Green Banana Leaf

OMG, I'm trying to tie up loose ends here, then it's back to the Oregon posts....

This is the last of the Epic Birthday Food Crawl Posts (EBFC). Our final stop for the day was a place recommended by our trusty driver, D...

For this we had to travel to Chino Hills...uh where?


For us Filipino American gals, it was fitting to end the day with Filipino food, or in this case, what Green Banana Leaf called "Filipino Fusion" cuisine...

I was curious about the "fusion" aspect. I wanted to see how far they could take it...

As we walked in, we were attracted by this swanky red bar. I feel like I should be wearing a Betty Page style dress instead of these green capris.

Past the swanky bar is a water feature, a small stage for the house band and the restaurant itself. Lots of tables in the middle with big booths along the windows.

This empty space would soon be filled with a big group celebrating someone's 40th birthday. Judging from the purple and yellow birthday cake with basketball decorations and figurines, we figured the celebrant was a Lakers fan!

There are two locations of Green Banana Leaf - one in Duarte and the one here in Chino Hills. You can view their menus online here. As we looked through the menu, I pretty much saw straight up Filipino food. You know, the usual suspect like pinakbet, adobo, pancit, lechon kawali, bicol express, dinuguan, kare kare, bistek Tagalog and such. The fusiony foods that I saw were: caldereta au gratin, chicken gorgonzola (not really Filipino), and salmon kabutoni (teriyaki style sauce, maybe this was Japanese fusion?). For the most part, it was 90% Filipino food.

We had big eyes and a big appetite that evening. The first dish to come out was the Crispy Dinuguan. Nestled gently on top of the blood stew were fried pieces of pork. There was more in the dish itself but I guess I wasn't expecting the presentation to be this way. I thought it would be actually fried pieces of the blood stew battered or something. The dinuguan was a nice, dark, almost blackish color. Inside were mild yellow peppers which I liked.

KD ordered the most healthy dish of the night - Asparagus with Tofu which everyone enjoyed (except I didn't like the tofu)....

D's choice was the Kare Kare with Crispy Pata - Instead of oxtails in the Kare Kare, the twice fried pork leg/feet were  served on the side. Yessss! Pork! I gnawed on a few of those pig knuckles. The crispy skin was tasty and crisp with fat underneath some pieces. Very satisfying.

The kare kare with eggplant, green beans, and bok choy...So good over rice!

We also ordered the Sizzling Sisig which I request to NOT have raw egg on top. I didn't like it that way at Patio Filipino in the Bay Area becausethe egg made it too "wet" and "slimy" for my liking. No thanks. The plate was served on a hot skillet and was sizzling and sputtering like mad! So delicious this was! So far, that's three pork dishes.

Our dinner...

The folks next to our table were kind enough to let me take this photo of their food. This happened to be the Sariwang Lumpia (Fresh Lumpia). But man, it was huuuuge. These looked like burritos! The garlic/soy/corn starch based sauce was sprinkled wit peanuts and garnished with lettuce. I wouldn't have wanted my lumpia on top of that sauce because then the pieces are too wet and end up being soggy.  The people actually offered us a taste, but we respectfully declined. It's that Filipino hospitality you know, to share your meal to friends (or even strangers, in our case!).

Here's another look at the crispy pata...Crispy balat (skin) and fat!

The kare kare was also served with a sideof fish sauce and fermented shrimp paste (bagoong alamang)...Very strong and pungent.

This next photo was also the table next to us. In fact, they WANTED me to take photos of ALL of their dishes. I think they were amused by my food papparazzi tendencies. One of the older ladies asked where we were from and when I said, "San Diego", she said, "Don't you have good Filipino food there?"  "Of course we do!" was our answer. I guess maybe she thought I hadn't seen Filipino food before hence my curiosity.  This was the Pinakbet (Filipino vegetable stew flavored with bagoong alamang) with Lechon Kawali on top! Man, this looked so good! I can spy the bittermelon, okra, sitao (long green beans),  and kabocha squash.

You can tell these folks loved pork as well! Even though they had lechon kawali as a topping for their pinakbet, they also ordered a plate of that lechon kawali!

Their last non-pork dish was the Bistek Tagalog - one of my favorites, lemon and soy marinated flank steak with fried onions. I almost took them up on their offer to join them for dinner (kidding).

As we were having dinner, the house band sang "Happy Birthday" to me and to the 40 year old Lakers fan...They were super cool and nice. The guitarist made a comment about the Lakers birthday cake since he had a Lakers shirt on.

"La-aaah, la la la....aaaaah"

As we were leaving, we enjoyed the sounds of the house band performing "Suavecito" by early 70's Latin rock band Malo, featuring brother of Carlos Santana)....

Here's the song...yeah dude!

We had more than enough food to take home from dinner. I liked almost every dish and it was nice making friends with the people next to us. I liked that Green Banana Leaf was a beautiful and modern looking sit down restaurant rather than your standard steam table/point point joint. It was classy inside with good service and entertainment to boot!

This concludes the EBFC! Truly an epic day spent with my three fave gal pals, D, TORC, and KD!

Green Banana Leaf
13809 Peyton Drive, Suite J
Chino Hills, CA 91709
www.greenbananaleaf.com

The foodcrawl should be read in this order:

EBFC with the Educator GF's - First Stop: 85C
Bon Epi Patisserie
Mignon Chocolates 3x
More Shops at the Holly Building
JJ Bakery
Din Tai Fung
Dream Era Cafe and Books
and of course, this post!

Until the next food crawl or at least the next birthday celebration in our little group...