Filipino Cuisine: Mysteriously Eluding the Mainstream

Given that fusion and global cuisine are so hot and are such a direct reflection of our national experience, it's hard to understand how one of the most fundamentally melting pot of food traditions seems to keep eluding mainstream popularity.

I'm talking, of course, about Filipino food, a cuisine that embraces Southeast Asian, Latin (Spanish and Mexican), Chinese, and native traditions. With a tropical climate, multiple languages, diverse geographical zones (including 7,000 islands), and over 120 ethnic groups, according to the wonderful blog Pleasure Palate, there's already going to be a tremendous variety of natural resources. Add to that Chinese trade with the Philippines that began around the 11th century, the arrival of the Spaniards several centuries later, who ruled for 377 years (1521 -- with the arrival of Ferdinand Magellan -- to 1898 with the U.S. defeat of the Spanish in the Spanish-American War), and then the influence of Americans (sadly, mostly around convenience foods) and you have a cuisine that embraces multiple cultures and ingredients to create a distinctive Filipino style of food. And, perhaps a style hard to define.

I can't pretend to be able to break it down myself. I'm still a novice to this food but I've been won over by a couple of bloggers and their recipes, as well as a local San Diego market that serves the Filipino community.

Seafood City is in the heart of Mira Mesa, just off the 15 freeway at Mira Mesa Blvd. With the Filipino bakery Red Ribbon just next door, it's the go-to shopping spot for the local Filipino community and has many of the unique products essential for creating traditional dishes.

When I was there, the produce department was bursting with fresh chiles--everything from skinny Thai chiles to long plump green Anaheims, petite serranos, and your basic jalapenos. There were sliced bamboo shoots, banana blossoms, and lemongrass. Long beans and bitter melons were alongside long, thin Chinese eggplants and shorter, plumper Filipino eggplants, a couple of which I bought to make an incredible dish called Tortang Talong. Essentially a multi-dimensional eggplant omelet, Tortang Talong is easy and fun to make thanks to very thorough recipe on the blog, Burnt Lumpia.

Back to the produce section: There was also a seductive selection of roots and tubers that seemed to be organized by color: taro, yucca, potatoes, and jicama among them.

I found myself drawn to a plantain relative--fresh "banana pears" or saba from Mexico. Their squared edges intrigued me.

Like plantains, you need to cook these before eating them and I found a terrific recipe for Saba Banana Caramel on Home Cooking and Baking. I loved the flavors and textures--perfect for topping ice cream. Of course, they're also delicious all by their lonesome.

In a refrigerated section near the produce were duck eggs--some raw and some preserved with salt and black tea. And further along that wall was a vast selection of packaged dried fish and bags of meat balls--from beef and pork to fish, scallop, cuttlefish and fried shrimp. Cuttlefish in particular are common in the Philippines, often sold by street vendors, who skewer and fry them, and serve them with a sweet-and-spicy sauce or a thick black sweet-and-sour sauce.

Among the products that caught my attention was the collection of frozen leaves that included bitter melon, jute, cassava, pepper, horseradish, and banana. I would love for someone to explain the uses of many of these. I gather some are traditionally for medicinal purposes, although many of us are familiar with the culinary uses of banana leaves as a wrapper for cooking dishes like pad thai and tamales or anything else for which you'd use parchment paper or foil.

On the other side of the freezer section from the leaves is a long line of various types of, what else, lumpia. These delicious egg rolls are probably the first dish that comes to mind -- other than pansit noodles -- when Filipino food is mentioned. Here you can find pork and shrimp, chicken and shrimp, and chicken varieties in small packages or enormous Costco-sized packages.

I loved the aisles with the sauces and vinegars. I bought some banana ketchup, which is quite sweet, but passed on the various fish sauces since I already had a couple of bottles. Since I couldn't decide which vinegar to buy, I got several and am still trying to work out the differences. Known as "suka" in the Philippines, they can come from palm, coconut, and cane and that's just for starters. But it doesn't end there. Some are clear, others are cloudy or even a deep amber. I'm sending you back to Burnt Lumpia for a good overview because why reinvent the wheel? I suggest you try several (they're very inexpensive) and find flavor profiles you enjoy.

