Fantastic Pinoy Restaurant hidden in (of all places) The Block

If you are looking for honest to goodness really good Pinoy food, then you should come visit The Block at SM City North Edsa. Nestled at the fifth floor of The Block, in the same floor as Fitness First, and sitting comfortably in a quiet, little, obscure corner is a Filipino restaurant called X/O or "Extraordinary Philippines". The place is small, diminutive, even, for a full-service real deal Filipino restaurant. The big thing about this place is that they serve really great-tasting home-cooked style Pinoy fare.

Barring the fact that I went there straight from a major presentation at work (in Makati), to have a dinner meeting with another client, I would say that the taste and ambience experience is surprisingly pleasant.

We started off with crunchy cornick and peanuts (and it's not stale, unlike other restaurants) which were given to us without asking, we ordered Binagoongang Liempo, Pinakbet (the Ilocano kind with crunchy bagnet chunks on top), Boneless Bangus Salpicado and Chorizo Rice.

Now, for the Binagoongang Liempo, it is actually cooked adobo style and the bagoong was conscientiously set as side dish (which is great for me). You can, however, still taste the bagoong in the meat, but it wasn't an intrusive measure - it sorts of blends perfectly with the soft morsels of meat. And it came with a whole pisngi of fresh green mango - meat and fruit in one. Yippee! The dish was sublime, with the meat gently melting in your mouth - just right, not dry, not soggy, the kind that you know was slow-cooked the right way.

The Pinakbet was also very good - except for the fact that the vegetables were a bit soggy, the taste, nevertheless was perfect, not too salty, not too bland and the sitaws making up for the lack of crunchiness. All in all, it was the best-tasting pinakbet I have had in the past two to three months (well, second, of course, to my mom's or dad's pinakbet kapampangan style).

The Salpicado Bangus was a novel fare - it was the first time I saw it. Salpicado means "splashed" or "sprinkled" with something (peppered, usually). The bangus came with a light soy  sauce, Chinese style. And it wasn't anything like Bangus, and i mean that in a good way!

The Piece de resistance was the Chorizo Rice. Now fried rice should be easy to make, by anyone's standard. But believe me when I say, if you are not careful, it can just as easily become a disaster. This was truly a great rice dish, in that it doesn't do battle in your taste buds with the "ulams" - though it does stand on its own and keeps its taste, blending well with any viand.

So there you go! Our meeting lasted for two hours and the food was really great, which made the meeting great! Great food, nice, quiet surroundings, the best combination for a nice meal.

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