Sari Filipino Kusina — Restaurant in Virginia

I stumbled across this place randomly while running an errand and immediately set up dinner plans the following week because it looked promising. And it definitely delivered on the promise!

This place had a very quiet opening in Bradlick Shopping Center. It's clean and colorful inside, with black metal chairs and tables and a mural painted across the walls. There wasn't a big line when I went and the cashier was wearing a mask/following COVID protocol. She was super helpful and nice, big kudos to her for walking me through my questions.

They have a lot of menu offerings, including standard barbecue options like brisket, ribs, pulled pork, and chicken, but also some fun items like popcorn chicken and blended drinks. I ordered a brisket sandwich, which came with 1 side (I picked mac&cheese) and a bottle of water. You can pick from lean, moist (some fat), or fatty (lots of fat) for the brisket and you get a choice of bbq sauce (I picked spicy). My total was $14, which is super reasonable.

My brisket sandwich was HUGE. Thick slabs of brisket with a bit of fat and a good bark on a sesame Kaiser roll. It was well seasoned and well cooked. It ended up being a bit too fatty for me, but I couldn't stop nibbling on it because it was so good. The spicy BBQ sauce added the perfect kick. The mac&cheese - omg the mac&cheese. I'm picky with mac&cheese and you'll see in my other reviews a lot of complaints about not doing it right. They for sure do it right here - flavorful, cheesy, and maybe a bit on the greasy side. Theirs feels more like baked than a traditional stovetop creamy.

I took most of my sandwich and half my mac home because I was curious about their halo halo smoothie. Halo halo is a Filipino dessert that I was lucky to try before thanks to a Filipino colleague. Of course I ordered it here - it's $7.50 for what's basically a standard boba drink size. And it's delicious. They basically do flan, red bean and coconut jelly on the bottom and blended ube/red bean slushie on top. Definitely worth a try for dessert, especially if you're a boba or che fan.

I'm already thinking about my next trip here - need some more of that brisket and I want to try other menu items, particularly the smoked wings and...

I was really excited to check this place out since it's bringing more attention to filipino food, however I think this place falls flat in doing a good job at it. The food looks good on those popular food tiktoker accounts, but the flavors, price, and execution in real life didn't live up to the hype.

My friends and I ordered the veggie lumpia, bangus with laing, pancit canton, sisig, kare-kare, calamansi and pineapple coolers, and the turon with ube ice cream.

The calamansi cooler was the highlight of the meal, it was light and refreshing without being too tart. The sisig was pretty standard and delicious with lots of good texture in the dish. The turon was also good, but I still would prefer my mom's.

The lumpia was crispy and delicious, but pretty small. I didn't get a review from my friend on the pancit, but my friend who had the bangus with laing said the laing was good but the bangus was mediocre.

The most disappointing part of the meal though was the kare kare that I ordered. I love kare kare, and was excited to see how they'd make it here, unfortunately I was served a broken emulsion of peanut butter and oil. The flavor was pure peanut butter with no complexity or depth. The vegetables in the dish were cooked nicely, but the kare kare overall was entirely unsatisfying and a little off putting. The bagoong should enhance the dish, not carry it like it did in this case.

The interior has a little lounge, and nostalgic posters hung around. You can even shop from their small sari store and grab some banana ketchup like I saw another customer do.

I wanted to like this place so badly, and I tried to give it a fair chance. However, the price point does not justify the quality of dish you're served. You can get more quality and authentic dishes down the street at Manila Oriental for a fraction of the price (and their kare kare is more than just...

Disclaimer:: got take-out. Place was very clean and food came out piping hot. Staff attitudes were friendly and helpful.

Ordered lumpia, siopao, pancit canton, pork sisig, garlic rice, atsara, and smoked adobo wings.

Lumpia - classic pork shanghai. Filling was good, but kind of on the sparse side. Still - wrapper stayed crispy during travel in plastic container. Served with sweet chili sauce.

Siopao - Ordered one pork to split. It was one of the larger ones and perfect for splitting. Would skip. Barely any filling. 1/3 of the bread/pastry was very hard. Likely microwaved to steam and was in for too long. Pass.

Panict canton - Classic preparation. Nothing bad but also nothing stand-out. I think it comes down to whether or not you like canton or bihon style.

Pork sisig - YUM!!! Perfect mix of onion, spices, pork bits, and vinegar. Served over rice! Only thing I wished is that there was an option for just sisig and not an "over rice" meal.

Garlic rice - Only jasmine on the menu as a side. Requested garlic. Fried garlic topped over jasmine in over containers. Kind of surprised true garlic rice isn't an option, HOWEVER, I so appreciated them reading my note and adding the garlic. Attention to detail was great!

Atsara - "Pickled" veggie condiment. AMAZING. Well-balanced! Sell by the jar please!

Smoked adobo wings - Kind of pricey per wing, but the flavor profile is spot on. Really really good.

I wish we took pictures of everything but we just kind of dug in because we were so hungry! On another note, I added that we had a shellfish allergy and between the bagoong and other sauces used in cooking, one person in our family had ZERO allergic reaction, so I believe this was taken very seriously. Kudos to everyone there for that! Would absolutely return to repeat some dishes and...