 

One of the biggest reasons to visit Seafood City is, of course, the seafood. Like its Vietnamese  neighbor, Lucky Seafood, there's a huge selection of colorful fish, crabs, shrimp, and other ocean favorites.

 
You can pick up tiny wild freshwater crabs from Vietnam and perhaps a half dozen types of shrimp, including Mexican white shrimp, black tiger, and water prawns. On ice are milkfish, barracuda, carp, mullet, and rainbow-colored parrotfish.

Along with seafood is a large butcher shop section, where you can find chicken, beef, pork, and even goat. I bought chicken there, which I turned into what is probably considered the national dish of the Philippines, chicken adobo. It's easy to make and I chose my recipe from Jaden Hair's terrific book, The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook. The sauce is made with simple ingredients: vinegar, peppercorns, sugar, soy sauce, garlic, and bay leaves. And, it's done in one pot. Serve on rice and you're good.

 
You can also pick up that most Filipino of sausages, pork longonisa.

You can find different versions of them, some so pinkish red with food color they don't look quite real. Some look rather colorless, like bratwurst and some are a more natural red color.  They can be sweet or spicy and are reminiscent of Spanish chorizo, though they aren't as heavily spiced as chorizo. I bought a package of spicy longoniza, which I used to make the Tortang Talong.

Before leaving, I had to check out the breads. I love traditional pan de sal, which they carry. But I had to buy a big loaf of ube bread. This soft loaf has a swirl of sweet ube--a purple root vegetable--that is a wonderful surprise when you cut it open and then devour it. It's lovely toasted with just a schmear of cream cheese or butter.

There's a little take-out joint off to the side of the store that had some nice lumpia and selection of different noodle dishes. The prices are very reasonable and the food was good.

I hope those readers who are Filipino or are familiar with Filipino food will weigh in on some of the dishes they enjoy and ingredients they like to use. And, can you suggest some local restaurants that serve authentic Filipino cuisine?

Seafood City is located on 8955 Mira Mesa Blvd. and three other locations in San Diego as well as Los Angeles, Northern California, and La Vegas. You'll also find useful recipes on the site.


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Lucky Seafood: Where Vietnam Meets Mira Mesa

I have to admit, as much as I love Vietnamese food, I’m almost always quietly sunk in confusion when I look at a menu. I’m never quite sure what I’m ordering, probably because I don’t eat Vietnamese food regularly enough–but, of course, that’s because I hate being embarrassed by my own ignorance.

At some point, this silliness just had to stop. So, I recently bought myself a reference book, the wonderful Vietnamese cookbook by Andrea Nguyen, “Into the Vietnamese Kitchen” (Ten Speed Press, 2006), and decided to explore Lucky Seafood on Mira Mesa Blvd. at Black Mountain Road in Mira Mesa.

The first thing to know about Lucky Seafood is that it is practically mandatory that you go there not just to shop, but to eat. A lot. Choose between the restaurant attached to it, Pho Lucky, where you can get the most amazing Pho (noodle soup) or the takeout counter in the store itself, which offers a variety of Chinese and Vietnamese dishes with noodles on the side and—my favorite—traditional sandwiches on toasted French rolls.

The first time I went to Lucky Seafood, I was with my parents and we decided to try the restaurant.

It was a Sunday afternoon and Pho Lucky was hopping with families and lots of 20-somethings diving into their dishes with the restaurant’s vibrant green chopsticks in hand. I ordered the Tai, Nam, Gau, Gan, Sack Pho (noodle soup with thin slices of rare steak, well-done flank steak, brisket, tendon and “stripe” – tripe). My mom ordered Bun Tom Thit Nuong (rice vermicelli with fried shrimp and chewy sticks of cane sugar) while my dad ordered Bun Cha Gio Thit Nuong (rice vermicelli topped with egg rolls and slices of luscious BBQ pork).

