The forgotten parts take centre stage, even without ketchup
MARK LABA
Province
Sandy Daza and his wife Tessa at Sandy’s Cuisine on Main Street. Photograph by : Wayne Leidenfrost, The Province
It’s official. Innards are in again. Relegated to the organ heap for so long, restaurants are taking the awful out of offal with a variety of dishes in a wide range of cuisines. Innards used to be the mystery meat of choice for old-world recipes (my father’s favourite dish growing up in the Ukraine back in 1918 was lung-and-liver stew), but big-time current chefs like Mario Battali are leading the charge in the resurgence of the animal parts that time forgot. Well, in Filipino cuisine the innards never left the scene and no place is a better example of that than Sandy‘s, where home-cooking and entrails reign supreme.
My run-ins with Filipino cuisine in the past have tested my palate to the extreme, with everything from pig’s ears to tripe, and you’d think I would have learned my lesson by now, but I return again and again to beat my head against the slaughterhouse wall. And here my reticence was met by a double-barrel of guts cooked up in a variety of ways. Owner and chef Sandy Daza could be unofficially crowned the king of Filipino cooking and, though I joke about the ingredients, there’s plenty of dishes for the more timid of stomach and Daza is cooking some heady and redolent dishes.
Popped into this nondescript place, part grocery store, part restaurant in the turo-turo Filipino style, which means you go up the counter displaying a variety of steam trays and point to what you want to eat. The woman at the counter was very nice and patiently walked me through each dish. Deep-fried pork belly with liver sauce, sautéed beef lungs, pork-blood stew, diced pork face — I put on my best poker face at this parade of puzzling animal parts. Adventures in dining, my ass. This was Fear Factor Filipino-style. I thought, maybe with ketchup I might get some of this down. Luckily, there are other dishes that don’t test as severely the limits of your palate.
So Pandan Chicken for me ($7 for four pieces), the tender boneless poultry marinated in coconut milk and spices and fried in aromatic pandan leaves. Originally a Thai dish, this spin on an old classic is delicious.
Next up Paksiw Lechon ($7), a sweet pork stew that made my eyes fat just looking at it. A dark mire of sauce the colour of molasses, housing rectangular chunks of tender pork the size of iPods. Very satisfying.
Finally the Bicol Express ($6), a jalapeño-studded pork shindig done up in coconut milk. Curry-like consistency with a gentle heat that builds gradually but is never overwhelming.
It’s a huge menu as befits Daza, a one-man show with his restaurant, cooking classes and a cooking show on Shaw Multicultural Channel. From noodles to squid adobo, fish in tamarind sauce to menudo, you never know what awaits you at the steam table, whether it’s a pleasing tastebud coddling stew or a journey into the veritable underbelly of dining.
REVIEW
SANDY‘S CUISINE
Where: 4186 Main St., Vancouver
Payment/reservations: Major credit cards, 604-677-4807
Drinks: Soda pop and juices.
Hours: Tues.-Sat., noon-8 p.m.; Sun., 11:30 a.m.-7 p.m.; closed Mon.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
Home-cooking emphasizing aromatic tropical saucing and no part of the animal left behind.
RATINGS: Food: B Service: B+
Atmosphere: B-
© The Vancouver Province 2007