[Elk Grove, CA] - Savory Fried Chicken

July 18, 2017

A post about a Filipino restaurant has been long overdue on my part. I probably could think of a few excuses for what took so long, but I'll skip that part. Filipino food has a special place in my heart because my dad grew up in Cebu, and my best friend growing up was (and of course still is) Filipino. My dad loves sharing the Filipino part of his life, and I spent way too much time at my friend's house eating all of their food (I feel like I should be more embarrassed that I was known to everyone for eating a lot. It was embarrassing for my mom because it made it look like she didn't feed me). Not only did I grow up on some of the best Szechuanese and Taiwanese food around (my grandma used to teach classes in Seattle because everyone loved her food that much, and it really was that good. I'm not just saying it because she's my grandma); I also had the great pleasure of having some of the best Filipino food around courtesy of my best friend's Nanay, her mom, and her Aunties (all of them are amazing cooks).

Back when there was still a Max's of Manila in South Sacramento, I had a place to go if I was craving some fried chicken, garlic rice, and pancit Canton. Then, Chopstix closed and there went my crispy pata spot. I supposed Savory Fried Chicken isn't new, but I just hadn't gotten around to trying it yet. When the fried chicken and garlic rice cravings got bad enough though, I ventured out to Elk Grove to give it a try.

The fried chicken skin had all of the flavor, while the meat was a bit plain. The condiments aren't at each table, so you have to get up and fill little containers of it to bring back. I covered up the chicken meat with Jufran and all was right in the world again. Until I had the garlic fried rice. I could see the garlic, but it was a bit lacking in flavor. It could be just that it was an off day: they seemed packed both times I went. They ran out of a lot of food also. For the pancit, I would have preferred an actual slice of lime or lemon instead of the lemon juice packet, but it tasted fine. It was even better after I took it home to re-sautee to make it hotter. I think in the future I would be more likely to take it home to eat and customize it at home.

While I wasn't wowed by the chicken, I love the dinuguan. Their dinuguan is super flavorful. For those unfamiliar, it's a blood soup with offal. Yeah, doesn't sound tasty does it? That would be why it took me some time before I was at that point where I would be willing to try it. If you haven't tried it yet, I would recommend coming here and giving it a try since it's so good! If you need something more familiar in there, the garlic fried rice can be plonked in and eaten that way. Or you can also get a side of the java rice and try it that way. The java rice has tomatoes in it so it looks a little orangey-yellow, and I think tastes much better than the garlic fried rice.

Their breakfast is also one of the things I would recommend trying. I had the tocilog - tocino, fried rice, and egg. They also have spam or longanisa as meat options, along with bangus (milk fish) -- which I think I'll be trying the next time I'm out there for breakfast. I also still want to try the turon and halo halo, but they were out the last time I was there.