PhilHouse — Restaurant in California

Overview Sometimes you just crave filipino food, there is not an abundance of it in Sacramento for the most part. I have yet to find a "the place" for filipino food in Sac, purely based on my own taste buds. It's a simple, ready to order by combo type place. It's tastes and feels like fast food filipino food. Does that make sense?

What I ordered BBQ Chicken skewer, BBQ Pork skewer, Pancit, Adobo and Sisig.

Pros Portions are healthy. All the food is laid out in front of you, the line is clearly marked. Additionally, you can order combos or single items, up to catering sizes. Seems like the popular dishes are stocked and ready to go. Service was quite quick.

Cons You have to kind of know what you are getting, the line moves pretty fast when busy around lunch. While they have names for the food, they do not have descriptions. Additionally, food items are separated so it is not as easy what constitutes as an item you can have in a 2 or 3 item plate. Cleanliness can use some work though.

Tips The two item combo is enough food for 2 people AT LEAST, maybe even 3 people. Portions are good here! When in doubt, go with the bbq skewers - they were my fave (and the 'safest')...

For Thanksgiving, I ordered Filipino food to introduce my cuisine to my husband's family. We ordered from Philhouse because we've been driving to Elk Grove for the last 2 years now because of how good and reasonably priced this place is so I trusted that the quality would be the same. I was right. We ordered pancit, fried chicken, lumpia and pork adobo (the green beans I made myself lol). His family loved it! Adobo was a hit (as usual).

From previous experiences, the food here is like how you would get in in a family dinner setting in the Philippines. It tastes and feels like home.

As for service, I speak Tagalog and I it's not frequent that I get to speak it so whenever I come here and get to joke with the Ates while ordering food, it's always such a nice time and makes me less homesick.

I would recommend the following dishes when you visit:

Bicol Express (my husband is HOOKED) Kare kare Bistek Pork adobo Sisig Sinigang

I cannot recommend this place enough. It's inside Island Pacific too so you can do some grocery shopping...

Ordered one lechon with rice. The clerk weighed my meat at 1.10 lb and gave it to the cook hidden in the back to cut into bite size pieces. It took about 7 full minutes to chop apparently. The Cooks in the back were not wearing gloves and can be seen touching their face and eating some food through the glass. The clerk brought my chopped lechon back in foil. I asked her to weigh it again and she refused and said to me that she already weighed it. I didn’t want to make a big deal so I went ahead and paid. Then I walk back over to the scale and weigh my lechon on the same scale as earlier. It showed 1.02 lb. They cheated me .08 oz. on the weight of the meat. Shady people. Customers BEWARE. I should have...