There aren’t many places around Hartford to find authentic Filipino food (unless you have a special invitation into the home of my Aunt Luz, Aunt Tessie, Aunt Purie or Aunt Cathy.)
One Filipino restaurant on Silas Deane Highway in Wethersfield closed after about a year. The service wasn’t so great.
However, another Filipino restaurant recently opened in East Hartford. Here is a bit I wrote about it for ctnow.com…
Philippine Cuisine
838 Silver Lane, East Hartford
860-568-4267
Pancit Bihon, $6.99
It’s not easy finding a restaurant that serves Filipino food in this part of the United States, so I was thrilled to discover a new take-out restaurant in the Hartford area serving the cuisine of my heritage.
The aptly-named restaurant offers all the standard Filipino fare, including lumpia, adobo, siopao and halo-halo. It also serves my favorite noodle dish – pancit bihon. For Filipinos, pancit is a communal comfort food. It’s been served at almost every Philippine gathering I’ve ever attended. Long, skinny rice noodles are lightly stir-fried with julienned carrots, garlic, Chinese cabbage, green beans, onions and a bit of soy sauce. My version of pancit bihon was topped with shrimp, but it can also be made with chicken or pork. Like most Filipino food, the flavors are fairly tame.
The warm, greasy noodles filled me up nicely for dinner, with plenty to spare for tomorrow’s lunch.
Open less than three months, Philippine Cuisine is located in a plaza on Silver Lane, with walls painted a cheery orange and decorated with images of island scenery. A lighted palm tree in the window signals customers in from the parking lot.