Pinoy Food & Other Cuisine :: Food PhotoBlog and Events |

During Ale’s last night in the Philippines, my parents and I took him to Barrio Fiesta for one last authentic Filipino meal. He heard a lot about Barrio Fiesta from his Filipino friends in Italy and I’ve been meaning to take him to one but I wasn’t sure where their branches were located. Fortunately there was one along Marcos Highway, a mere ten minutes away from our house.

I don’t usually like ordering pusit (squid) in restaurants because you can’t be sure about how fresh it is until you put it in your mouth. And I’m not entirely sure waiters will take it back and replace it if it’s old and has the consistency of chewing gum. Fortunately, the pusit at Barrio Fiesta was fresh and easy to chew, not to mention very tasty.

Kare-kare is one of my all-time favorite Filipino dishes - not so much for the meat and the vegetables in it, but for the peanut sauce and the bagoong, which I like combining with my rice.

I only had a bite or two of the fried vegetable lumpia because I’m not the biggest fan of vegetables. It tasted great smothered with vinegar though.

My dad and I totally ripped the crispy pata (deep-friend pork leg) apart.

Fresh buko juice! Ale had his very first buko juice when we were in Bohol and loved it, and he was really happy to discover that Barrio Fiesta served it in the coconut shell too.

We stabbed our bukos to death and have the empty shell corpses to show for it!

I miss him.