I was scared to go to Kusina. I was scared about how much I was going to eat. This is because my fiancé is half Filipino and when he found out a Filipino restaurant had opened in Canberra his excitement levels soared through the roof and it scared me.
HA. But I booked it anyway.
A big meal to feast on is pretty much a requirement for a Friday night and we needed to compare their meals to his mum's. And yes, we did just that. We went to Kusina and tried a lot of food (for research purposes).
So the actual restaurant is located in Cooleman Court in Weston Creek on the South Side of the Berra and the best word I can use to describe it is it's cute. It's very cute... and kind of homely and you can tell that everyone who works there knows their stuff.
The menu was pretty big and I kind of recognised a few things (with my partner's help) but I couldn't pronounce them.
We started off with a couple of entrees, ordering
Kinilaw a king fish ceviche thing which is like raw fish and chilli and ate
Pritong Talong, a duck egg, deep-fried eggplant (UM yum) salad thing too.
Both were amazed, although the strong fish taste in the duck egg dish was a surprise. Not a bad one, I love fish. But a strong one and one I'm not used to. So if you don't like fish or don't like fish tasting things, I would recommend you don't order that one. But if you do? Stuff your face with the fishy goodness.
We then ordered our mains which were
Pinakbet, a vegetable medley type of thing you can get it with or without pork (we went without), rice and a dish called
Bicol Express, which was pork in a spicy coconut cream (oooh the poor little pigs)....
And then we then ordered an additional entree
Ukoy, to beef things up for me because I wasn't eating the pork, and they were prawn, tofu bean sprout croquet things. I'm not sure if they were deep fried, although they tasted it and we all know anything deep fried tastes good....
And then we ordered a mango salad but were too full to finish it. (Overeaters anonymous anyone?)
Pheeew. This is like keeping a food diary.
Anyway, nothing beats a home cooked meal and if you want to try something a little different I recommend you go. If you love fishy flavours pick up the phone and make a booking now. And if you don't? Put the phone down.
We'll be back though. It's Filipino. And it's the closest thing my fiancé will get to his mum's cooking.
(If you'd like to find out more I recommend you read
this from her Canberra website which links to the Kusina menu and Facebook page too.)
Who's spunkalunk fiancé is that!?
