AFTER a long day sightseeing around LA,  we were pretty much exhausted. Somehow, we managed to make our way to Historic Filipinotown on Temple Street for dinner.

Welcome to Bahay Kubo, which in Tagalog means ‘Nipah Hut’! On the outside, a no frills appearance – basically a short green building with a signboard and jutting green roofing to resemble its name.

On the inside, spacious with lots of seats, divided into an indoor and outdoor dining area. Filipino soaps played on TV: while we were visiting, they were showing one called ‘Pangako Sa’yo’.

The food is served canteen style: customers move in a line and order food displayed in large stainless steel containers. While American food isn’t bad, one does get sick of burgers, fries and hotdogs everyday so I felt a pang at this Asian-ness after more than a week in LA.

My favourite Filipino food is sisig (stir fried pig’s jowls and ears ) but they didn’t have it that night 😦

E was not very helpful in suggesting dishes -__- so I simply picked the ones that looked appetising. Ended up with (clockwise from top left) fried chicken skin, pancit  and bopis. 

The pancit was okay – just fried bihun with veges. The chicken skin was crispy but quite salty, would have been better with rice or something. My fave of the night was bopis: pork lungs and heart sauteed in tomatoes, chillies and onions. The offal didn’t have an unpleasant smell at all and had a soft, melt-in-the-mouth texture. The bopis sauce was tangy and full of flavour; slurped up most of it even though there was no rice. 🙂

For dessert, one can’t come to a Filipino restaurant and not try Halo-Halo. It’s similar to Malaysian Ais Kacang (shaved ice). The version here came topped with ice-cream and had jelly, nata de coco, sweet beans and other condiments at the bottom. Great for hot days!

BAHAY KUBO