Filipiniana: Niles

Filipiniana Restaurant
9060 W Golf Rd
Niles, IL 60714 -
(847) 298-9332

So I came upon an Asian Strip Mall on Golf Road in Niles, Il.. Just about 5 miles away from my hotel. Had a few Korean Restaurants, a couple of Chinese Restaurants, a couple of Indian Restaurants, and a couple of Filipino Restaurants. Having never been to a Filipino Restaurant, I gravitate torwards here..



One good thing about going to a Filipino Restaurant is that one of the languages spoken there is English.. So there is no need for hidden foreign language menus.. It is also very easy to have a conversation with your server about what you are looking for..

Here is a shot of the restaurant empty.. We were the last to leave.. Though when we arrived the place had about 40 people eating here..



We spoke with who I thought was the owner and she was very helpful. Essentially walking us through the menu..

My knowledge of Filipino food is limited.. Having never eaten it, I have only read some things about it.. For instance, Adobe, the National Dish, is prepared in a sort of reverse braise way.. Instead of browning the meat and then braising, the meat is simmered in a broth until the broth evaporates and the meat is browning in its own fat.. Kind of like the cool way to cook bacon bits..

I found the food to be interested.. Not spicy at all and very rich.. It was kind of like Cuban Food meets Thai Food.. A little Asian influenace mixed with Carribean.. I dont mean to offend if I am wrong, this was my impression based on one meal consisting of three dishes.

Anyway, here are the dishes without there real names..

This was a mix of seafood in a heavy coconut cream.. It was the most coconutty flavored dish I have ever had.. If I were to re-create this dish I think I would just simmered seafood in cream of coconut maybe add some flour to thinken and some sugar.. It was really good over rice.. I am sure there were other things but, this is what the dish tasted like. I know that there was some red spice added to the shrimp because one shrimp exploded red all over my sleeve.




All of these dishes arrived together.. Here is the Adobe.. I was a little disappointed that the chicken was not more crisp.. Certainly stewed but, not very crisp.. The sauce was really rich.. Kind of like a super cooked down chicken and oniony flavor.. My father loved this dish..




Finally the star of the show for me and for my dad.. We ordered deep fried pork butt.. It came out with a super crispy rind.. I was amazed just how much skin they left on and underneath the crispy shell was wonderful soft and gooey pork.. It was amazing how good this was.. My father who is a very healthy eater was unable to stop eating this.. Served with a vinegar dipping sauce, this would make people from NC think twice about BBQ'ing there butt for 18 hours.. A quick toss in the deep fryer and life is good.. Forget your deep fried turkey, pork shoulder is where its at..

Boom:



And Boom:



and a little boom:




For dessert we had this ridiculously good sunday of sorts.. Ice cream, shaved ice, coconut cream, condensed milk, sugar, glutonous rice balls, beans, and a cherry on top.. A fantastic way to finish..





Sorry it took me this long to eat Filipino food.. Look forward to coming back here and trying every restaurant in the mall..

How can anyone go to that mall and not eat here.

Daniel,

Thanks for the excellent post. That picture of the fried pork butt really calls to me. Reminds me of one of my favorite dishes in Chicago - the garlic fried pork ribs at Sun Wah. I intend to try the Filipiniana fried butt very soon.

Kennyz

That pork looks amazing! It was tender inside?

You sure that wasn't pork foot (ie hamhock)?? That's what Filipino's usually fry, but I could be wrong....

...crispy pork skin....

Habibi wrote:You sure that wasn't pork foot (ie hamhock)?? That's what Filipino's usually fry, but I could be wrong....

Definitely not hamhock.. And the pork was super crispy on the outside and perfectly tender and melty on the inside..

I'm thinking that Habibi is right - that's crispy pata (e.g. around the foot / shank area). I've had it many times, and the bones are a dead giveaway. The meltiness is usually all the cartilage and whatnot, and you're right, it's incredibly tasty.

If you're in the west suburbs, Hong Ning in Glendale Heights has a great pata as well.

Hong Ning
2204 Bloomingdale Rd
Glendale Heights, IL 60139

thank you for the report,

with a wife from the Philipines who does not cook, and now her cousin as a houseguest, I think we will make the trek way up north to give this place a chance, and a surprise meal for those at my house who may be feeling homesick.

Most likely leg, especially after looking at the picture.. But I wouldnt call it the foot.

Daniel wrote: It was kind of like Cuban Food meets Thai Food.. A little Asian influenace mixed with Carribean.

That's actually a pretty accurate description. The biggest influences on the food of the Philippines are India, Malaysia, China -- and Spain, because it was a Spanish colony for so long (as was Cuba). (As I once wrote in an article on the Philippines, "where else can you can get egg roll with your arroz con pollo.")

As for the adobo (final "o," rather than the "e" of Mexico), it is actually not supposed to be crisp. It is most often described as a stew, though it falls a bit short in that category.

In the Philippines, adobo was originally made with pork. It is now as often made with pork and chicken, or even with chicken alone. Adobos are Spanish in origin, and, though they have largely disappeared in Spain, they can still be found in pretty much all of Spain’s former colonies, altered in each to suit local tastes and available produce. Whatever the regional differences, the elements that all adobos have in common are garlic, salt, and something acidic. It's an easy dish to make -- and a wonderfully resilient dish that reheats well, and may be better the next day.

Thanks for taking the time Cynthia. Looking forward to exploring more of this food.. I was looking up recipes for the pata and found some interesting recipes.. Some involved boiling in 7-up and other interesting combination.. I have tried brisket with coke, why not pork with 7-up..

