Neri’s Curbside Cravings Dinuguan

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Filipino Food Los Angeles

The 20th annual Festival of Philippine Arts and Culture (FPAC) took place in San Pedro’s Pt. Fermin Park on September 10 and 11, overlooking the Pacific. Organizers had a full slate of performers, including a kali martial arts demo, ifugao folk dancing and a performance by Filipina star Lea Salonga. The grassy clifftop park also accommodated a number of food vendors, highlighted by Neri’s Curbside Cravings, a truck that spun off from Neri’s brick-and-mortar restaurant, which is midway between Koreatown and MacArthur Park. The truck’s run by Neri’s niece Rhea Espino. Her best sellers are a pair of hamburgers – Tapa (beef) and Tocino (pork) – but my favorite dish was Crispy Dinuguan.

The menu advertised this porcine dish as a “Filipino favorite delicacy, cooked with a twist of crisp.” That translated as a Styrofoam container filled with a nearly-black slurry of rich pig’s blood, tangy vinegar and sweet onion. They bypassed organ meats like intestine – which are apparently regular dinuguan ingredients – in favor of cubes of crispy fried pork belly. The container clearly wouldn’t have won a sash in a beauty pageant, but it was plenty flavorful when spooned over white rice.

Dose of Vitamin P spotlights my favorite pork dish from the previous week.

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Joshua Lurie

Joshua Lurie founded FoodGPS in 2005. Read about him here.

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