Breakfast at Manila Good-Ha!
Well, I've been keeping some bizarre hours lately thanks to work, and my boss told me to go have a nice breakfast somewhere and expense it.
I decided what I wanted more than anything else was a nice plate of tosilog, so I headed up Woodman Avenue to Manila Good-Ha!, across the street from Kaiser Permanente and just a few blocks south of Roscoe Blvd.
My plate of tosilog was probably three-quarters of a pound of tocino (Filipino bacon, it's pork that's been marinated in something akin to cha shu sauce and then grilled), two enormous eggs over easy and probably a quart of sinangag, garlic fried rice.
I like to bust the egg yolks over the rice and eat it all together with a dash of garlic vinegar, which is out on every table. Filipinos eat like Thais, with a fork as a pusher and cutter and a spoon as the food-delivery device -- makes it really easy to inhale the food.
Ask for achara, which are shredded pickled papayas and which cut the richness of the food wonderfully. You can ask for tomatoes too.
Most Filipino breakfast is a "silog" construct, "si" from "sinangag", garlic fried rice, and "log" from "itlog", eggs. You can get thinly sliced marinated sweet beef ("tapsilog"), Chinese-style sausages ("longsilog"), whole fish ("tuyosilog"), chorizo ("chosilog") and milkfish ("bangsilog"). There's also champorado, which is a kind of chocolate porridge. It is NOT the Mexican hot drink!
My enormous plate of food -- easily big enough for two people to eat, though I saw people having even more food than that -- set me back a grand total of $3.75 plus tax. There is a branch on 2nd and Vermont, another in the 3300 block of Olympic, and one downtown on 6th.
Manila Good-Ha!
8205 Woodman Avenue
Panorama City, CA 91402
Das Ubergeek
Feb 02, 2006 02:09PM
a filipino breakfast doesn't sound half bad... but $3.75?! go out and buy a big screen TV on your company expense account now =P
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Wow. Thanks for the report. Does Manila Goodha serve brakfast all day? I might have to hit up the tosilog for lunch and expense that $3.75 + tax myself...
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I'm not sure, to be honest, but you could ask... and they serve merienda (Filipino snacks) until they close, so at the very least you can have some pandesal and bibingka :)
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I was so enticed with having tapsilog after reading this post that we made the trek to the Glendale branch last night. I could almost taste it. And then they informed me that the breakfast items were only for breakfast. Argh!
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Oh, sorry about that! I went to the Glendale location this morning (had to convince a colleague it was good, so we went) and had longsilog... mmmm.
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The branches are at 900 E. Colorado in Glendale, 3325 W. 6th in LA, and 2nd and Vermont in LA. My bad. :(
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$3.75 and it comes with a quart of sinigang? DAMN! That's a deal! This was a great post. Not only did you clue us in on a great Filipino breakfast place, you broke it down for those unfamiliar with it.
Excellent work!
Link: http://elmomonster.blogspot.com
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Went for breakfast this morning. Very good and filling. Don't think it will replace my chorizo and eggs, but I'm glad to have sampled it. They were doing quite a business when I was there just a bit after 9 am. Since I got it with an OJ out of the cooler I am not sure if the price is still the same or not. I think my total was $6.40 or so? Most folks seemed to be getting various food from the steam trays that was ready behind the counter. Very nice, friendly people. Thanks for the recommendation Das.
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I think it's $4.75 for tapsilog now and $5.00 for tosilog. Rice is much more expensive than it used to be. Just do be careful -- some days you will end up with an unappetising puddle of industrial-looking grease at the bottom.
The Panorama City location is much, much, much better than the Glendale location. I've never been to the LA locations.
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Nice post, Das Ubergeek... I always thought that Good-Ha! was an awesome resturant name. I hope you chased that tosilog with a Crestor....
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