Posts Tagged ‘Filipino’

h1

Filipino Dining

June 28, 2014

Posted by Kanga. Please do not reblog.

lumpia rolls and beef caldereta

Having seen a picture of lumpia on a friends Facebook page, I developed a craving. We visited Salu Salo, one of our favorite Fujairah restaurants. We also had beef caldereta and bicol express. So yummy.

bowl of beef and coconut milk stew

And shrimp dumplings

plate of shrimp dumplings

Our other favorite Filipino restaurant recently was closed for remodeling and the sign said it would reopen under new management. We weren’t sure what the new restaurant would offer.

new restaurant sign

Happily, the menu is the same and apparently the chef is too. Very good.

plates of food

Steak, pinakbet, fresh lumpia, and orange chicken.

h1

Totally Fabulous Fujairah Food Tour

November 3, 2013

Posted by Kanga. Please do not reblog.

peanuts, onions, chili

Peanut Sandeko

The tour began at Nepal Kitchen House. Peanut sandeko, chicken momos, mutton momos, thukpa (noodle soup), chicken chili, chicken tass (chicken and puffed rice), and aloo jeera fry (potato, cumin seeds, cilantro) graced our table.

crescent shaped dumplings

Mutton Kothe Momos

Then we took a brief break from eating to drive up to Al Hayl Castle.

twisted tree

This is the historical home of the Fujairah royal family.

inner courtyard

Al Hayl Castle inner courtyard

We stopped briefly to check out a petroglyph. There are many in the hills, although rock quarries and development are taking their toll on these historical treasures.

image of a man carved into rock

Petroglyph

After a quick tea break, we were off to our next meal at Salu Salo, a Filipino restaurant tucked away in an alley.

four plates of food

Salu Salo Filipino Restaurant

Bicol express, Bopis, Lumpia, Pinakbet, and Kare Kare were our choices. Bicol express is a stew in a coconut milk sauce. Bopis is heart and lung sauteed in tomato, chili, and onion. Lumpia is meat filled fried rolls, Pinakbet is a shrimp and vegetable dish, and Kare Kare is an oxtail stew in peanut sauce.

milk tea in a unglazed clay cup

Another tea break on the beach with tea in a clay pot – the best tea I have ever had – then, we were off to Zamarod Al Afghani Rice Bukhari Restaurant.

mixed grilled meat, flat bread

After a mixed grill, flat bread, and hummus meal, we were done in. With a cup of mint tea, our eight hour eating experience came to an end.

h1

Pinoy Lomi House

November 2, 2013

Posted by Kanga. Please do not reblog.

restaurant sign

We tried out another Filipino restaurant last night. We noticed it while driving down an unpaved alley on our way to the grocery store. In preparation for the “Totally Fabulous Fujairah Food Tour,” we thought we better check this one out. When we arrived the restaurant was about half full of Filipino patrons, which is a very good sign.

salad with fish, cucumbers, onions, lemon, turnip, and vinegar

This is kilawin, a salad made with fish, turnips, cucumbers, onions, chili peppers, red bell pepper, and lemon. The fish starts raw and is cooked by the vinegar marinade. Very delicious (as long as I avoided the little pieces of chili pepper).

two plates, one with a beef dish and the other with a shrimp dish

The dish on the left is caldereta, a beef dish. The dish on the right (name unknown) is made with bitter gourd and shrimp. These were DaddyBird’s choices and he didn’t want to share the caldereta with me, so we will need a double order next time. Very delicious. I’m not as crazy about the bitter gourd, though. It has earned it’s name.

beef and cabbage soup

This is bulalo. It is a very savory but simple beef soup. Next time I have a cold or flu, I will be requesting bulalo from this restaurant and seafood soup from The Oriental. That will make everything better.

two bottled drinks

For drinks, we chose orange flavored basil seed drink and coconut juice. The basil seed drinks, which come in multiple flavors, are interesting because the seeds are a bit gelatinous. The coconut juice is the most refreshing. The dish in the front is our dessert choice, a coconut and ube gelatin which also had corn in it. Ube is a purple yam that is used in many desserts and pastries.

