![]() The way I understand it, the dish is a combination of tocino + pinakbet. The tocibet, I believe, is intended to be innovation unique to Ayan. Highly recommended for pinoy food noobs and connoisseurs alike! I’m neither by the way, just your average pinoy-food loving expat here. The onions that were caramelized in the sauce came together very nicely with the slightly-crunchy kangkong. It had just the right amount of ginger-soy sauce to pour over the rice, which is how we usually eat our adobong kangkong. The kangkong (water spinach) was just superb. The other main meals I got to taste were the adobong kangkong and tocibet. Goes to show that dining is a multi-sensory experience. I was pleasantly surprised by the sweet-garlicky flavor, but to me, it felt no different than teriyaki beef. And although I know now that a tocino’s red color comes from food coloring, which has no impact on flavor whatsoever, the lack of this visual stimulus made the experience of eating it in Ayan also lacking. But I suspect it’s because I have a very specific image of what a tocino should be: I grew up eating tocino that is red in color. The tocino beef was the least memorable of the three for me. At the end of the day, that’s all I really expect from an adobo, and in this sense, Ayan delivered. It has the subtle laurel aroma and garlic-peppery undertone that accompanies the vinegar and soy sauce marinade. The adobo I enjoy the most has a tinge of sweetness and a ton of sauce, which is probably why it didn’t quite hit the spot. Ayan’s adobo is on the sour side, and is the type that isn‘t swimming in sauce. Some are more sour, the others more sweet some are more saucy, the others less so. Some of you might be aware that adobo comes in many different variants depending on the region. The adobo was good too, though I didn’t enjoy it as much as the liempo. It complemented the sourness of the atchara very well. The meat itself had enough flavor to carry itself through on its own. It was a taste I know and love, with the perfect blend of sweet and salty, plus a hint of depth from the grill-charred edges! Usually, something grilled like this would be served with a chili-garlic-vinegar dipping sauce. Ayan’s Streetfood Combo with Liempo, Pork Adobo and Tocino It goes without saying that everything is served with rice. On the side you get a good portion of atchara (pickled papaya salad). ![]() The two other options I took were pork adobo and tocino beef, although I had a few other choices such as fishballs (a classic streetfood, although typically not eaten with rice), chicken barbecue, chicken wings, etc. ![]() We were, after all, at a street food restaurant. Plus two other meat options that came with Ayan’s streetfood combo. Instead, I went for another kind of belly – the pork belly, or liempo. This time around, I made sure I wouldn’t be tempted by that crispy fish belly. It’s definitely an option for those yearning for home though I wouldn’t recommend it for pinoy food noobs. It was a choice made by the 12-year-old me that longed for the familiar taste of our staple Saturday lunch back in Manila. My first time was in 2017, when I ordered daing na bangus (fried milkfish) because the moment I saw it on the menu everything else dissolved into nothing. I’d have to admit that this wasn’t my first time in Ayan. ![]() (I know a lot of people, including myself, who would kill for a properly sour sinigang.) One of them was even giving the waitress his two cents about the sinigang he just had as we were settling into our table: the soup was apparently too sour. We dropped by on a Friday evening and I was pleased to see that there were a good number of non-filipino diners. It is a cozy little place with no more than a dozen tables and a sari-sari store feel. The first stop in our pinoy food hopping tour was Ayan – The Filipino Streetfood Restaurant.
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