- Hi everybody.
We're in beautiful Rome.
I've got a great view of St. Peter's Basilica
where Pope Francis himself probably is not,
but he might be.
The Pope, brought to you by Samsung.
Where we're going right now is we're gonna go to a place
called Neighborhood Restaurant
and it is a traditional Filipino restaurant.
The Filipinos have really carved out a niche for themselves
both coming here to work and Filipinos are so highly
catholic so there's the attraction of the fact that seat
of the catholic church is right here in Italy.
They also a need of course to have food that is comforting
to them that is familiar to them and so places
like Neighborhood Restaurant are catering
to the Filipino population here in Italy.
Claire, hi. - Hi.
- It's very nice to meet you.
- Me too.
- The area where your family's from in the Philippines,
what is it called?
- We are from Pampanga.
- [Lucas] Pampanga.
- It is the center culinary of the Philippines.
- Before you came to Italy had you eaten much Italian food?
- Absolutely no.
(laughs)
I was a little girl when I came here.
I was 12 but I ate Nutella.
(laughing)
Nutella, yeah.
- For you and your family,
what was the decision to come to Italy?
- In the Philippines, the way of living is very difficult
so my father came here in 1992 and then slowly
he filed documents for us, for his brother, and so on.
Neighborhood Restaurant is here to show everyone that even
Filipinos can make it better.
We're doing very well.
We are a raising restaurant.
- [Lucas] You're business owners
and you're participating in the community.
- In the community, Italian and Filipino community.
- Are most of the people that come and eat Filipino
or are they Italian or is it a mix?
- We serve a lot of Filipino, like 80% Filipino,
like 10%, 5% Italian.
But we work for that.
Then we are very close to the Vatican
so we have lots of clients that are nuns and priests,
cardinals from the Philippines.
- [Lucas] In Italy, are you able to find
all the ingredients that you need?
- In a small region of Rome, in Latina,
there is a farm handled by a Filipino farmer,
he plants lots of typical vegetables so that Filipino
that are living here can have their okra, their ampalaya.
- [Lucas] That's a very good resource for you.
- Yes.
- Filipino food is really on the rise in the United States.
It's having sort of a moment of being more popular in the US
but it took a long time.
- We find it very difficult for Italian to love our cuisine.
Italian are very traditional to their own food.
They come here and try but then it's difficult
to get them as a proper client.
In fact, when we have Italian clients,
we have a different plating so that they--
- [Lucas] Oh you do?
- [Claire] Yeah, we do it.
We put some carrots and so colorful.
- A little jus.
- Yes, I really want them to know that there is a Filipino
restaurant here in Rome serving good food.
(upbeat music)
- Crispy pata, that looks amazing.
I'm gonna have the soup first.
This is the traditional Filipino sour soup, sinigang.
It's loaded with pork rib and traditional vegetables.
You have of course the main flavor
is gonna be tamarind based so it's gonna have a little bit
of sweetness to go with what is traditionally
a very sour salty cuisine.
The soup is really good.
You've got these nice big chunks of pork.
To stretch it a little bit,
you could say that this minestrone-ish vegetable soup
that you would find in Italian cooking
but you're just not gonna have that sourness
that you would find in Filipino food.
And you really do need to love that in order
to enjoy this soup.
And now I will bring forth this slate of fried pig.
This is the crispy pata.
This is the pork leg.
We've got on the outside this beautiful,
crispy, crunchy, chicharon.
Got nice pig skin and then below that we should
be able to get some actual meat.
That's really nice.
You've got tender meat on the inside, you've got crispy,
crispy skin on the outside.
I'm just gonna use the sauce that Robert made.
It looks like a nice simple soy based sauce with some chili
and some scallions.
It's kind of a sweet soy.
We're gonna move on to this lovely fried sea bass.
Now this dish is called Pesce a la Pobre.
Which means, literally, fish of the poor.
You could draw parallels to Bistec a Lo Pobre
which you would find in Mexico.
Very simple preparation.
Something that any family could do or could afford to do.
You know, food of the people.
That is really nice.
It's not overdone.
You have this nice flaky sea bass.
There is still that sour component
that comes from the vinegar but it's tempered
in this case with the use of the soy sauce.
That sort of rounds out the other primary flavor
of Filipino food which is salty.
Really really delicious.
Now I want to talk to those priests too.
One of them has a collar for sure.
- I love eating.
(laughs)
- Me too.
- I'm a priest, this is seminary.
We come together today for a meal.
We were discussing, eat pasta, or rice?
Let's eat Filipino food.
(laughs)
We like to eat here because they really prepare.
We just wait for our food.
Chatting, discussing, because we know that the kitchen
is preparing it well for us.
- Is the food here different
than the food you had growing up?
Is it a different style or is it generally the same?
- Once you get inside the Neighborhood,
you feel like you're in the Philippines.
The taste that you can get here is typically Filipino.
- Welcome.
And take care, enjoy Rome.
- Thank you very much.
Italy has one of the greatest food cultures in the world.
It's also for the most part very homogeneous.
However, there are restaurants like this.
It's just nice to know that if you are one of the immigrant
population, you want that comfort food,
you want to be reminded of what it was like when you lived
in your own country, as an immigrant,
this is a place where you can come.
It's really hard to put this together and I think
they're doing a great job.
They're showing that you can achieve that balance.
Maintaining your customs and maintaining the traditions
from your own country and also adapting to a new place.
The food is excellent.
She and her family deserve a lot of credit,
a lot of respect for what they're doing here.
I really hope you enjoyed this episode of Dining on a Dime
from Neighborhood Restaurant in the Prati area of Rome.
If you'd like to watch more, please click here.
What's up YouTubers.
It's your boy.
Sorry.
I don't speak Italian, let's be honest.
I have my little phone app and I've been learning
how to say things like (speaking in foreign language).
Which means, I don't like the apples.
Which is false because I do like the apples
so I don't know why.