Cucina Manila Richmond

[CrispyLechon]

I spoke to someone from Cucina Manila. Apparently their new branch in Richmond will soon open in mid June. The new place is just a few doors down from Excelsior restaurant across from Richmond centre. Its in the same strip mall as Newtown Bakery/

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Cucina Manila
5179 Joyce St, Vancouver, BC V5R4G8, CA

[grayelf]

We had a Chowdown here in October and it was very good, second only in my limited experience of Filipino food in Vancouver to Pinpin. I thought fmed had already posted on this but I couldn't find it so here are some pix.

I particularly enjoyed the pork adobo which was richer and darker than others I've tried and the crispy pata (surprise... not!).

We came at a very good time (Sunday late morning) when lots of fresh stuff was being added to the turo turo display.

[bdachow]

Hey Grayelf, don't suppose you could provide some names for those dishes? I recognize the pancit dish and the crispy pata but not sure of the other dishes. Thx!

[vandan]

you beat me to it

[grayelf]

We had our Pinoy translator with us so I was slacking but I'll see what I can do.

If you look in the first picture, the purply dish above the sticks was the dinuguan. The noodles are indeed pancit, palabok to be exact and had lots of fishy taste. The taco-y looking dude was a fresh lumpia with veggies inside, tasty enough but I didn't love the gloopy sauce. The sticks are of course BBQ pork, The dark coloured meaty dish was the pork adobo. Bottom right was the pata. And with that my memory fails me...

[el_lobo_solo]

To the right of the palabok looks like kare kare. Between the adobo and the pata is calderta methinks.

[grayelf]

By George, I think he's got it! Thanks, lobo.

[bdachow]

Thanks guys, that really helps. One of our local restaurant guys recently did a Filipino night for us here and I wanted to compare notes on the preparation compared to their version. Their fresh lumpia had the same gloopy looking sauce, but they did it half omelette style. And the adobo looks dry-ish as well, for some reason I thought adobo would be more saucy and stew like. I stand corrected. Our version of pancit looks quite similar, we had halved quail eggs on top of ours. As a first intro to Filipino cuisine, it was very interesting.

[fmed]

Adobo can be both saucy and dry. Dry adobo comes from simmering and reducing saucy adobo until you get nice crispy bits. I much prefer it dry actually.

Yeah- fresh lumpia is quite often a disappointment because of the gloopy sauces which is the Filipino's preference. I like just eating the lumpia without the sauce or with a more simple sauce made with calamansi juice and soya.

[grayelf]

Today's tip from fmed: pack some toyomansi in your gear when you order "fresh lumpia, hold the gloop." Love it!