Filipino Nostalgia
It's funny how you don't realize just how delicious some things are in life until you really think back on them and reminisce. It is only through that hazy nostalgia that the then-unappreciated grace is fully admired...and missed.
Not too long ago, I had the for granted pleasure of being introduced to my first Filipino breakfast. And since first bite, it was instant affection.
Topsilog: My Filipino Breakfast I Took For Granted
The dish was topsilog, a simple and satisfying meal revolving around the salty, vinegar-cured, spiced thin beef strips known as Tapa. The typical breakfast is served with soft-fried eggs along with a healthy amount of unseasoned garlic-fried rice. It was a breakfast unlike any other I've had before, exceeding all my self-set weird breakfast standards. The jerky-like strips were highly flavorful and the fried eggs were warm and consoling. The rice was bland but I did not care. I knew it was meant to be like that and bite after bite--I slowly learned to appreciate its acquired toasty simplicity without falling to my soy/fish sauce dousing habits. I liked it, a lot.
Dasilog
It was the little things that this little quirky Filipino breakfast eatery had that really drew me in. Things like catering to my seafood slanted cravings by also having Dasilog, almost the exact same thing but with blackened fish instead of beef. They even had some nice tofu and greens sometimes in addition to 5-6 different renditions of pork something.
I still chuckle when I think of the name of the place, "Good-Ha!!!". Its ambiance was comforting with its colorful walls and patrons of only humble Filipino elders.
I haven't experienced any breakfast like this one since then and so far, don't know if I'll find any other like it...
Manila Good-Ha!!!
231 S Vermont Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90004
(213) 387-2492
Around $5 for complete Topsilog breakfast
16 comments:
2010 seems like the year of Filipino food!
wish you added the three exclamation points in your blog title, it made quite a difference when I saw it on the restaurant sign.
But sounds like a nice way to start off the day
Weezer: The Filipino conquest of L.A!
HC: alright, alright. just for you I will! I was writing this in a really crappy mood but you're right!
I'm glad you learned to like the plain white rice! We islanders like it that way :)
Noms: Yeah, It took me 21 years but I just now am starting to eat white rice without my soy-sauce-dousing Mexican tendencies!
ha ha :)
have you been to Manilla Good-Ha!!!?
yet?
White rice... it's a love n hate thing for a lot of us. don't know how many times I've driven by this on the way back from Ktown, never thought to stop by for brekkie.
I haven't visited this place yet, although I drive past it all the time. I actually haven't eaten much Filiino food in restaurants since moving to LA--still trying to find the good stuff.
Now that you're a plain white rice convert, I have to take you out for Hawaiian food some time!
Noms: That would be lovely! Please help erase my old "Hawaiian" Pineapple katsu-chicken+1 scoop of Mac. Salad and Rice ways that I grew up with!
Hi Glutster,
Wow, I've heard Filipino Breakfast is epic, but this looks insane. :) Thanks for the post.
Exile Kiss:
man...you don't even know.
Exile Kiss:
man...you don't even know.
i have to give this place a try and see how it compares to breakfast on the Manila Machine ;) maybe you can take me sometime!
letmeeatcake: Manila Machine has breakfast? Since When?!!!
and this Thursday looks lovely for an 8 oz lunch...don't you think so? :)
Oh man, you've discovered my secret breakfast shame. I walk in and order it and the ladies behind the counter giggle. But I don't care. Yes, it's a grease fest. Yes, it enough calories for two adults for one whole day (sum quod eris, BTW). But I have to have it.
Try tosilog, which is tocino—not bacon as you might think pork subjected to the same process as the tapa—or longsilog. ("silog" comes from SInangag, fried rice, and itLOG, eggs, BTW) Make sure you get the coconut vinegar and cut up tomatoes to go with it, and sometime when you're starving ask if they have champorado, which is not atole but chocolate rice pudding. You eat it with salty fish called tuyo.
das:
I'm down for some tuyo and filipino champorado! always down for filipino versions of stuff I grew up with ha ha. thanks for the tips :)
Usually the rice is garlic-fried...at least that's how my mom makes it. And that's how they do it at the Good-Ha in Glendale.
Try tinapsilog next time...smoked fish. Hooooo boy.
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