Sherman's Food Adventures: Rosario's

Rosario's

*Restaurant is now closed*

One particular cuisine that I don't normally eat is Filipino. No, I don't have some aversion to it; rather, it is quite under-represented considering the large Filipino community we have in the GVRD. Rich Guy's wife is from the Philippines and he has a good understanding of the food. He very much likes the food; but considers it to be "home-style" cooking. Thus, there is not a lot of motivation to go out to eat if you can just make it at home. I'm not sure if this is the sole reason for a lack of Filipino restaurants; but I'm sure it factors into it. Other than the now long gone Aquarius restaurant in Surrey, I've never been to another Filipino establishment. Thus, when I first spotted Rosario's in Port Moody right on St. John's, I was intrigued. While Pomegranate is busy getting whiplash from eying the ladies, I'm constantly keeping my sights on new restaurants. When he remarks, "check out the legs on her!", I'm responding with, "Hey, look at that sexy awning on that restaurant!".

Joining us today once again is RBC (and yes, he works for the bank too). When we first walked in, we were greeted by what we could gather was the daughter of the owner. We asked what were the "must order" dishes and she seemed to draw a blank. She left and dragged out the owner (Rosario?) and she proceeded to suggested a few dishes. We started with the Miki Bihon which is stir fried Shanghai noodles and rice vermicelli (yes, this dish is influence by the Chinese). We all really liked this dish since it was fried up nicely without being too wet. Flavourwise, it was a nice balance between being salty and sweet. Next up was what I considered the star of the meal - Crispy Pata or deep-fried pork hock. It appeared that RBC and Pomegranate did not share in my enthusiasm. But for me, something resembling Chinese roast pork with cracklings and fat, it is pure heaven (crunchy skin and gelatinous fat = YUM!). The pork itself didn't have any seasoning; but dipped into the vinegary soy sauce, it was delicious.

Going with another one of her suggestions, we got the Caldareta or beef stew in coconut milk. The sauce was very understated with only minor hints of tomato and coconut. The beef was quite tender as with the potatoes. This was an okay dish, probably would've worked better with a side of rice. The last dish, Calamares, was an add on by RBC (he was a little late). As the name implies, it is merely fried squid. Consisting of big rings, the squid was very tender and tasted great on it's own. However, the batter was much too soft and there was absolutely no crunch. Once again, we're not experts in Filipino food; but we can judge it from a pure eating enjoyment point of view. In this case, most of it was pretty good, except for the squid, so for me at least, I probably will return to try other dishes.

The Good:
- Relatively inexpensive (considering the location)
- Friendly owner
- The place is spotless

The Bad:
- Portions are on the smaller side
- Flavours could've been a bit stronger

Rosario's on Urbanspoon

8 comments:

eatingclubvancouver_js said...

Intriguing. I've never seen caldereta prepared with coconut milk before.

Sherman Chan said...

Yah, that surprised me too. I've seen recipes for it before and made no mention of coconut milk. In essence, with the coconut milk, it became kinda "Thai" tasting...

KimHo said...

OK, how about a round of Filipino restaurants one of these days, bringing of course, our Filipino expert TS along? So, Pinpin, Kulinarya, et al? :)

trisha said...

what, no dessert? but they have cassava cake!!

Sherman Chan said...

Kim, that's a great idea! Let's do it! I should try to get Rich Guy and his wife out too, she's an expert too!

Trisha, we didn't have room for dessert... LOL!

KimHo said...

Trisha, I will have to apologize for Sherman (and some of us in general): unlike girls, who seems to have a separate stomach just for desserts, he can only eat that much, hehehehe.

Dave said...

I'm filipino and my favourite dishes for sure are sinigang and caldereta. I've never heard of coconut milk in my caldereta either.

My favourite dessert is cassava cake, but only the one that my family friend makes, it's the best filipino/asian dessert I've ever had.

Sherman Chan said...

Dave, I'm not expert in Filipino food, but I didn't think much of the coconut milk until I looked over the recipe and thought something was different... But it was alright.

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