I met Leah from Leah’s Life and Fiona from Gourmet Pigs for lunch. We started with the crab cakes: garlic lemongrass crab cake, greens, with a sweet bagoong dressing and fried tocino bits. I love these plates from Ogusky Ceramics – I have 4 pasta plates at home and can’t wait to get more!!

We were anxious to try a little bit of everything on the menu. Next up was the Pinoy Hash: Kamote (sweet potato) and lechon kawali (pork) hash, served with two eggs, and greens. A familiar dish, now we are speaking my language!

Next we sampled the pancakes: 3 ube halaya pancakes with a coconut cream sauce. Not too sweet which was nice. I find that in general, I don’t usually like coconut, but when I have it in Filipino food, I actually enjoy the flavor – perhaps because it isn’t super sweet.

We had the silog: garlic fried rice, Filipino-style pickles (daikon, radish, carrot) and your choice of Tocino (pork belly) or Tortang talong [vegetarian] (eggplant). We sampled a little of each. This was probably my favorite dish of them all.

If you’re interested in trying Filipino food (I highly recommend it), check out their Facebook page for details.

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So I signed up for the event (tickets are $50) and the address was released the morning of the event. I trekked out to a private home in Southie. Not sure what to expect when I walked in, I was pleasantly surprised by welcoming strangers.

We sat at long tables covered in banana leaves and we were going to eat only with our hands. Narragansett beer hosted the event, but it was BYOB if you wanted something else with dinner. Yana was in the kitchen, cooking away. She is  a talented chef with a young spirit, a kind smile and an infectious laugh.

We start with rice…

Yana comes around to each table and adds to the rice that runs down the center of the table.

Atchara – Pickled Green Papaya, Carrots and Onions Salad with spiced Cane Vinegar. They had a kick to them!

Matamis Anghang na Dilis – Sweet and spicy anchovies.

Inasal na Manok – lemongrass stuffed chicken, glazed with a soy sugar and marinated with ginger. My fellow table-mates talk about other pop ups they’ve been to, their love of food and travel and their favorite ethnic cuisines. I walked out with 5 new restaurants I want to try.

Lechon Kawali – deep fried pork belly. By the time we get to this course, most of the people at my table are stuffed!

Inasal na Manok – grilled stuffed fish. This was a little tough to maneuver without utensils, but it was so delicious.

For dessert we were supposed to have purple yam ice cream, but Yana couldn’t find purple yams anywhere. So we had sweet yam and coconut ‘ice cream’, which was more like a tapioca consistency.

Check out Yana’s next events on her Facebook page. Next up Maine on June 8th, New Hampshire on June 15th and Vermont on June 22nd.

To learn more, check out her website.

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