There’s no shortage of Asian restaurants in the city. We have Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Korean and Indian places opening up on every corner every single freakin’ day! But what about Filipino? Well, the other day we were cruising around Maadi when we saw a big sign that read “Pinoy: Filipino Restaurant” on Road 263 and we just had to stop and check out Cairo’s newest and first Filipino restaurant.
Upon entering, we were welcomed by their lovely staff who seated us at our black and white table (that matched everything else in the restaurant) and gave us the menu. In all honestly, we didn’t know what to order because everything was so strange and unfamiliar to us, so we had to ask one of the waiters for help.
“Siopao and chicken adobo are a must,” said Sarah, one of Pinoy’s waitresses with a big smile on her face. And that’s exactly what we ordered… plus a few other items!
The anticipation was killing us as we were getting ready to have our first bite into our first Filipino experience, starting with siopao. One bite in and we were so happy we took the waitress’s advice. It was a steamed bun filled with chicken, eggs and soy sauce and tasted delish.
Next up was adobo chicken and adobo squid, which we ordered with pancit guisado and Filipino rice as we weren’t sure about which side we wanted to have with the main dishes. But let us tell you this, as peculiar as the adobo squid looked, it made up for it with its taste. It was the right amount of spicy and again, it tasted like nothing we had before, but in a great way, especially when you have it with the Filipino rice, which is drenched in fried garlic.
A photo posted by Pinoy! (@pinoyegypt) on
As for the adobo chicken, we were absolutely taken by surprise as the waitress told us it would contain vinegar, but it didn’t taste as vinegary as we thought it would. The meat itself was absolutely nomnomnom. We had to use our hands and eat it like savages and not care because that’s how much we couldn’t wait to have more.
Last but not least, the pancit guisado, which cannot be described in any other way but Filipino noodles. We felt bad as we couldn’t finish it as the pancit by itself was a meal on its own, so be careful about the portion.
Is it just us or this pancit malabon has hypnotising powers? Look how gorgeous it looks.
A photo posted by Pinoy! (@pinoyegypt) on
As we were about to ask for the check, the lovely waiter came to our table with two glasses of what seemed to be a dessert dish that we later found out was called buko pandan: a popular Filipino dessert that consists of baby coconut, condensed milk and green jelly, and it tasted like Christmas. All in all, we were very satisfied with losing our Filipino-ginity and are ecstatic to try more of Pinoy’s dishes.
WE SAID THIS: Check out their Facebook page here for more info.