Palencia in The Castro

Finally made it out to Palencia this weekend. It's Filipino cuisine at its finest. Filipino fine dining? Kind of sounds like an oxymoron like jumbo shrimp. And not because filipino cuisine ISNT fine dining normally, but it's never been revered as a high end cuisine or a cuisine you can plate beautifully all snooty and contemporary like. But Palencia did their absolute best and executed it well.

If you are not familiar with Filipino cuisine, it has a lot of stews, deep fried stuff, braising, MEAT and fish dishes. The flavors are usually of the sour and salty variety. I would say its a mix of Spanish and Chinese influences but isn't confined to those cultures alone. The Philippines comprises of 7,107 islands in the western Pacific Ocean. There are many cultures, languages and dialects that fill up all the islands. I'm sure you will find some unexpected things like this:

But at Palencia, the dishes are milder and are catered to the non-pinoys but this by no means harm or deter from the taste & authenticity of it in any way.

I was super excited to recognize all the dishes on the menu but I was more impressed that the menu listed the actual filipino names for the dishes. I wanted everything. My mouth was watering as I went down on the list, thinking to myself - yes please, one of those, and that, oh and this too. OH, they have this!? awesome.

Charlie and I had dinner with my friend Phil and his friend Stephanie, who all came up from the South Bay. Neither Phil or Charlie have ever had Filipino food. Well, Charlie once before. Anyway, I ordered the more traditional fare - Chicken Adobo and Kare Kare (Sorry my camera was not behaving that night) and Charlie ordered the pinakbet (usually pinakbet has pork in it but they had the pescaterian option. no pork but had the bagaoong or shrimp paste).

It's hard for me to really savor Filipino food outside of my relatives cooking or Filipino parties (and boy do we have a lot of em. Always centered around food and family. Always). But it was all good. Great even, because I'm really happy that Filipino cuisine is getting out there. Palencia did a nice representation. The restaurant was only missing 2 things. 1) The large wooden fork & spoon usually displayed at everyone's abode and 2) a picture of the last supper...but then we're touching on stereotypes there. They had a blown up picture of the chef's family and it completely reminded me of my Dad's own pictures from his childhood, like this one:

Anyway, on to the food. The adobo was none like i have ever had or seen before. The sauce was more gravy like and vinegary, which i liked. I'm a sucker for vinegar. oh and salt. The Kare Kare was fair. I would have enjoyed it more if it was made more traditionaly, i.e. ox tail and beef bones with marrow, but again its catered for the non-pinoy, to entice. I would definitely HAVE to come back and try everything else. But my favorite was dessert. Yeah, I know I don't normally like sweets but dude, they had turon! It's a deep fried plantain with jack fruit wrapped in an eggroll skin and glazed with sugar (?) SO GOOD. If they only had kutsinta or palitaw or bibinka.

For four people there was plenty of food to go around - again, traditionally Filipinos always have way too much food. and thats a good thing.

I would definitely come back here (and often. since they started serving brunch! especially if they had tonsilog or bansilog, longonisa, tocino or crispy pata and banana catsup, I AM SO THERE!). It's great what Palencia is doing to and for Filipino cuisine.

{I just looked up some reviews on yelp. OH MY GOD - they have the silogs (it just means something with egg. egg = eklog, so if i wanted longonisa with egg over rice, it would be called longsilog...and they have LECHON over rice - dude!!! my mouth is watering.}

Come out and take an adventure, your taste buds will thank you.
and if you want to try and make some Filipino cuisine, start here or here .

Palencia
3870 17th St
San Francisco, CA 94114
(415) 522-18880

Menu items ordered:

Appetizer - Ukoy, Kinilaw na isda
Entrées - Chicken Adobo, Kare Kare, Pinakbet
Dessert - Halo Halo, Turon
Drinks - Calamansi juice, Melon juice

Rating: 3 1/2 salt shakers (AWESOME & creative)

{dude, blogger is doing some weird shizzle on my writing/editing. but may be its my stupid ass computer. it keeps chopping up sentences and putting it elsewhere without me knowing until i publish it}