What we got were enormous steaming white bowls filled with meals for two, along with condiments. Their dishes came with bowls of vinegar and chili oil with shredded carrots. Mine came with bean sprouts, lime wedges, sprigs of basil and slices of jalapeño peppers. I also ordered the Thai iced tea with tapioca. We all laughed when it arrived—it looked like a peach frappe topped with whipped cream. Something a 14-year-old girl would order. But, it was sensational, and I love the chewy black balls of tapioca.

When I went back to shop on my own the following week, I decided to try one of the sandwiches and ordered their French sandwich. You can bring the takeout dishes into the restaurant to eat, so I found a little table in the back and was intoxicated by the smells when I unwrapped the sandwich.

I’m not exactly sure just what was inside, but between the crispy toasted slices of French roll were delicate slices of meat and pate, sweet vinegared vegetables—shredded carrots, cucumbers, maybe jicama), sprigs of cilantro and slices of jalapeño. In one bite, you get cool and hot, sweet and tangy, and a quick punch of fire from the pepper slices. Quite simply, it’s one of the best sandwiches I’ve ever eaten.

All that, and I hadn’t even gone shopping yet! So, let’s take a quick turn around the market, understanding that as hard as I tried, many of the products there still elude me.

And, that would include those in the produce department. It’s filled with wonderful mysteries. Unfortunately, a lot of the products are anonymous. The store does a lot of the same kind of packaging that 99 Ranch does, bundling up produce in plastic wrap instead of selling it loose. But, they don’t label the packages and frequently don’t label the bins they sit in. So, I saw a lot of interesting things that I simply can’t tell you about.

What I could identify, however, was intriguing. There were banana blossoms, firmly sealed in plastic, yet still alluring. These are actually buds, not blossoms, and should feel firm and solid to the touch. Slice in half lengthwise, take out the core and cut the rest into half circles to then soak in vinegar water before including it in a salad with dried shrimp and pork or chicken.

There were gorgeous whole green papayas and a bin filled with it already shredded. It’s commonly treated as a vegetable in Vietnam, and can be pickled, added to soup or featured in a salad.

I've been curious about green papaya for years so I bought about a quarter of a pound of the shredded papaya and made a salad from a recipe from Gourmet magazine. I augmented it with small cooked shrimp, chopped peanuts and chopped cilantro.

It was the perfect dish for a hot summer night. Yes, it is very spicy, but as a cold dish it's also very refreshing. The green papaya is sweet and crunchy, and pairs well with shrimp. The peanuts and cilantro round out the flavors and texture. It's really a delightful salad.

I bought several Japanese cucumbers, which on a hot day I enjoy thinly sliced and marinated in rice vinegar, a little sesame oil and red pepper flakes, topped with toasted sesame seeds just before eating.

The various herbs caught my attention, particularly Tia to and kinh gioi, which are in the mint family. I bought a bunch of the kinh gioi, with its lovely purple and green leaves.

Last night, using a recipe I adapted from epicurious.com I steamed a sea bass fillet with tiny baby bok choy and plump shitake mushrooms in sake, vegetable broth, smashed garlic, minced ginger and Maggi seasoning sauce. Once everything was cooked, I added chopped cilantro and kinh gioi to the remaining broth, which had thickened, and poured it over rice and the fish and veggies. The kinh gioi added another layer of flavor to an already complex sauce.

Then, there was the green, nubby jack fruit. The store sells it whole (easily enough to feed a dozen people), and they also have it packaged in small cut sections, which display its unusual yellow fruit with bulging seeds and fibrous meat.

Jack fruit is the largest fruit on earth—one can top 100 pounds—and is in the same family as breadfruits and figs. I bought one of the small pieces and found it sweet, but not overly so, kind of the same unusual quality as a papaya. And, don’t toss the big seeds. You can boil them, then roast them and I’m told they taste like chestnuts.

Another unusual fruit—sold frozen not fresh at Lucky Seafood—is durian.

Instead of green nubs, it has a big brown spiny rind, here partly hidden by the yellow webbing of the packaging. They also are huge—and, fresh, have a reputation for being quite stinky. But, this is worth a try. Lucky Seafood sells small pieces of the pulp, frozen and easily defrosted in the microwave. What you end up with is a cream-colored, custard-like texture with overtones of vanilla. Eat it in a bowl with a spoon, add it to a tropical smoothie or to a fruit salad with other tropical fruits.

