Cagayan’s Ribs and Filipino Cuisine – Centrepoint Bandar Utama

I visited Cagayan’s Ribs and Filipino Cuisine recently on a cold rainy evening. This Filipino restaurant is located in the new wing of Centrepoint shopping centre in Bandar Utama and is the first time I’ve eated Filipino food.

The shop lot itself is quite small but they have tables just outside the restaurant which also serves as the smoking section. It is just by the escalators, by Subway, Baskin Robbins and is right next to Starbucks. The menu looks extensive, although I found it rather strange that they had lots of Filipino food interspersed with a whole section of Japanese food. Very unusual mix.

I’d heard a lot about Chicken Adobo - a traditional Filipino dish, so we made sure that we had that.

The chicken is stewed in a brown sauce and served with thin gravy. There is a salty sourish taste which is actually quite unusual but tasty. The dish is very much like the usual chinese stewed chicken in soy sauce. It comes in a small bowl about the size of a rice bowl, with a quite generous helping of chicken in it and is served with rice.

We also had Chicken Sinigang – sour chicken soup.

This dish is rather like a clear tom yam in that it is sourish but without the spiciness of a tomyam. There was chicken pieces in it and some vegetables and onions in a clear soup. I thought it was only just so-so in terms of taste and was too salty for my tastebuds.

Next was a Pancit Udon - fried udon noodles.

I only wanted it for the name, really. “Pancit” means “punctured” in colloquial Malay so it provided me with a lot of hilarity. But I think it means Fried in Filipino because there was also Pancit Ramen. The noodles tasted rather plain with a lot of black pepper. Again, only so-so in terms of taste.

Then came the Pork Ribs in Classic Sauce. This is a Cagayan’s speciality and worth ordering.

As there were 4 of us, we ordered a rack of 8 ribs which is unflatteringly known as the Fat Platter. It would have been nice to call it a Monster selection or something other than Fat! The pork ribs were large and meaty and roasted to perfection. It was tender and not hard at all unlike some places I have been to. We opted for the Classic sauce which is slightly tangy and sweet. It makes the dish less cloying and it wasn’t hard to finish up 2 sticks of ribs each. The ribs are served with coleslaw and a dollop of mash potato. At RM43.90 or so, it is absolutely worth every bite!

Finally, we had something unusual to tickle our tastebuds – Sisig. This is in fact, pan fried pig ears. Yes, the ears of a pig!

We placed our order early, but somehow, they missed it so it only came out after we had finished the rest of our dinner. The pig ears are chopped into small bits and pan fried then served on a sizzling hot plate with a raw egg on top. You have to mix the egg into the dish which cooks it as you mix.

I’m not squeamish so I found this quite tasty indeed. The ears have a cartilage between the skin which makes it crunchy and because it was cut into small bits, you can’t really tell that its a bodily part anyway. It was a little too salty but very tasty with hot rice. There was a lot of pepper and chilli flakes which added to the flavour. We decided it was like eating char kueh or char kuey teow. If they had added in some bean sprouts and spring onions, it would have tasted exactly like char kuey teow! I’d say its a must try here but only if you aren’t squeamish about eating pork spare parts.

The service is rather erratic. The night we went, there was a very big group of diners and the restaurant was full so the service was quite poor. I’d recommend that you call up and make a reservation before going, because we had to wait for a table. Parking in Centrepoint is free after 6pm and on weekends and public holidays so that is an added bonus.

The bill came up to about RM99+ for all the food including an extra bowl of rice and a glass of green tea and water and the usual service and government taxes. I thought it was quite reasonable because of the super tasty ribs and the opportunity to try Filipino food. Definitely worth a visit.

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