Fantastic Filipino Food & Grill; and DON’T Miss the Hot Legs!

JP
Nov 1, 2017
4 min read

Asian food is delicious, nutritious, and just FULL of spicy goodness; and Filipino food is one of my Asian food delights and highlights.

That being said, this particular post will specifically be about a place that serves Filipino Grill. Don’t know what that is…? Well you SHOULD! Because it is everything you love about grill, but with a Filipino twist guaranteed to amuse both your spice-loving taste buds AND your inner carnivorous beast… and the variety is plentiful.

Soups, Skewers, Skillets, Satays, and even Salmon Steaks… and did I mention Ribs?!

Now keep in mind, when I say “Spicy Goodness”, I don’t mean chili or hot… I mean all kinds of flavorful spices, herbs and other ingredients that just make your taste buds tingle in pleasure.

So without further ado, our find today is called “Ortego’s Grill”

For this occasion I needed to order a ton of food and try out a lot of different things, so I gathered-up a bunch of friends and the 4 of us made the trek down to Satwa-town.

Ortego’s is a sizeable eatery located in Al Satwa area in Dubai. But while Ortego’s boasts some proper certified street food with street flavor, unlike my usual finds, it is actually a spotless and classy-looking casual restaurant with a very lively and presentable atmosphere, and a wonderfully cheerful and helpful staff.

In fact, the place looked so clean and agreeable, that I was actually very skeptical about the food… until it arrived on the table…

First to arrive was a huge bowl of Bulalo, which is a traditional Filipino beef marrow stew with beef shank, onions, garlic, corn and bok choy, among other ingredients. It is generally meaty and delightful, and having had my share of bulalo over the years, I can definitely vouch for this one in the top 5 I’ve had.

Next came the noodles along with copious selection of meats on a stick: chicken, beef, shrimp, chicken gizzard, fish balls, chicken wings, and even chicken feet! (which I had never tried before and was very worried about); but first, let’s talk about the noodles.

Filipino noodles are called “Pancit” and the most popular 2 types are “Pancit Bihon” and “Pancit Canton”, where Bihon is the very thin rice noodles, and the Canton is the thicker round egg noodles. Pancit Bihon is one of my personal favorites, as well as that of my friend, Kanchan, who was raised in the Philippines. The other 2 had never tried it, so I was very interested to get their reactions… and surely enough, they LOVED it! Honestly, it was some of the best Bihon I had had, and even Kanchan agreed! (We couldn’t stop eating the stuff!)

Then it was onto the skewers of freshly grilled meaty mouthfuls. I assumed the girls, Kanchan & Trisha, wouldn’t indulge much on these, and that Mo and I would be the ones having most of the meat-on-a-stick type stuff… I was wrong. The girls helped DEVOUR those satays (and everyone even tried the chicken feet), and we were just about to order more skewers when – thankfully – the main course arrived… and JUST in time to save us from making the rookie mistake of overfilling on the entrées.

Spiced Salmon Steak (saucy and grilled to perfection), Hot Legs (a hanging skewer of grilled chicken drumsticks drizzling in delicious sauces & spices), Sizzling Chicken Sisig (a typical Filipino recipe with chicken cubes served over white rice and a fried egg, all covered in a flavorful yellowish sauce), Beef Kare-Kare (slices of beef cooked in a thick peanut & coconut paste), and a chunk of BBQ’d Beef Ribs (glazed in honey BBQ sauce and spices)… I was in heaven.

Of course, nobody was getting any of these dishes for themselves. This was a “Sharing Table”, and everything must and will be passed around, and for good reason… everything was DELICIOUS!

Now, I personally don’t eat salmon, but everyone else agreed that it was perfectly cooked, flavored and spiced. As for everything else… I will personally vouch for every single one of those dishes and sign an affidavit of sponsorship! The sisig, chicken drums, kare-kare, BBQ ribs, and even all the dipping sauces that came with them were absolutely incredible, and I recommend every single one of them!

At the end of the day, an American, an Indian, an Egyptian, and a “JP” (whatever the heck planet a “JP” comes from) all walked into a restaurant… and got absolutely satiated on amazing street-style Filipino food.

Thank you Trisha, Kanchan & Mohamed for an awesome evening with great food, great conversation and GREAT company!

And that was the story of how I found both: my favorite Filipino Grill in Dubai… AND my new favorite food crew (promptly dubbed by Kanchan: “JP Found a Crew”)

So until the next food beast adventure, go try out Ortego’s Grill, give me your feedback, tell me what kinds of food YOU would like me to try and/or find, and follow me on Instagram for updates and fun food facts!

I’m JP and I’m out to find the food & places you’ll love ;)

IG: @JPFOUNDAPLACE

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