Sandra has never tried Filipino food and I didn’t really quite know how to describe it except to say its very home style cooking and consists of a variety of styles of cooking such as stewing, frying, and barbequing. Its not quite oriental though it does share some similarities. So, I thought the best way for her to experience it was by taking her to Josephine’s Resaturant, one of only a few Filipino restaurants in London.

I had a Taste London card so with 50% off we were feeling a big greedy so ended up trying three starters, two mains and still somehow found room to finish off with desserts!

For our starters we tried the spring rolls, beef skewers and lumpia – a kind of spring roll where the wrapper is not fried:

For mains I couldn’t resist getting us a pork barbeque and Sandra thought the Chicken Adobo (chicken stewed in a vinegar soy sauce mixture) would also go well:

The surprising aspect of our meal was that food came out super quick – almost within minutes of ordering. This was both good and bad – good as it didn’t give us time to rest and recover to feel full – bad because it didn’t give us time to rest and recover! Ha ha!

Dessert though didn’t come out so quickly. Though the restaurant wasn’t exactly full a big group of about ten people came in and the waitress couldn’t unfortunately handle it! Still, finally our desserts arrived. Poor Sandra doesn’t like coconut so she had some very limited options since almost practically every Filipino dessert has coconut in it in one shape or manner. Leche Plan (a kind of crème caramel smothered in a sugary syrup) was the only dessert she could try – luckily she liked it! I had the tricky halo halo (shaved ice and milk with lots of sweet stuff mixed in) to get down. The effort was definitely worth it!

I was trying to think what Josephine’s could do to “improve”. The difficulty is that Filipino food doesn’t really lend itself to fine dining. Its kind of the homey/safe/comforting type food. Filipinos are generally a friendly bunch so service was nice though I suspect the waitresses were still learning English. Food-wise it was all pretty tasty though the barbeque was a little tough and the chicken adobo a touch on the salty side. I’d probably come back again, especially on the 50% off offer, but that’s because I miss the pinoy sometimes!