Tonights dinner was a riff off of the adobe chicken.. Involving paprika, white vinegar, 40 cloves of garlic, some shallots, and wine..

Daniel wrote: Looking forward to exploring more of this food.

If you want a chance to sample lots of different things, all at once, Filipiniana has a great Sunday buffet. Nothing had signs the time I was there, but the owner/hostess was pleased to identify all the things I'd never seen before. Of course, nothing on a buffet is quite as perfect as it is when cooked to order, but it is fun being able to try 15 different dishes with one visit.

Has anyone tried the Chinese restaurant in the area.. Looking an authentic local dining experience..

Nice writeup and pictures Daniel. Been wanting to try this place out but the location is a bit inconvenient for me.

Just wanted to mention the names of dishes and maybe a few extra notes:

The seafood in coconut milk dish looks like Bicol Express. Bicol is to the Philippines what Sichuan is to China as far as spice levels, but I don't know where the express part came from. Some versions will be really hot with lots of fresh chopped red chiles.

Like Cynthia mentioned, Chicken Adobo is rarely served crispy. Sometimes it is only stewed and some are browned before stewing like a normal braise. Some versions call for finishing off on a grill. Each family pretty much has their own recipe for this.
Adobo is actually a natively Filipino dish, having no relation to Mexican or Spanish counterparts other than the name. The name may have been from the Spaniards, but the dish itself existed even before Spanish occupation. If there is one defining characteristic to native Filipino cooking, it's vinegar and garlic, and the adobo exemplifies this. The original adobos have nothing more than salt, vinegar, garlic, and meat or vegetables. Soy sauce was a later addition due to Chinese influence.

The crispy pork looks like crispy pata (pork hock), although there is a similar version for pork belly called lechon kawali. In either case, some recipes call for simmering the meat slowly, air-drying, and deep-frying to a crisp. It could easily stretch to a 2 to 3 day process.

The dessert is called halo-halo (literally "mix-mix").

To beat the proverbial dead horse, I fourth the notion that it is crispy pata (ham hock) - it's often served at Filipiniana's Sunday brunch. When I first had it, I thought it was crispy fried dark-meat duck... imagine my surprise when I thought... this anatomically couldn't be a duck part...

C&P'd from my Yelp review (I no longer Yelp...)

Tried their Sunday buffet brunch today priced at $13.50; Selections included:

1. White Rice
- non-descript long-grain, too much water during cooking

2. Pancit
- some diced veges and occasional piece of meat or tiny shrimp; rice noodles had a heavy odor - would have benefitted from pre-soaking or rinsing prior to stirfry

3. Chicken & Vegetable Stock Soup
- surprisingly good, clean flavor (just drink the broth, don't eat the stock items)

4. Chicken Sinigang
- somewhat bland, overcooked chicken (to mush consistency)

5. Estofado Pata
- did not try this dish of stewed ham hock

6. Crispy Pata
- initially thought this was deep-fried duck, turned out to be deep-fried ham hock, surprisingly good and meaty, with crisp skin, mild tasting

7. Bistek Tagalog
- overly salty slices of braised beef, cheap cuts sauteed with onions

8. New Zealand Mussel stirfry
- did not try this as I'm not a fan of pre-blanched New Zealand mussels in any dish

9. Catfish Adobo
- decent deep-fried bone-in pieces of catfish cooked in vinegar, garlic and spices

10. Bitsuwelas at kalabasa sa Gata
- wonderfully tasty dish of string beans & squash in coconut milk
- Who doesn't like anything brimming with coconut milk?

11. Cut Fruit & Dessert Tray

Verdict:
1) Popular restaurant packed to the gills with Filipino families and a few non-Asians

2) Initially aloof yet later friendly, if not professional, servers - It was amusing when the "grandma" of the restaurant came by to clear some plates, ask how the food was and whether I tried everything on the buffet.

3) Authentic home-cooking, but the preparation is quite coarse.

4) They did not volunteer that soda is included in the price of the buffet.

5) Very enticing looking smoothies and halo-halo - was too stuffed to try.

6) Very expensive for what you get considering a smoothie and the buffet will put you at $20; I can think of many other things I'd rather have for $20.

7) All in all a nice experience that I'd been wanting to try for a long time.

The menu is large, and I'd come back to try some other items a la carte. Probably one of the most authentic Filipino restaurants in the area and with the greatest menu offerings.

Daniel, glad to see your write-up about Filipiniana. As a Manila born and raised Filipino, I find Filipiniana one of the better home-cooking style Filipino restaurants in the Chicago area. The Sunday buffet, with it's revolving dishes, is a good way to sample the cuisine.

Filipino cuisine, for better or worse, is probably one of the most underappreciated and misunderstood Asian cuisines. I wouldn't agree that it's "Cuban Food meets Thai Food". The cuisine doesn't have any explicit Caribbean influences. It is a mix of Malay, Chinese, and Spanish, with lots of indigenous streams from the various regional cuisines. The food in Filipiniana, very similar to most Filipino cuisine that is available here in the US, is what I call "immigrant cuisine", home-cooked, staple, day-to-day food. We don't get much of the other types of cuisine, say in finer dining establishments in Manila, such as "Ilustrado (or aristocratic)"-style dishes, the traditional food of the upper classes of a highly-stratified society, which are much more heavily Spanish-influenced.

By the way, just to clarify, crispy pata isn't pork butt, it's "front or hind leg of a pig, including the knuckles."

Closed.