Today, after running some errands, my hungry family decided to try House of Inasal in Woodside for lunch. My husband and my mother-in-law both grew up in Bacolod, and I’ve visited Bacolod and had my fair share of inasal at various places there- Aida’s in Manokan Country, Chicken House and roadside vendors. That’s our background, so I guess we can be a bit more nitpicky when it comes to authenticity.
I liked the wall murals of the electric posts and birds. Filipino telenovela playing, Capiz shell light fixtures hang from the ceiling.
Blackboard lists the specials by the restaurant entrance.
Photo by Ann Casimiro.
This is the Special Batchoy with pork intestines, liver and lechon kawali. It’s served with pandesal from Fritzie’s Bakery on the side. Batchoy is egg noodle soup with fried garlic chips and spring onions on top.
At first slurp, the Batchoy was a bit watery, but as we slurped a bit more, we actually thought it hit the spot enough. It can still be better (more garlic chips please), but we would come back to have this again.
The Sizzling Sisig was a good mix of fried pork belly, liver and onions. I think it still could have been crispier and I liked how it wasn’t smothered with mayonnaise, but my top pick for sisig is still Mama Fina’s in New Jersey.
I started eating sisig when I was in high school. I’d eat it after soccer practice with two cups of garlic rice and lots of knorr seasoning. *burp*
This is half of their Chicken Inasal Platter ($29.99) with 2 breast, wing, leg pieces, liver, heart and gizzard skewers.
More gizzard inasal for Paolo.
We found that it the marinade was a bit too sweet. I missed the yellow-orange color from atchuete (annato), and the bottle of chicken oil that inasal restaurants in Bacolod put on the table for you to put on your garlic rice. The inasal tasted good, but it’s not what we would consider to be authentic ilonggo inasal.
I actually thought it tasted a bit like Aristocrat Restaurant’s Chicken BBQ. The atsara that it was served with was spot on, and I wish that fresh calamansi was available here too.
For now I’ll just have to remember this meal instead. My pecho inasal with garlic rice at Aida’s Manoka Country in June 2012. So good.
My father-in-law Peter ordered the Dasilog, Milkfish marinated in coconut vinegar, lemon and garlic with fried rice and egg. This is one of my favorite Filipino breakfasts.
Photo by Ann Casimiro.
Taho and sago! We’ve been looking for good taho recently, so this really hit the spot.
We also got the Bagoong Rice then had Halo-Halo and an Ube bubble tea shake for dessert. No photos of those, but we enjoyed the Halo halo with pinipig- toasted pounded rice, and the bubbles in the shake were perfectly soft and chewy.
We would go definitely back to House of Inasal for the Batchoy, and I’d want to try their vegetable dishes next time. Our server, Ariel did a good job and made sure we had enough of the soy-vinegar sauce to bring home with our leftovers.
House of Inasal has been open for around seven months now, and is a welcome addition to the Filipino food options here in New York.
http://houseofinasal.com/
65-14 ROOSEVELT AVENUE Woodside, New York
Open from Tuesday-Friday from 11am to 10pm
Saturday-Sunday from 10am to 10pm