also I went regularly to a couple of very nice cafeterias that had steam tables. In all of these places the food was cooked in advance, ready to order. This type of cuisine is called "turo-turo" or literally "point-point" meaning, obviously you point to it and they dish it out. Why this is done here in the US I don't know. I saw a place in Chinatown, Chicago that's just starting the steam table thing but I don't know how people will take to it. My favorite dishes in the Philippines were the sizzling dishes like Sizzling Chicken & etc. that had to be cooked to order. Wed Feb 02 18:29:16 -0800 2000 1371736 0 Rick Vaughn 6 1372036 Thanks, Rick. I also checked with some of my Filipino friends, and get the impression that turo-turo is more common in the Manila area. I lived in Baguio City, in the Ilocos Norte province, up in the mountains of Northern Luzon, and there were no turo-turo restaurants there, nor in the other small villages and towns in neighboring provinces, nor on Mindanao where I spent some time. I can understand the practicality of such places at roadside cafes and bus depots, but am still curious at to the ubiquity of turo-turo in Los Angeles. I agree with you that pancit dishes, lumpia (both fresh and fried), and things like Bangus Relleno (stuffed milkfish) are clearly best when cooked to order. Wed Feb 02 19:21:33 -0800 2000 1372033 0 Tom Armitage 3 1371566 I've recently moved into the Woodside area and am eating my way around...I found Ihawan Barbecue House to be very good it's off of Roosevelt. As far as decoding the menus I know what you mean I've just found this website which should be a big help http://www.best.com/ ~flip/cuisine.html Thu Jul 09 11:32:53 -0700 1998 1371534 0 Joe DiStefano 4 1371567 I happened on Ihawan last night. Not having http://www.best.com/~flip/cuisine.html on hand I took recourse to my default semi-random method of selecting a dish from a menu I don't understand, and ordered Sinigang na Salmon, which turned out to be a poached salmon steak, served in its own broth with vegetables (okra, daikon, and lettuce, principally) which are also cooked in the broth, and rice. And what a great choice that was! The broth just about knocked me over with every spoonful, even when I softened the flavor a bit by putting the rice into the broth. Its flavor was an intense distillation of salmon and lemon, with some earthy-tasting herb, maybe basil? In the broth were the vegetables I mentioned, which were fine, although I wanted the okra to have been cut up into smaller pieces than it was in. And a huge salmon steak, about 1 1/2 inches thick. I wish I had eaten there rather than taking out; the dish suffered slightly by being carried to my house and eaten 20 or so minutes after it was prepared. But even so it was a great meal. One caveat is that this dish is not for every palate; my wife took a sip of the broth and wrinkled up her nose as if to ask how anyone could like _that_. If you don't like intense fishy broths, there are plenty of barbecued pork and chicken dishes on the menu. Fri Jul 10 10:55:59 -0700 1998 1371566 0 Jeremy Osner 5 1371568 Lemon and basil indeed! The flavor was of course tamarind; when I figured that out I remembered what other dish I have had with a similar flavor; Jal Jeera, the Indian version of lemonade. Tue Jul 14 07:52:33 -0700 1998 1371567 0 Jeremy Osner 6 1371570 I heard that the Phil-Am supermarket on Roosevelt not far from Ihawan has a good selection of prepacked freshly made Filipino specialties at the rear of the store haven't had a chance to try it out yet..... Thu Jul 16 09:25:26 -0700 1998 1371568 0 Joe DiStefano 2 1371535 Geez, there is an ENORMOUS quantity of info on this subject on the Internet. I've just spent a few hours reading and learning, and I've septupled my Filipino food knowledge. I'll pick up Alejandro's book (everyone agrees with you that it's tops), but meanwhile I can now decode 3/4 of my takeout menus (though I can't say I'm that eager to try, say, Pinapaitan--beef tripe and sirloin in beef bile...) The kinilaw that you're looking for is from the Visayas region, if that helps... Tue Feb 17 01:09:12 -0800 1998 1371533 0 Jim Leff 3 1371630 i am studying culinary arts in toronto. i just want ot know if you have articles about philippine cuisine its history and traditions. is there a big influence on fast food cuisine. i am writing a paper about philippine cuisine thanks, Tue Nov 17 17:55:28 -0800 1998 1371535 0 ephraim peterson