just really excellent Filipino food in an unexpected place like Jacksonville, North Carolina at…read moreslightly unreasonable value (great for the customer, but makes one question if the business can sustain it when charging so little for so much food). It was the first of three Filipino restaurants we visited on my wife's/my Carolina week long visit, and was the best out of all of them, even though by far it was the least expensive.
Driving from Durham NC to Myrtle Beach, my wife and I took a longer route so we could eat at this 'Point-Point' steam table restaurant deep in the South. Steam table means everything is pre-cooked and sitting at a buffet station. The food can suffer in the same way that a buffet can: the food gets old fast and it definitely tastes different if you can get a fresh(er) batch vs one that has been sitting out for a while. We got there about 45 minutes before opening (opens at noon on a Sunday). It's in an isolated strip mall (seemingly in the middle of nowhere), with plenty of parking. As we waited in the car, we saw many prospective customers trying to get in. The doors opened promptly at 12 pm, and we were the 3rd party in line.
The order taking process is intentionally slowed to allow the serving of the food to take place not long after it has been ordered and (pre)paid. This did mean that the line went out the door for our entire dine-in visit, and we got to see the make up of the regulars. Everyone was patient: it was very clear that it was mostly locals, coming not because they wanted Filipino food, but because they wanted good tasting food at a good price. It's a small dining area, but the vast majority of people were doing carry-out so there was always some seating available.
They use Clover as the POS, and identify themselves as 'Filipino Cuisine'. We got the 3 choice combo plate ($16.99), served with white rice along with a can of coke ($1.99...no soda machine here) and a side of Ukoy ($2.50). There is a 4% surcharge for credit card use.
Each choice was the size of a small a la carte portion, and one would have been enough for the two of us for lunch. The food was delivered to your table, and they will bus (or one can self-bus since a garbage can is available and everything is served in disposable containers).
Ukoy - shrimp and vegetable fritter - really big piece and made that morning, so was still crispy. I really like vegetable fritters and this version was OK, a bit dry but that's what the accompanying vinegar dipping sauce was for.
Pork Adobo - very tender meat, not too much fat, with added onions (what you would expect in a biftek). The amount of saltiness went perfectly with the white rice.
Biftek - this had the sabaw of biftek, but the cut was cubed, meaning closer to caldereta. The beef cuts were just excellent (little gristle), very tender. This amount of beef would easily be $20 in a 'nice' Filipino restaurant.
Pork Sinigang - really good, just the way I like it. Wasn't overly sour, with plenty of vegetables and generous amount of pork. The broth had definitely been skimmed of grease, resulting in a dish that was more homemade (where time is taken to do the skimming) than other turo-turo places I've been.
Looking over the menu can tell you about the competition in the area, and it looks like Vietnamese Pho is pretty rare in Jacksonville. Turo Turo has Pho on their menu, and even modified their name to highlight it. I've found that many Filipinos like their dishes with all the extracted fat remaining, which makes much of their soup inedible for me (in that context, it's grease, not flavor-enhancing fat). But as noted, their sinigang was good, with most of the pork fat skimmed off the broth...so thinking their Pho is probably pretty good too.
We've eaten at many, many Turo-Turo places (so many around where we live), and this place has to be near the top in terms of value and taste. Funny that it's in a place that we wouldn't expect, serving locals that one would expect in the area. Both of us really liked this restaurant, and the plentiful leftovers became our dinner that night with no regrets.
