Philippine Food at Lutong Pinoy

I’m eating around the world without leaving London and this week at Philippine food at Lutong Pinoy. My only encounter with food from the Philippines was at an ex-boyfriend’s house whose mum was Filipino. We had pancit noodles at a Christmas dinner and I remember them being very delicious.

I took almost twenty years and a foodie blog series to try Philippine food again and boy was I in for a treat.Lutong Pinoy is located off the main drag in Earl’s Court and if you didn’t know about, you wouldn’t really notice it, huddled between the other restaurants lining the street. I called ahead to make a reservation for an authentic kamayan style dinner. In Tagalog kamayan means 'using your hands' and that is exactly what you do when you eat this way. No utensils required.

The food is laid out on banana leaves and you use your hands to put it in your mouth.

Photo by Sanne Enemark

There were four of us so we had four different 'mains'; grilled chicken, spicy pork skewers, sweet pork tocino and beef cooked in soy sauce. Everything was heaped on top of a pile of white rice, which was lined with little pieces of fresh fruit, tomatoes and lumpia springrolls. It was like a never-ending line-up of food.

On the side was a massive bowl of broth which was filled with chicken and some veggies.

There was a lot of food, but somehow we managed to pretty much finish our er... banana leaf, which left us no room for desserts. A real shame as the desserts menu sounded promising. I saw a flan and a rice pudding on there, which really took my fancy, but my stomach protested.

Which really leaves me with a good reason to go back some time. It was absolutely worth it.