Normally, all this would come with rice, but due to our semi-paleo diet, we are not eating rice. This will be a great restaurant for us because we can get dishes that fit our diet and fill us up.

We give this restaurant a A+. This meal cost us a whopping 65 AED ($17.00 USD). Great value and great taste.

h1

Fujairah Food Tour

October 6, 2012

Posted by Kanga.

Friends from Dubai came to Fujairah for a food tour of our favorite restaurants. We began Thursday evening with Nepal Kitchen House.

chicken dumplings

We started with the signature momos (steamed chicken dumplings).

four dishes of food

Pictured above (upper right, clockwise) Aloo Jeera  (potatoes, cumin seeds, tumeric), Aloo Dum (potatoes, coriander, tumeric), Chicken tass (chicken, puffed rice, crispy onions), and Badam sandeko (peanuts, onions, tomatoes, chilies).

rice, vegetable curry, lentil soup

We also sampled vegetable rice and chicken rice – rice, lentil soup (daal) and curried vegetables/chicken.

After all that, we called it a night and headed off for a good night’s sleep before starting again with an 8 am breakfast of paratha (flat bread), chana (chick peas/garbanzo beans in a curry sauce) and tea at Al Khan Restaurant.

flat bread and chick pea curry

This breakfast cost 36 AED ($9.80) for 6 people ($1.63 each). They kept the bread coming and would have refilled our bowls, but we had to pace ourselves.

beach

We headed to the corniche for a bit of sun. It didn’t take long to have gotten more than enough heat. It isn’t quite winter, yet. The temperature high that day was 97F.

egg, garlic rice, beef

“Second breakfast” was at Sizzling Restaurant which opened at 11 am. Doing this tour on a Friday was problematic due to Friday hours. Many businesses are closed, some until 4 pm. Any future food tours will have to be done on Saturday.

Sizzling Restaurant is one of three great Filipino restaurants in town. Breakfast entrées consist of fried egg, garlic rice and a variety of meats.

egg, rice, chicken adobo

We ordered and shared three items – tapsilog (beef), adosilog (chicken), and tosilog (chicken).

egg, rice, chicken

Next, we attempted to explore the discount stores, but again ran into the Friday hours problem. Only one store was open.

inlet waterway

We headed down to Kalba mangroves to look for turtles. The mangrove area has been closed since March due to plans to develop the area. We weren’t even allowed to walk out onto the bridge to get a better view of the turtles, but we still managed to see a few.

When we returned to Fujairah, it was a bit too early for the bull butting and too early for bread at the Afghani restaurant, so we were off to Oriental Restaurant for Singaporean/Malaysian food.

table full of dishes and food

Pictured above is crispy shrimp omelet, egg plant sambal with shrimp, chicken and salted eggs, and mixed seafood soup.

beef with kai lan, hainanese chicken

Beef and kai lan is my personal favorite. Also pictured is hainanese chicken.

two bulls butting heads

We returned to the bull arena in time for the last bout.

One last stop at a discount store ended our day around 8 pm. A long, busy, and tiring day. Great fun with great people.

If you would like to get Mita’s take on our tour, read this Mita56’s Blog: Fujairah Food Tour

h1

Golden Fork

July 21, 2012

Posted by Kanga.

A new Golden Fork restaurant opened in Fujairah recently. Of course, we had to try it out.

two soup bowls

Not knowing the size of items, we ordered too much food, starting with soup. I had the corn soup and DaddyBird had a seafood bisque.

plate of three spring rolls

Followed by vegetable spring rolls.

grilled salmon, fried rice, tapsilog

Then the rest arrived – grilled salmon, fried rice, and tapsilog (rice, fried egg, beef). The waitress was cute when DaddyBird ordered tapsilog. She didn’t think he understood what he was ordering because it is a Filipino dish and she didn’t expect a big white guy to order it. It wasn’t strange or spicy, so I am not sure what the potential problem might have been.

Golden Fork is a Filipino restaurant chain. Filipino food strikes me as a strange mix of the exotic and mundane. Seafood and white toast/peas/carrots. I suppose that from their perspective the seafood is the mundane and the white bread/peas/carrots are the exotic foods brought in by the colonizers.