What we got:
Despite the Philippines being much closer in proximity to Malaysia, there doesn't seem to be many outlets in KL serving Philippino food, with the more popular cuisine imports being Japanese and Korean. In fact, before I've even heard about Laguna Mabuhay (via the ever-popular, unbelievably up-to-date Eat Drink KL) I wasn't even aware that there were food outlets offering Philippino cuisine. We've always up for trying new things, so why not food of the Pinoys?
Laguna Mabuhay is located a stone's throw from the busy parts (read: Bukit Bintang) of KL city centre. A good landmark would be Museum Telekom; once you spot it, the restaurant's not too far away.
Pork sisig (RM12)
Laguna doesn't have a particularly glamorous, or even new, setting. In fact, things appear to be a little, shall we say, aged there. That, however, shouldn't be a deterrent at all for those curious about what the restaurant has to offer.
While we were looking at our menu trying to decide what to order, which was a little hard because there weren't detailed description of the dishes with names that sounded foreign to us, the affable owner--Ronnie Tan, we presume, based on a letter we saw hanging on the wall--came over and asked if it was our first time having Philippino food. He recommended the pork sisig, adobo pork and pinakbet, all of which we got.
We were told the pork sisig is reminiscent of oyster omelette, or o'chien, only with pork instead of oyster; we'd have to agree. Served on a sizzling plate, you mix the raw egg with minced pork, and top everything off with a squeeze of lime if you'd like.
This dish ended up being a little dry though. My partner didn't really enjoy it but I found it okay.
Pinakbet (RM14)
The pinakbet was is a (mainly) vegetable dish consisting of bittergourd, okrea, long beans and cucumber with slices of meat in a fish/shrimp paste. To a certain extent, the sauce reminded us of tau cu, or black bean sauce. Both of us enjoyed this.
Adobo pork (RM15)
Ronnie also shared with us that the main tastes in Philippino cuisine comes from vinegar, tamarind and calamansi. The pork adobo is essentially vinegar pork--good vinegar pork, that is. The portion may look deceptively and inaccurately small in this picture, but trust us, the pork chunks are pretty sizeable. We would've prefer the meat to be a little more tender though.
Rice is RM1.50 per bowl. We're grateful to Ronnie for the gracious hospitality, and currently have our eyes on the delicious-looking stuffed squid for the next visit!
Tax: None
How much we paid: RM25.50
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