Food Picks: Filipino fare at Hayop, comfort Italian food at Locanda, refined Korean dishes at Onmi

Filipino soul food: Hayop Ni Manam

When the server sets down the sizzling hotplate of Manam’s House Crispy Sisig ($22), my first thought is: What is everyone else at the table going to eat?

I want the entire, too-small serving to myself, just looking at it. And when I have my first taste of the, yes, crispy pig jowl and cheek, I think perhaps next time I’ll order two servings. That dish at new Filipino restaurant Hayop, by the restaurateurs behind the Manam chain of restaurants in the Philippines, might well be the best thing I eat in 2024. But there are a few more months of the year left.

Filipino food has been too under-the-radar in Singapore and Hayop might change that. It has an upscale feel, but the food is gutsy and good. Another appetiser, Manam’s Crispy Palabok ($26), features expertly charred cuttlefish and prawns, plus smoked fish and chicharon flakes buried under a tall tangle of deep-fried glass noodles. The server pours a prawn and annatto sauce over it and the noodles collapse in a heap. We dig in. Where has this dish been all my life?

There is so much to explore and love at this restaurant.

Midnight Adobo ($52) is bone-in beef short rib in a rich braising sauce that also features red wine, in addition to soya sauce and coconut sap vinegar.

Insasal na Panga ($34) is a meaty charcoal-grilled tuna jaw, brushed with annatto, calamansi, and ginger and lemongrass oil.

Even the vegetarian main course option is good. Wild Mushroom & Tofu Kare Kare ($32) comes with a melange of grilled maitake, portobello and king oyster mushrooms, plus tofu in a peanut and miso sauce.

All these dishes are good with Sinangag ($6) or garlic fried rice, and even better with Bagoong Rice ($10), fried with fermented shrimp paste.

Halo-halo ($18) rounds off my meal and the shaved ice dessert, with purple yam jam, nata de coco, red bean and attap chee, is topped with a scoop of ube ice cream and a small leche flan. Over the top – but I like it like that.

Where: 10 Amoy Street
MRT: Telok Ayer
Tel: 8028-9012
Open: 5 to 10pm (Tuesdays to Saturdays), closed on Sundays and Mondays
Info:

hayopnimanam.com

Italian comfort food: Locanda

If 2023 was the year of artisanal pizza in Singapore, it would seem as if 2024 is the year of pasta.

Locanda in Little India is chef Denis Lucchi’s answer to diners wanting comfort food. In 12 years of running one-Michelin-starred Buona Terra, a fine-dining, tasting menu restaurant in Scotts Road, he has met many of those diners.

The restaurant serves good, soulful food at fair prices and has a casual, no-fuss ambience.

His trippa, called Stew Beef Tripe ($19) on the menu, is the best dish in my meal. Strips of tender tripe are enrobed in an umami bomb of tomatoes, with – get this – crisp lardo on top. Bliss. There is also Veal Eye Round ($24), or vitello tonnato, juicy slices of veal with tuna sauce and gently tart caper berries.

The pasta dishes speak to me, particularly the Malloreddus ($28), ribbed shell-shaped pasta from Sardinia. The pasta is tossed with tender octopus ragu stewed in red wine, with a welcome acidity coming from capers and lemon. Unapologetically rich is Pappardelle Ragu Genovese ($24), topped with mushrooms.

Usually, I am too full from pasta to attempt a main course. But I scare myself by polishing off Secreto Iberico Pork ($39) – seared on the outside and pink in the middle. The charring perks up my appetite and I love the contrast in the accompaniments – sweet apple, slightly bitter braised endive.

And if the pasta and main courses were all soft textures and comforting, lulling me into a food coma, the snappy pastry in the Sicilian Cannolo ($15) dessert wakes me back up.

Where: 109 Rowell Road
MRT: Farrer Park
Tel: 9619-2691
Open: 6pm to midnight (Wednesdays to Fridays), noon to 3pm, 6pm to midnight (Saturdays and Sundays), closed on Mondays and Tuesdays
Info:

locanda.sg

Refined Korean: Onmi

It used to be that restaurant prices moved only in one direction – up. These days, however, canny owners who know Singapore diners will travel for food at the first sign of a long weekend, have come down to earth with pricing.

Onmi, which used to charge $135 a person for its tasting menu, now prices it at $118. And the food is better, more refined. New head chef Ahn Jaewoo, 32, who has worked at Eatanic Garden and Kang Mingchul Restaurant, both one-Michelin-starred restaurants in Seoul, treads that fine line between traditional and modern.

The standouts at my dinner include the chef’s take on samgyetang or chicken ginseng soup. At Onmi, the chicken is presented roulade style, with neungi mushrooms worked into the ground meat, with a rice stuffing in the middle. The broth does not contain ginseng, which is a pity, but it is flavourful without being gamey.

I had thought the grilled beef in the opening menu’s main course was terrific, but the new charcoal grilled beef short rib is even better. It is smoky and just fatty enough.

Nothing prepares me, however, for the rice course. The servers arrange the bowls like a Christmas tree, and it is, quite literally, like unwrapping presents.

There is a bowl of multigrain rice studded with chunks of chestnut and ginkgo nuts and topped with slices of abalone, doenjang stew and banchan – beef jangjorim (beef braised with soya sauce), gamja jorim (soya-braised potatoes), white kimchi, mustard leaf kimchi, bellflower and cucumber salad and salad made with Korean chamoe melon.

It is a mix-and-match course – spicy, savoury, sweet and tart, depending on what I pile on spoonfuls of rice. I shock myself by finishing the entire bowl.

Burdock stars in the dessert. The earthy root vegetable is made into ice cream and crunchy chips, and sits atop a warm crumble. Dagwa, lovely little sweets, round off the meal. There is a black sesame madeleine, a craquelin cream puff that is almost all craquelin, a tiny slice of sweet potato tart with kimchi spices and a tiny yanggaeng or jelly, made with mugwort instead of the traditional red bean.

Refined Korean that will not cause credit card meltdown. I’ll be back.

Where: 107 Amoy Street
MRT: Telok Ayer
Tel: 6612-5531
Open: 11.30am to 2.30pm (Wednesdays and Thursdays), 6 to 10.30pm (Tuesdays to Saturdays), closed on Sundays and Mondays
Info:

onmi-sg.com