Dining in the LBC!

Late summer seems to be high time for Restaurant Weeks in our part of Southern California.  Dine LA ran for almost three full weeks in July, and during this time period, we ate out a few times, trying spots all over the map and finding a new favorite in El Segundo called Sausal (anyone flying in or out of LAX near mealtimes, that's where you will find yourself with us.  You've been warned).  The very next weekend, Dine LBC started up, and since that's our home turf right now, we wanted to be sure to get involved.

While the event has tons of restaurants (and we already have plans to try another place - RESTAURATION - tonight), it was the Rice and Shine brunch on the opening weekend of Restaurant Week that really intrigued us.  For starters, it was at noon, which means we could wake up, do workouts, fiddle with the backyard, get fully showered and dressed, etc, and still be there at a reasonable time.  It was also only $45 for 8 courses, which is a huge bargain in the world of multi-coursed meals (with a $20 endless mimosa option, which we both chose - we went to see a movie afterward to ensure we were fit to drive back home).  However, most of all, we were intrigued by the idea that the reason it was called "Rice and Shine" (yes, that wasn't a typo up there) was that it would feature Filipino fusion cuisine.  One of the best things of living in the greater LA area is the ridiculous amount of diversity here, and that manifests itself into all sorts of interesting things to eat and see and do.  The two of us knew very little about Filipino food, and we were game to learn more!

The event was held in one of the penthouses at the Edison Building, an apartment complex just a few blocks north of the marina in DTLB (Downtown Long Beach.  If downtown LA can call itself DTLA, we're claiming DTLB as our own).  As you might imagine, the view was spectacular, and being in a penthouse allowed me to do my "Fredrik from Million Dollar Listing New York" impression (I watch the crap out of that show):

Looking west from the penthouse balcony.

The marina and further than that, the ocean,

can be seen past the buildings

on the right of the shot.

Looking east.

You can just barely see the ports

in the distance near the middle

of the shot.

Being us, we got there a few minutes early, so we hung out in the Edison's lobby until it was time to go upstairs.

Ready to get our Pinoy on!

Eventually, the floodgates opened, and we headed up the elevator to the mimosa and first course stations, then on to our seats.

The most important part of this breakfast:

the mimosa coaster.

Chris' pandesal - 

brioche toast topped with ube cream cheese (the purple one)

and ensaymada butter (the orange one).

As you can see above, the first course was pandesal, which is a brioche bun traditionally eaten for breakfast, and is apparently excellent when dipped in hot coffee (I'm getting all this from the glossary they gave us on the back of our menus - extremely helpful and a great idea).  Our appetizer consisted of what they called the "best part" - the toppings.  I passed on the ube option, as it contained coconut, and I'm still working on figuring out if I'm allergic to it as mentioned in the Kauai blogs from last year.  By the way, since we're all about learning things on this blog (um, sure?), ube is a purple yam, which is a popular dessert flavor in the Philippines; although it's similar, it shouldn't be confused with taro, which is starchier and less truly purple in color.  I did partake in two pieces of the pandesal with ensaymada butter, which has a cheese, butter, and sugar topping; they were delicious!

Our second course was a halo halo parfait.  Halo halo translates to "mix mix," and it's a traditional shaved ice dessert made with evaporated milk and different toppings, some sweet and some savory.  Anytime we're in Hawaii, I totally dig on shaved ice, although I've not yet ponied up the courage to have some with evaporated milk; the idea of having ice with dairy always freaked me out a bit.  To make the Rice and Shine version, greek yogurt was used as the base of the parfait (to make it a bit more breakfast-friendly), and it was topped with all sorts of different things:  mango chunks, adzuki beans, blueberries, puffed crispy rice, coconut shavings (I ate around those), ube cubes (not my favorite), and some sort of green Jello-esqe substance.  It was a party of textures going on, and overall, it was pretty good.

So very pretty.

The next round came out family-style, so it was a good thing we'd started to make friends with our table-mates by this point (there were 50 of us total and we were seated at 3 long tables - we met some nice folks).  These were the sisig chilaquiles:

OMG, so good.

Like the chilaquiles I've come to know and love, these were served on tortilla chips and included a saltier, cotija-like cheese on top and chunks of avocado.  The main protein here was the sisig, cut up in small chunks - pork served with chilies and citrus, which is considered "pulutan" or food eaten while drinking.  Given the endless mimosas, this worked out just fine.  Although I found the sisig itself to be a little chewy (not fatty, just chewy), this dish was delicious.  Just like a more standard chilaquiles, there was a sharp, acid bite in each nibble, and it played well against the pork and cheese.  We all enjoyed this one.

Next up were three courses served together at once, also served family style:

Okay, not exactly the loveliest picture,

but on the left, that's the longanisa Scotch egg,
that's the sinangag (garlice rice) above it,

and the ensaladang kamatis (tomatoes)

are on the right.

Okay, let's break this one down - the main here is the longanisa Scotch egg.  Essentially, this is a traditional Scotch egg with longanisa - garlic pork sausage - wrapped around it, then breaded and fried.  Apparently, longanisa is traditionally eaten for breakfast with...wait for it...garlic rice and a fried egg, and this was a novel take on it.  I ended up not finishing this part of my meal, as a few bites were all I could handle; it was awesome, but it was so rich and dense that I handed the rest of mine to Chris, who happily devoured it.  The sinangag is truly just garlic rice; it tasted pretty much exactly what you think it would taste like, and it was freaking awesome.  My favorite here, though, had to be the ensaladang kamatis or tomato salad (ensalada = salad; kamatis = tomato.  Straightforward, indeed).  In addition to gorgeous, perfectly ripe cherry tomatoes, we got the paste you see above, which was a salted duck egg gribiche with fish sauce.  Holy moly, so good.  The tomatoes were a nice fresh bite after the heavier egg and rice, and the fish sauce gave it a nice umami kick.  After I handed Chris the rest of my egg, I made sure to finish this up.

With our meal nearing its close, we enjoyed dessert, a kalamansi mojito bonbon provided by Romeo Chocolates, a Long Beach small business that just opened a few months back (we randomly wandered into MADE in Long Beach, one of our favorite downtown boutiques, right after we moved here, and Romeo of Romeo Chocolates was sampling his wares and trying to drum up business - his creations were delicious, and it's awesome to see that he was eventually able to open his own place).  Kalamansi is a small Filipino citrus fruit, and apparently its juice was being used for our mimoas for the day, which were also fantastic.

Look how pretty!

I could have eaten 100 of these.

After the hosts bid us goodbye and we gave them several rounds of very well deserved applause, they passed out bags of goodies to go made by Rose Boral, AC's (our chef's) Mom.  Rose owns Auntie Rose's sweets, and these little bites of awesome (small, sponge-like cookies) were shaped like roses.  Although we didn't get the very best look at them, as we ate them while we watched The Dark Tower (so not as good as it could have been - dang it!), they were delicious, just like everything else we enjoyed.

Overall, our meal was excellent, and we had fun hanging out on the rooftop at the Edison, enjoying the breeze blowing off the harbor and chatting with our table-mates.  What a great time!

Later!

Amy