Salamat, Pete

[robert kaplin for the times]Pete Wells dropped a multi-restaurant review last week with barbecue as the common thread. This week's is done in the same vein, only the focus is Filipino food. It's a cuisine that is rarely at the center of the city's food dialogue, though it's certainly not from anyone's lack of trying. Dozens of Filipino restaurants have come and gone over the years, Pistahan, Cendrillon, Elvie's Turo-Turo, and Bayan Cafe among them. Suffice it to say, the city is not without its share of bagoong, bangus, balut, sisig, suman, and halo halo. Mainstays like Krystal's Cafe, Ihawan and Ihawan2 in Queens, Grill 21 and Kuma Inn in Manhattan, and Purple Yam in Brooklyn have been serving Filipino food for years.

The subjects of this week's review? Jeepney and Pig & Khao. "The two places have many things in common," Wells explains. "Open since last fall, they are small, casual, fun and often loud — Jeepney with American and Filipino party rock, Pig and Khao with slow-rolling Southern hip-hop. Neither stocks hard liquor, but each still manages to shake up very entertaining cocktails." So how will decide which to bring your friends to next time you're in the mood for the rich flavors of the Southeast Asian archipelago? Take Wells' advice, "For Pig and Khao I’d round up the ones who love Asian flavors, don’t have significant hearing loss yet, think it’s fun to get endless refills of beer from a keg in the back garden and won’t be heartbroken to learn that fertilized duck embryos are not an option." "The friends I’d take to Jeepney would be the explorers," he mentions later, "the ones who see every meal as a chance to learn something."

Part of a chef's job is to adapt custom and tradition to evolving food trends. As our food culture marches further down Artisan Road, our palates are becoming less and less captivated by generic, factory farmed ingredients. Innovative cuisine alone isn't always enough to bring in the crowds. But if there's a new story to be told, and the chef communicates through their food, people are likely to engage in conversation. The teams at Jeepney and Pig & Khao get this, and the two-star reviews show signs of a shifting dialogue. [NYTimes]