Maharlika

[SobaAddict70]

Just getting around to posting pix from a dinner in mid-April.

Chicken skin chicharrónes

Daing na bangus ("crispy fried baby milkfish") ($9)

At lower right is some kind of carrot salad -- carrots, in a sweet-sour vinegar sauce, to cut the richness. The dark green thing beneath the fish is a banana leaf, I think.

Lumpiang barquillos ("crispy, tightly rolled rice paper cigars with beef, pork and aromatic vegetables") ($8), served with a sweet and sour sauce.

This was the first time I had ever seen lumpia as long as these.

Someone in the kitchen has mad frying skillz. These had a touch of greasiness but were otherwise perfect.

At right are small dishes filled with a coconut-sugar cane vinegar sauce infused with minced chile peppers.

The afore-mentioned stuffed squid ($23).

I didn't manage to catch the description and very likely, the server pronounced it wrong. This was merely "fine". Nothing special or out of the ordinary.

Garlic rice ($8).

Basically sticky rice with fried garlic chips, into which was stirred a heavy dose of garlic oil. Quite possibly one of the best dishes from tonight. I must find out how to replicate it. It doesn't beat Mom's garlic fried rice, but it does come close.

Pork adobo ($21).

The restaurant bills this as "spare ribs braised in soy sauce, bay leaf, black peppercorn and sugarcane vinegar, with Idaho potatoes and preserved lemon".

I thought this was an utter failure and a disappointment. Oh, it's okay for what it is, but to my palate, as someone who grew up eating Filipino food, it wasn't garlicky enough or vinegary enough to qualify as an adobo. If you added the vinegar condiment, it woke the dish up but why should you have to do that?

I can appreciate that this isn't Filipino food as I know it, but since adobo is probably THE national dish of the Philippines, you'd think that a Filipino restaurant would get that right. Adobo is as regional as they come and maybe this assessment is my fault (because I was expecting something exciting instead of braised meat).

Ginataang langka ("roasted head on prawns, seared jackfruit, hominy and long beans with bagoong alamang") (M/P).

Bagoong alamang is Tagalog for fermented shrimp paste -- and while there might have been some in there, I didn't taste any.

This was just "okay". Nicely flavored sauce, with a hint of coconut. Not a home run out of the ballpark though.

I will be back in the near future so I can check out a few more things on the menu. I'm curious about the arroz caldo and the kare-kare. But, I think if I want Filipino food, I should just learn to make it myself or go to a turo-turo. I've heard there are a few places in Queens, like this one.

Maharlika

111 First Avenue (East 7th Street)

East Village

http://maharlikany.com

Edited May 14, 2014 by SobaAddict70 (log)