When Donny told me about Philly Pinoy in Red Hook, I was excited. Basically they bring in home cooked Filipino food on days when cruise ships are in town, so that the Filipino crew members (and anyone else who happens to stop by) can get some home cooking. When I went to Sa Aming Nayon for Serious Eats I discovered that Filipino food doesn’t usually have a lot of vegetarian options, but I wanted to see what they had. I met up with Donny and our friend Hong-An at Philly Pinoy this past Saturday. The guy said he had only two vegetarian foods, and you see them above. For $7.50 I got a big helping of rice, a scoop of eggplant (bottom) and a serving of squash stewed with long beans (top). One bite of the eggplant told me two things: that it was perfectly cooked, and that it was covered in fish sauce. So much for the eggplant. The stewed squash was wonderful, though. I had a similar dish at Sa Aming Nayon, though it was considerably sweeter and richer due to coconut milk. Without the coconut it was a full-on savory dish with a thin broth, and even though I’m not Filipino it did make me think of home cooking (in a good way). I can’t really recommend that vegetarians visit Philly Pinoy for the food, but the experience alone makes it worth a trip out to Red Hook.
Philly Pinoy is located in a small grocery on Pioneer St, just off of Van Brunt St
That looks great! I love stewed eggplant, but my mom, not so much. Too bad Brooklyn is so far for me to travel to…
@gargupie – aren’t you a vegan? if so, avoid the fishy eggplant.
Yes, I’m vegan. I would assume that most Flilipino dishes aren’t vegan-friendly. That’s too bad. But like you said, I would most definitely enough the experience and the company.
I am a lacto vegetarian who works at Ortigas, I might visit this place one of these days.
it’s definitely worth a visit, but if you don’t eat fish sauce you may be out of luck. forgive my ignorance, but what’s ortigas?