Feasting Filipino with Feastly

Forget Thanksgiving, my November is filled with Filipino food. I stopped in at Pinoy's Place in Hayward the first week, attended a Filipino popup dinner last week, and next week is the special Filipino festivities and dinner at the California Museum. I've said before, I lack knowledge of my mother's cultural foods and so I try to gain more by eating it when I can

That Filipino popup took place at a small cafe borrowed for the event. You can find a great selection of popup feasts throughout the Bay Area via Feastly.com. This website presents chefs in a few select cities that put on these events on a regular basis. Many are professional chefs that do not have restaurants and are looking for a way to share their food. All different kinds of meals are available, such as...

I opted for the Pinoy Heritage 8 course meal and was surprised to find that it was a chef I had experienced before. I had run into Chef Francis Ang at Cochon and Heritage Fire events in the past. It was his deep fried balut that I had tried a year and a half ago. Some notable points on his resume include working for Gary Danko, being named Food and Wine magazine's "People's Best Pastry Chef" for the West Coast, as well as, being nominated for Zagat's "30 Under 30" in San Francisco. Be sure to check out his future dinners on Feastly.com.

I'll be trying to get him here in Sactown for a popup. Turns out he's going to be working with our own Ramon Perez of Puur Chocolat at the Dandelion 12 Nights of Chocolate next month.

Hopefully these shots will entice you to try out either Francis' food or Feastly.com. Please read on a bit for a couple of interesting notes as well.

Deep fried quail egg and pomegranate soda with basil seeds

This amuse buche has an interesting note in that it was supposedly a play on Sarsaparilla and egg drink in the Philippines. Turns out Sarsi is a brand of soda and the Sarsaparilla is their root beer. People will pour it into a glass and then add an egg. Some people beat the egg first, but others don't. Then they drink it down. It's supposed to be an energy booster because of the protein and sugar. Probably a hangover cure too.

Octopus salad with eggplant salted egg kale cherry tomato and Squid Ink


Kalabasa flan with pinkabet, delicata squash, acorn, xo bagoong

Chicken Pancit with malunggay noodles, black truffle powder

At this point was the chicken pancit. The interesting piece of the dish is that the noodles were made with malunggay. The English known name for it is Moringa. Apparently it's from a bushy plant with tiny leaves. It grows in Asia and in the Philippines it most often served in their monggo bean dishes and soups.