This was long overdue. I visited SoCal in late February to early March this year. So, this post had been super delayed. No excuse just going through some pictures on my phone and found some snapshots I got from a brunch!

The 411: I have a best friend from the Philippines, we’ve been friends since elementary. Sure we might not be as active in keeping up and talking to each other. But he moved to SoCal right after I moved to the PNW, so we kind of missed our chance to actually hang out. The last time I saw him in person was during my brother’s wedding back in the Philippines back in 2014. So it has been a long while. Anyway, I knew I had to see him during my visit to SoCal. I shot him a message the morning after I arrived, and we set the date for when we would have this catch-up thing.

Don decided on the places that we went to since he was from there and I have not been in the area for almost five years. The first thing that we realized was that we were practically neighbors! Flashback to when we were in elementary and high school. His house back in the Philippines was within walking distance from my house. My parents’ house was less than five minutes drive from his house. So that was nice. Like, back in the day.

Anyway, for brunch, he chose Urban Island. From the get-go, he introduced this place as some kind of fusion Fil-Am restaurant. We went there on a weekday and it was raining. You heard that right, it was raining in SoCal when I visited. And just the timing of our visit to the restaurant, the place was not packed. Thank god, cause the restaurant shares a plaza with this huge Asian market. Imagine if we went there over the weekend, that plaza would be packed.

We ordered warm pandesal with ube butter for starters. Dude, that ube butter was the star of the show. It was so good. I know it was just butter, but damn, that ube flavor elevated this butter to new heights.

Another one we ordered was the FOB Fries. Basically, fries with pork belly sisig, rooster sauce, pico de Gallo, topped with a fried egg. Not going to lie, these fries hit differently. Just look at this as the FIlipino version of loaded fries. It was good, but I would prefer this with alcohol. I mean, the dish was under the category Pulutan on their menu so I would not be surprised if this dish matches well with San Mig.

I ordered the classic Tortang Talong. Classic dish. It was a roasted whole eggplant omelet, with ground longganisa, gouda cheese, served over fried garlic rice. You could also get this with hashbrowns. I had the tortang talong with just regular ground pork/beef but never with longganisa. Having it with ground longganisa slapped. The little surprise though was the gouda cheese. It did kind of elevated the dish a little bit. But I could also do without it. This dish was better with hot sauce. And yes, I am thinking of recreating it since it was so good.

Don ordered a Barkada Bowl. So it has bacon, pork belly, topped with longganisa gravy, cheddar cheese, fried egg and scallions, served over fried rice. You could also substitute fried garlic rice with hashbrowns. He swore by this, I would take his word for it. I was not able to taste it since I had my own food to eat.

Food was good. I would describe it as Filipino food with a twist – well, definitely, a Fil-Am fusion. I appreciated the little things they did to elevate some Filipino food faves. This place was definitely more for people, Filipinos to be exact, who have more of an adventurous palate. My mom didn’t like the place as much, but then again, she liked her Filipino food traditional. I enjoyed my time here because I was with my best friend and we had some good conversations between us. Would I come back again when I visit SoCal? Definitely. I would go back at night though, cause I really would like to try their pulutan with some alcohol.