Get the ube pandesal with ube butter—one of the city’s best baked creations, purple as ChatGPT prose. And the lechon kawali—crusty-luscious, deep-fried pork belly over garlic rice with pickled carrots and daikon radish (atchara) and a liver sauce with pureed onions, garlic, sugar, and vinegar.
The rise of Filipino food in San Diego was a no-brainer. Only question was when. The city’s got one of the strongest Fil-Am communities in the country. The kids who chose to cook for a living learned under French chefs, Mediterranean chefs. Eventually, they were going to cook the food they grew up with. Sisig would not be denied its rightful place of glory.
And so we get Phil Esteban and his tiny Filipino bodega, White Rice.
“I remember there was a time when it wasn’t cool to be Filipino—I just wanted to be American,” he says.
Born and raised in National City, Phil went to New York and worked for a bit at Momofuku. He came home, was named the R&D chef for CH Projects. When the pandemic hit, he switched to the food of his roots—sisigs, tocino, pandesal, lechon kawali, longonisa, adobo, manok, you name it. Chef food, served casual.
“The kids are bringing in the older ones now,” he says. “There’s this joy to them, seeing their food in this light. There’s a level of acceptance. It’s exciting to see.”
