Category: Filipino Restaurants

Recently, I had pick up some of those "crack wings" for a potluck the Missus was attending at work. On the way back to the freeway, I decided to grab an early lunch and not having visited Fiesta Pinoy since back in 2019, I thought I'd drop by and get my turo-turo fix.

Looking at the sign had me wondering. Anyone know why they switched around their name from Pinoy Fiesta? Anyway, the place was totally empty during my visit.

I was totally in a Sisig kind of mood so I walked on over to that area, where there were two strangely similar looking items. I could identify the sisig, but I asked what the other dish was and the woman told me it was Dinakdakan. Oh my! I don't think I've had Dinakdakan since I lived in HNL! In fact, the first time I had sisig on the mainland, I thought it was Dinakdakan. Of course, my friends were Ilocanos, so that kinda made sense.

I thought this would be an interesting comparison so I got both "hybrids" since Dinakdakan, like Sisig was traditionally made with pig head, but had more creaminess from mayo, which my friends family used instead of mashed pig brain, and also a ton of ginger. But the versions at all these turo-turo shops uses lechon kawale.

  If you're keeping score, that's the sisig with the rice and the dinakdakan in the container. Both were somewhat similar. The dinakdakan was mushier, lacking in sour tones, with quite a bit of liquid on the bottom of the container. It didn't have the creaminess I enjoy and the lechon had become rubbery. It seemed to be on the blander side of the scale.

The rice was on the drier side, but ok.

I have noted before that I should just give up on the sisig here, but this was better than what I'd had on previous visits. The lechon was on the waxy side, but the skin pieces were fairly crisp. It was quite sour, but after tasting the dinakdakan, I rather enjoyed it. They go a bit too easy on the chilies here, I could use a bit more heat. And it wasn't ice cold like I've had it several times before. I guess the bar was set pretty low, huh?

Still, it was good trying out a dish I hadn't even heard mentioned for decades and hadn't seen at turo-turo places. Though I just may not have been paying enough attention. Of course my "FOYs" will let me know if that's the case.

Fiesta Pinoy
550 E 8th St
National City, CA 91950
Current Hours:
Mon – Sat 6am – 645pm
Sundays   6am – 4pm

A few months back, I did my "Turo-turo Rounds" in the MM area. It took a while since I really can't put it away like I used to. The photos have been languishing for a while and I've done a ton of posts on these places, so I thought I'd just do a quick C(learing) O(ut the) M(emory) C(ard) post.

I'll so them in order of enjoyment. 

So, numba 1…..

Nanay's Best BBQ:

This one is a bit of a surprise since I didn't care much for the food when it first transitioned from Tem's nearly a decade ago now.

I got the BBQ Pork and the Spicy Chicken….basically their version of sisig.

While the rice was on the dry side; the BBQ Pork had a nice mildly smoky-sweet-salty flavor and decently toothsome.

The Sisig-ish spicy chicken had a mild spicy, the chicken was fairly tender, it did have a decent vinegar "kick" to it.

Nanay's Best BBQ
6715 Mira Mesa Blvd
San Diego, CA 92121

R&B Filipino Cuisine:

Based on my previous visits, I fully expected to enjoy R&B the most. Man, I've been going here since 2008! Though I haven't visited since January of last year. The sisig here is what I get on every visit. So, I got that and the what had just come out when I arrived, the Afritada.

Funny thing, I always get "half-rice" here and it's still a lot!

The Afritada was terrible. The meat was super tough, and it had a greasy tongue feel, along with being on the bland side.

The Sisig was decent, still a bit of crisp-crunchiness on the skin pieces, good sour tones, a bit of spice, the onions added a pungent sweetness and were quite crisp.

R & B Filipino Cuisine
11257 Camino Ruiz
San Diego, CA 92126

Manila Fast Food and Desserts:

"MFF" just hasn't been up to par during my last couple of visits. Though I must say, the place is always quite busy, even at 930am in the morning when they open. Must have something to do with the location, which is right in the same mall as Seafood City.

I got the sisig, which was terrible, waxy, tough, lacking in spice and vinegar, almost cold in temperature.

The Beef in the Mechado was fairly tender, but lacking in flavor. The stew was salty, greasy, and in need of more tomato….and heck, it just needed to be something other than a sodium bomb!

Well, at least the rice was not bad…..

There was a time when MFF was a decent choice for turo-turo, but I just haven't enjoyed myself over the last couple of visits. Kind of sad since I've been going here since 2006.

Manila Fast Food and Desserts
8979 Mira Mesa Blvd
San Diego, CA 92126

So, there you….I'm going to give my arteries a rest for a while now…..

