Having the day off I decided to take a trip down to National City; and start off with a hearty "brunch" at Zarlitos Family Restaurant:
Located on 8th Street in National City, this little "diner" serves all the usual suspects; Adobo, Sinigang, Daing, Pinakbet, Pancit, and also has "turo-turo" (point-point) style food from 8am-2pm. But I had a specific dish in mind, and I found it on the menu under "Filipino Delights".
There it was Longsilog($5.00), anybody who knows how much I love Loco Mocos, can figure out how much I enjoy this dish:
Longsilog is Longanisa, that wonderfully sweet Filipino sausage, Fried Rice, and Egg. So the name
is a derivative of all three items Long(longanisa), Si (sinangag, fried rice), Log (itlog, egg), in that wonderful way that Filipinos have of creating easy to remember and entertaining "slang"(i.e. Adidas = chicken feet). The Longanisa was nice and slightly charred on the outside, and cooked all the way through, moist, sweet, and slightly chewy, the eggs were done easy over, I would’ve wished for the edges to be a little more crisp, but this was fine. The rice was simply rice fried with some soy and egg. A little dish of vinegar with chilies was served along with my Longsilog(I’m sorry, I can’t remember the name of this style of vinegar), though I opted for this:
I love Jufran with eggs, so I mixed the eggs and rice with Jufran(Banana Ketchup). I hope I didn’t insult anybody by eating it this way. If you’ve never had Jufran, by all means try it! Jufran is a bit sweeter, and perhaps a bit more savory than regular Ketchup. A friend of mine back home makes a Barbecue Sauce with Spicy Jufran that rocks!
This hearty home-style brunch got me on my way, with enough "fuel" for the whole day.
Some notes on Zarlitos; Parking is limited, it was 1030am, on a Friday morning and there was only 1 open stall in the whole parking lot. The service is very nice, and in some ways calming, the Waitress was somewhat surprised at what I ordered, and smiled and said, "Really, longsilog?" When a little one threw his bottle across the room, She came out with a mop and smiled and said; "No worry, just a small spill…"
One thing I really like about Zarlitos, is that tax is already included in all prices! What a great idea! So if you think about it, my meal was actually about $4.65 or so. Prices mostly range between $5.00-$8.25. Also, I know Zarlitos is open pretty late as well……
Thanks for the recommendation MaryAnn!
Zarlitos Family Restaurant
505 East 8th St.
National City, CA 91950
Spamsilog anyone?