Filipino food in Queens

lumpia, pancit and sisig - oh my!

Wanna hear something crazy?

I have eaten Filipino food *maybe* a handful of times in my *entire* life. For someone who lives for Southeast Asian food this is not only surprising, it is borderline embarrassing.

Thankfully, my good friend (and like, pretty famous Top Chef alum) Leah Cohen suggested we do a Filipino food crawl in Queens and I jumped at the opportunity. Leah is half Filipino and is the owner/chef at Pig & Khao and Piggyback Bar. She’s traveled to the Philippines countless times and is the author of Lemongrass & Lime, one of my personal favorite cookbooks. So basically what I’m trying to say is she knows her stuff *plus* she is one of my favorite people to eat with! (Case in point: check out this fun rapid-fire question round we did in between bites of lumpia).

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As is the case with many Southeast Asian countries, the food of the Philippines is influenced by the many different cultures that have made contact over thousands of years so on a surface level that means Chinese, Spanish and American cultures have been pivotal. I found this great article which breaks it down - highly recommend a glance.

We went to 3 spots on our crawl: Tito Rad’s Grill, Kusina Pinoy Bistro, and (of course) iconic Filipino fast food chain Jollibee but for my purposes today we’re gonna focus on my favorite of the bunch: Tito Rad’s. So let’s get to it!

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Tito Rad’s Grill

This was my favorite of all our stops and according to Leah, the food is super legit. (I, however, cannot pretend to be the judge of authenticity when it comes to Filipino food.)

We started our meal with lumpia - one of the most well-known Filipino dishes of all time. I ate an unnecessary amount of these bite-sized spring rolls given this was our third stop of the day and my stomach space was already severely compromised but I stand by it - they were so freaking good. On Tito Rad’s homepage, there’s a breakdown of the history of this iconic dish:

“Lumpia/h are pastries of the Philippines and Indonesia of Chinese origin and are similar to spring rolls. The term lumpia derives from lunpia in the Hokkien language. The recipe, both fried and fresh versions, was brought by the Chinese immigrants from the Fujian province of China to Southeast Asia and became popular where they settled in the Philippines and Indonesia. In the Netherlands, it is spelled loempia which is the old Indonesian spelling for lumpia and has also become the generic name for "spring roll" in Dutch”

We also ordered….

Ukoy

These are bean sprout/vegetable fritters served with a vinegar and chili dip. They were crunchy and wispy and surprisingly light for a battered and deep fried dish. The vinegar dip was very necessary for general brightness and to “cut the fat” (a highly overused phrase that gets thrown around way too often but is accurate in this case).

Sizzling pork sisig

I have a confession to make: I low-key hate pork belly. I feel like as a member of the culinary world I’m supposed to be obsessed with it but I am simply not. I don’t find it to be particularly flavorful unless it’s marinated very well and I’m generally off-put by large quantities of gelatinous fat - not from a caloric perspective but from a textural one. HOWEVER all this is to say I absolutely loved the pork belly sisig from Tito Rad’s. The pork belly is marinated with lemon and hot peppers so it stays tasting a bit tangy and the fat was well-rendered. The dish comes sizzling hot on a cast-iron platter with a raw egg that gets stirred into the mix and cooks from the second-hand heat.

Pancit Bihon

“Pancit” translates to “noodles” and is one of China’s major contributions to the Filipino culinary rolodex. There are so many regional versions of Pancit with all kinds of toppings and types of noodles - we opted for a rice noodle with tons of vegetables, pork, shrimp and Chinese sausage. What’s not to love?

Sinigang 

Leah mentioned that this soup was one of her favorite childhood dishes. It’s comes with a tangy, tamarind-based broth loaded with vegetables and shrimp (or whatever protein you choose). Given the amount of rich and fried foods we were eating, this was a nice, clean, tangy palette cleanser.

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Tito Rad’s Grill: 49-10 Queens Blvd, Queens, NY 11377

Kusina Pinoy Bistro: 69-16 Roosevelt Ave, Queens, NY 11377

Jollibee: 62-29 Roosevelt Ave, Queens, NY 11377