Right now, also take a look for the boxes of sweet plums near the registers. These truly live up to their name.

Of course, if you’re going to shop at a Vietnamese market, you have to buy noodles. There’s an entire aisle dedicated to dried noodles—rice sticks, broad bean threads, tapioca sticks, coiled dried egg noodles and more. And, you will find packages of tortilla-shaped rice paper for making spring rolls. Try to avoid those made with “tapioca flour” instead of rice flour. They don’t have the same taste or consistency. The Red Rose brand is the one to look for, according to vietworldkitchen.com, which, it turns out is Andrea Nguyen's site.

As for the noodles, I opted for fresh over dried and picked up a package of flat rice noodles for soup and something that looked so intriguing I got it and just hoped for the best. These were banh cuon, or rice rolled noodles.

There’s actually an amusing youtube video that shows how they’re made—amusing because the woman is wearing only one glove. But, you can see that this starts out as a batter, becomes a very thin, crepe-like noodle onto which some filling—probably green onion, ground pork or shrimp, mushrooms and fish sauce—is placed, then rolled up. Traditionally, they are served warm with a nuoc cham (basic dipping sauce) and herbs. Since I bought them pre-made, I heated them briefly in the microwave and made nuoc cham, using the recipe from Andrea's “Into the Vietnamese Kitchen.” It’s very easy and very tasty:

1/3 cup fresh lime juice (2 or 3 limes)

1 tablespoon unseasoned Japanese rice vinegar (optional)

3 tablespoons sugar

2/3 cup lukewarm water

5 to 6 tablespoons fish sauce

2 or 3 Thai or Serrano chiles, thinly sliced

2 cloves garlic, minced (optional)

1. In a small bowl, combine the lime juice, vinegar, sugar and water and stir to dissolve the sugar. Taste and adjust the flavors to balance the sweet and sour as needed.
2. Add the fish sauce, starting out with 5 tablespoons and then adding more as your palate dictates, balancing the sour, sweet, and salty. Aim for a light honey or amber color and a bold, forward finish. When you’re satisfied, add the chiles and garlic.

The noodles are pure comfort food, deliciously soft and chewy, with the flecks of green onion and dried shrimp adding a subtle flavor. The nuoc cham completes it. It's a wonderfully versatile sauce I am using for steamed veggies as well.

Obviously, if you are at Lucky Seafood, you have to check out the seafood. Indeed, the entire back of the store is the meat/poultry/seafood counter. You’ll find everything from ox tails and pork feet to braided beef gut and duck legs, along with the usual cuts of meat and poultry. And, of course, the fish—whole, fillets, steaks. Crawfish and clams. Fish paste, fish balls and cooked octopus. There were some amazing looking sea creatures, including the rainbow-colored parrot fish.

I came this close to buying the small blue crabs a young woman was determinedly wrangling from their tank.

Above and nearby were tanks filled with masses of catfish, tilapia, carp, lobster and Canada crab.

Finally, check out the aisle with all the sauces.

You can not only buy any number of varieties of fish sauce, you’ll find black vinegar and coconut vinegar and spiced vinegar, mirin, red chile paste—and its variations, such as with mustard, garlic or pepper—shrimp roe soy sauce and Maggi seasoning sauce.

This last sauce is unusual both in its taste and history. While made out of pure vegetable protein, it actually has a rather meaty flavor. It was invented in Switzerland in the late 19^th-century, and probably brought to Vietnam by French colonialists, according to Nguyen. It’s great as a dipping sauce or added to marinades, sprinkled in sandwiches or on noodles.

Lucky Seafood is located at 9326 Mira Mesa Blvd. at Black Mountain Road.

Have some thoughts about Lucky Seafood or other ethnic markets in San Diego? Do you have a favorite neighborhood market or shop that carries unique or unusual foodstuff? Let me know or add to the conversation by clicking on comments below:

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