Kusina Filipina

Kusina Filipina

3201 Beacon Ave S, 322-9433

Mon–Sat 8 am–8 pm, Sun 8 am–4 pm, breakfast until 11 am.

I’ve had a fondness for Filipino food ever since my friend Bob’s excellent high-school graduation bash. While we snuck beers and did a million backflips into his pool, his parents and their friends crowded the piano and sang show tunes. It was strange to see someone’s parents having loud, rowdy fun in the presence of their kids; my parents dressed up and left the house for that kind of thing. But the other great thing about that party was his mother’s stupendous buffet of then-strange-to-me food. Most of the details are gone, but I still remember a huge and thrilling pile of spiced crab.

At its cafeteria-style steam table, Beacon Hill’s Kusina Filipina puts out a spread that’s nearly as memorable as that long-ago dinner. There are eight or so stews and noodle dishes that come in shades of gold and scarlet and jade green, coordinating, perhaps on purpose, with the bright décor of the dining room. Next to them are several stuffed pancakes lined up on melamine plates; one last steamed fish wrapped in banana leaf; and a couple of unexplained hunks of pork rind.

Little signs in a loopy cursive script identify most of the dishes, but I stand at the counter unsure of what to order. Ahead of me a 10-year-old cranes toward the buffet, playing with her beaded purse and, pointing to a grayish pan of stew, says, “Sinagang! Sinagang, sinagang!”

“When I was your age, I didn’t like that…” says her mom, but the girl keeps chanting until Zarina Roque, Kusina’s manager, dishes a portion into a Styrofoam container.

After that ringing endorsement, I decide to go with the sinagang, which turns out to be a porky tamarind soup. Beyond that, Roque helps me decide what else to order with a generous sampling of four dishes she thinks I’ll like. When I show interest in a stew made with pork and blood, she gives me a bite of that, too. I like it—it’s got that spicy-minerally taste that I know from Spanish morcilla, but the husband probably won’t be so crazy about it. I want to try another vegetable dish just because it is pink, but this, she warns me, is very salty and fishy (the pink comes from shrimp paste). So I take her advice and stick to several crowd pleasers. (Entrees are $5.49 for a whole serving or $5.99 for a combo of two entrées plus rice.)

Eating Kusina’s stews helps you appreciate the full spectrum of tartness. The thin broth of the sinagang is seriously sour, balanced by chunks of pork and okra pods. Chicken afritado comes in a broth that’s got a softer tomato zing. Beef caldereta has big hunks of pliant meat and potatoes seasoned with chili paste, and naturally, a little acid snap. To offset all those tangy stews there is pansit, a fried noodle dish with lots of vegetables and a cabbage-y undertone. I could also easily scarf down three or four of the yummy, sweet pan de sal rolls that Kusina bakes daily.

While the cheap, tasty, ready-to-go food at Kusina makes it a natural place to go for takeout, it is the kind of place worth hanging around. Even at night, the room has a certain sunniness, but I especially like it in the morning, when the pace is leisurely, the lattes are brewing, and there are plenty of people to admire my baby. While the evening food at Kusina has a tangy theme, the morning fare revels in sweetness. No industrial pastries are served here; instead there is an impressive pyramid of hand-wrapped turons ($1), banana egg rolls that have gone all crackly and caramel at the seams where the sugary juices leak out. You can also get bibika ($1.75), a very moist mash-up of cornbread and coconut cupcake. Even the cooked breakfast has a sugary kick. On a recent visit, my boy shredded the classified section while I enjoyed a breakfast combo of rice and eggs and longanissa sausage, which is as sweet as it is garlicky and porky.

And though I’ll never be 18 again, or do another backflip, at least I still have a place to go when I want another woman to spoil me with the sweets and sours of Filipino food. ■