I don't get down to the south bay as often as i should. There's a lot of
really fantastic restaurants down here including this place we're going to now
which is called Silog. It's in this kind of barren strip mall in Torrance. The chef
there Lemuel is cooking some really excellent
Filipino fusion cuisine that was inspired from his mom and his grandma
from when he was growing up as a kid in manila in the philippines.
We're headed there now and I can't wait to check it out
-excuse me chef -yes sir -you doing well -I'm good good! -do you think I could
get an order of lumpia? -course you can, Sisig?
-yep the adobo chicken wings? -Good choice -And let's do the Longganisa of tater
tots
Five me five minutes, that's all it takes
Tell me a little bit about your background. Where are you from?
where did you grow up -Grew up in the Philippines born and raised came here
when I was 11
-Where did you develop your cooking skills? -Grandma! My Lola! My grandma my
mom
They all cook and I love to eat and I like playing around with food.
-Yeah are there any particular dishes that you remember from then?
You know things that you might want to introduce in the future?
Stuff that you remember eating growing up? -the Lumpia--
that's definitely from my grandma and I feel like, you know Filipino cuisine,
we need to be on a map. You know I think there's some kind of movement right now so I
want to help out with that.
so I'm taking a lot of risks you know to open up this restaurant but
thanks to you guys, you know, coming out here supporting us
it's going to be great! 0yeah this place is great I really i'm really impressed
if this is your sort of first restaurant effort?
Especially as a chef that's very impressive!
so I think we should start at the beginning I think we should start with
the appetizers and i will just move right in with these beautifully colored
lumpia. -These have as you would want in any kind of fried snack and any kind of
fried appetizers. A really satisfying crunch on the outside and almost looks
like they've been like sort of extra charred or burned on the very edges
And on the inside you've got a tender savory ground pork meat mixture in them
this sauce, sort of the sweetness and the stickiness of it, does a really good job
cutting the fried nature of the lumpia. Fried meat and vegetables and a fried
dough package can't ever really go wrong with that. these are the adobo chicken
wings
these look really really good and kind of sticky on the outside so the wings
are like nicely sort of tightly fried on the outside and then the sauce
it actually has a real unexpected sort of a sour and sweet flavor and then you
get this kind of spice
of like a pepper like a cayenne pepper. these are excellent
let's move on along. Longganisa tater tots!
ok so we basically got here sort of like a take on filipino poutine as it were, so
you've got the base of this which is the fried tater tots and it has the gravy
that goes on it along with some cheese and then you've got this sort of sweet
spice longer uses sausage
it really ties everything together nicely sort of all of your treatments
are working on
it's really really nice and let's move on to the sisig.
so let's dig right into this, this is pork pork belly
I'm just going to make myself a little bite here.
get a little pork and maybe a little egg yellow, rice. going to dig in! this pork is
where it's at!
it's like minced and then it's it's got a nice satisfying crispiness on the
outside in addition to being very tender with what i find some rice especially
with a lot of the heavier a lot of the meat based dishes, is that you really do
get that sourness. you get that acidity that cuts the fat and cuts the
salt of the meat very very well. And have all the fried aspects of up of some
of the dishes so on the top of the pork belly right here.
you've got to Chicarron which is the pork skin. crispily fried up on top of the
pork
I love filipino food I think the flavors you get from good filipino food are are
things you really can't find in other cuisines and up until now it's been a
very unappreciated
you know for a lot of people filipino food is an unknown.
it's something they haven't tried before it's something they're not sure about
and I think you know with you the things like with the tater tots and then the
sisig instead of using
ears or noses or head which is typical with the sisig you know using
pork belly using the cut of meat that's more familiar
I think it'll warm people up I think it's a good stepping stone to get
getting people familiar with Philippine cuisine.
I really hope you enjoyed this episode of dining on a dime from Silog
restaurant in torrance california
if you'd like to watch more please click here the way she made a lettuce tomatoes
cheese sour cream catch up how soft
I'm like okay that's not a traditional talking let's meet you talking to catch
up
yeah ok Bob going to hit back