One of the benefits to putting together the "Big List" is that I needed to go over my former posts, which was a great reminder of places I hadn't been to in years. I went about checking on Erlinda's Filipino Cuisine, which had replaced a favorite sisig (along with fried chicken skin) spot of mine Conching and found that it was replaced by something called "Kujo Eats"? Now granted, these days I can't put it away like I used to and have really cut down on the amount of rice I consume. And though I've been trying to change things up a bit, with gas and food prices soaring, well, I've cut down on heading to places I once used to check out every 2 weeks or so to see what was happening. What really surprised me is that my post on Erlinda's is from 2014! Sheesh. As for Kujo Eats? Well, I went to the website which mentioned that the owner was born in Hawaii and raised in San Diego! Plus they open at 8am in the morning? So, I could drive on down and (hopefully) avoid crowds.

Exiting the 805 on Plaza and driving east felt so strange. When was the last time I was in this area? I mean, the last time I actually visited Tita's was in 2013. I headed off to where Plaza turns into Paradise Valley and into the parking lot of Kujo's which looks basically the same as when it was Conching.

And other than the new signage, the two level interior looks the same as well.

The women working are super friendly and of course there were some items that immediately caught my attention.

I didn't come across anything that seemed to have touches of Hawaii until I got to the cashier. They had Spam Musubi for sale!

I got a two item combo with "fried rice" which was $13.79, a bargain these days, especially if your lunch (+ tomorrow's lunch) looks like this.

My goodness, the portion size.

I instantly dug into the sisig, which was just passable with hard and chewy or waxy chopped lechon. The skin had not held up well, even though it was a shade after 10 in the morning.

I can't fault the amount of pork in this; though I do enjoy a good amount of onions as well. This was just slightly sour, while I enjoy a bit more of a bracing flavor. It also lacked spice, one of my favorite things about sisig.

The best item in the plate was the "fried rice"; which was a pseudo garlic rice.

The rice had a nice texture, a good amount of garlic, and more soy than other versions. It was quite satisfying.

The Tortang Talong looked wonderful.

It was nicely coated with egg, though I thought it needed more seasoning, not enough salt and pepper for me. The eggplant was nice and creamy, with a hint of that "aubergine-y" smokiness. I usually like a hint of garlic in my Tortang Talong which I couldn't detect here.

So, this ended up being two meals and change (I still had rice leftover for another meal). 

I was going to do a post right then, but decided that I should go back for another visit. I did wait a couple of weeks though.

This time I got the Lechon Kawale and Kaldereta. Again the portion size was more than generous; especially the rice!

Most of the time, folks working at these turo turo places see that I'm obviously not Filipino and they won't give me the free sinigang that often comes with meals. It's not a big deal as the amount of food provided is more than enough.

But on this visit, the nice woman included the soup.

I enjoyed this; it was bracingly sour, had just enough salt too.

The Lechon Kawale looked quite good. 

The chunks of lechon were quite large; the skin crunchy, though I thought it needed more salt. The meat was on the drier side of the scale and very mild in flavor. It looked better than it actually was.

While not as garlicky as on my previous visit; the fried rice was still good.

I thought the Beef Kaldereta, while on the greasy side was good.

  The beef, in this case short ribs was tender, which was a good thing as the bones made things rather unwieldy. I really liked the tart-tomatoey flavors that permeated the beef as well. This went quite well with the mild pungency of the rice.

I'm glad I checked out Kujo's, though my arteries are probably not as happy. I need to get down here more often and really need to revisit Tita's after all these years.

Kujo Eats
3400 E 8th St. Suite 115
National City, CA 91950
Current Hours:
Mon – Sat 8am – 7pm
Sunday     8am – 6pm

Recently, I as headed to Paris Sandwiches to grab me a banh mi for lunch. I parked and started walking over to Paris, when, for some reason Trining's caught my eye. It had been a couple of years since I last visited and I wandered on over. I wasn't sure the place was open since the sign wasn't on.

But as I walked on over I noticed folks eating and waiting for their orders.

    From previous experience I knew what was available from what was on the white board.

I saw a customer at one of the tables attacking what looked like sisig….it looked pretty good so I ordered that along with the Beef Kaldereta. These days a two item plate costs $12.99 and when paying I found out there's a $1 upcharge for sisig. I think it might be a good idea for folks to know stuff like that?

I drove back to the office and unpacked my lunch.

 So this comes with three, not two scoops of rice….really bad quality rice, the color wasn't right, no fragrance, terrible mealy texture.

The Kaldereta was the better of the two items. Though the beef was sinewy, it wasn't overly tough. Nice savory-tanginess. Though not quite as good as the version I had here last time, it was definitely better than the sisig.

This actually looked quite good when the guy was eating it and at first glance. A closer look and I started noticing how dark the lechon was. And guess what? Just like the last time I had it here, the pork was super hard. The peppers were "shibai" and there was almost no "heat", nor enough sourness, and not enough onion to make a difference in the dish at all.

Ok, so I got distracted. Sometimes you win, sometimes you get mediocre sisig…… There are, in my opinion, much better options in this mall.

Trining's Bakery & Cafe
10606 Camino Ruiz
San Diego, CA 92126