Filippino Cooking, West and East Belfast
Groundhog Day again in Belfast.
Platito West, West Belfast
Thirty-three years ago, John was fronting an RTE radio programme called Food on the Radio, produced by Yetti Redmond. The first programme was a report on restaurants in Belfast, but the planned schedule was blown apart by a bomb explosion in Shaftesbury Square in the centre of the city. The hastily rearranged programme opened with the sound of broken glass from shattered storefronts being swept up, on the morning after the explosion.
Thirty-three years later it seems nothing has changed as John and Sally walk from the city centre to West Belfast, to the new Platito West on the Springfield Road, a Filippino restaurant run by a sparkling couple, Kevin and Eunicke, close to the Royal Victoria Hospital.
10 days after our visit, Kevin and Eunicke had to temporarily close their new restaurant because of severe rioting in the city which sees ethnic families driven from their homes, which are then destroyed by arson. Rioting and arson stretch across the city, from East to West and North Belfast.
In The Guardian, Rory Carroll reported that despite a drop in the North’s crime figures last year to the lowest level since 1998, “Racist hate crime and racist incidents, in contrast, reached their highest level since records began in 2004.”
Kevin Tuvera is amongst the most impressive cooks whose food we have enjoyed in recent times, and his style in Platito is singular. His story is an archetype: a graduate of hotel and restaurant management in the Philippines, in Belfast he worked in a KFC (!) and in the kitchen in nursing homes, then began to make and distribute the fabulous Filippino-style sausages that are his signature.
Together with Eunicke they progressed to the bricks and mortar Platito on the Castlereagh Road, East Belfast, where his authentic cooking has won unanimous praise. Finding their audience allowed them to open the second Platito on the Springfield Road, situated close to the hospital which has a large ethnic workforce. Platito’s customers from the East don’t visit the restaurant on the West side.
Running two restaurants on opposite zones of Belfast is something we have never seen anyone do before. It is in the gift of the outsider to break the mould, and Platito West is literally the only restaurant in and around the Falls, Springfield and Divis zone: everything else is a takeaway.
“Having to close over the past couple of days has not been an easy decision. Closing our doors, even for a single day – never mind two – has a significant impact on us, and it’s something we neither want nor can afford to do. But under the circumstances, it’s necessary.” Kevin and Eunicke wrote on social media last week.
In a move that is typical of the bravery and drive of the immigrant, they announced an Express Delivery Service, from 10am-12 noon each day, with orders arriving before 9am. Like everything they do, it was a success, rewarded by customer loyalty. We’re glad to say that both restaurants are now back open.
It’s too easy and defeatist to allow this week’s rioting to seem even more depressing than the bombings of thirty-three years ago. But if we support Platito, we can hold onto hope, so get yourself to Platito West, where we enjoyed sublime chicken adobo, crispy cauliflower wings, chicken skin with vinegar, and fantastic beef kare with bone marrow and garlic rice. You’ll love it.
See below for our review of the famous Filippino breakfast in Platito East, and give them a follow on Instagram to show your support.
Meanwhile, over on the East side of the city, we also called in to Lasa.
Lasa, East Belfast
Could someone tell Mark Zuckerberg that if he needs energy to power his Hyperion data centre, all he needs to do is hook the 2,250 acre behemoth up to the energy being created on a Saturday night in Lasa Restaurant in East Belfast and he will have the thing at full power with gas in the tank.
Lasa energy is human happiness converted into a tsunami of sound, smiles and the scoffing of tasty Filippino fusion food. Elizabeth cooks, Conor runs the room and the team sew up the whole shebang with efficient and friendly service.
Before they got the doors open on the Upper Newtownards Road, Lasa was a food truck and festival and events hot spot, serving spicebags, working out of a cricket club in Comber, running a stall at the Common Market, doing all the things you have to do.
Whilst there are only ten tables in the room, there is a large covered and heated terrace for those balmy summer evenings. The kitchen is fronted by a small wrap-around bar where the five signature cocktails are hatched. The menu divides into Pulutan – small plates – Dagdag – extras – and Ulam – big plates, and here the highest price is £24 for the bistek, which is served with Asian chimichurri and garlic rice, so value is really keen.
The Asian chimichurri shows what Elizabeth is doing in the kitchen. Lasa takes key Filippino flavours and puts them to work alongside the protein cuts Ulster folk expect, then adds a curveball like a South American condiment.
The adobo, for example, is a large piece of Peter Hannan’s sugar pit pork belly with an adobo sauce, some atchar slaw and that signature garlic rice, whilst the inasal curry offers three very generous skewers of barbecued chicken with a coconut red curry and mixed garlic greens.
Lasa food is friendly food, delivering punchy flavours that begin with the tempura of soft-shell crab with mango, or the signature Dynamite spring roll, where Elizabeth funks the green chilli and cheese stuffing with a Lasa marie rose sauce. This is a very personal and very precise form of fusion cooking, offering the audience comfort zones in the form of their riff on potato bread, served with chive and garlic creme fraiche, or Filippino fries with a calamansi aioli, or roasted squash with coconut broth. You can tell that Elizabeth has thought long and hard about these curious matches and hook-ups, and worked out just how to make them work.
Whilst Conor welcomes you into the zone with friendly cocktails and good value wines, the dishes then deliver a welter of comforting tastes with a belt of spice and a soupcon of intrigue. It’s one hell of a combination, and explains why the room is gaga with the good vibes on a Saturday evening.
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