RESTAURANT REVIEW : Westside’s Tito Rey Offers a Taste of Filipino Cuisine

I happen to know the lyrics in Pilipino to “White Christmas” (“Ibig Ko’y ang Dating Pasko”) and they’re not bad, though they don’t talk a great deal about snow. Come to think of it, they don’t even mention snow.

How often people sing “White Christmas” over there I can’t say, but the fact that the song has been translated at all reminds us that the Philippines is one of those countries that we have heavily influenced but remain scarcely aware of. There are prominently located MacDonald’s stands in Manila, but most Angelenos have probably never been to a Filipino restaurant, even though the Filipino colony here predates the Thai’s by many decades.

Now, in a sort of reverse MacDonald’s phenomenon, a restaurant chain based in the Philippines has opened a branch in Los Angeles. Interestingly it didn’t open in the traditional Filipino territory around Westlake, but out on the Westside. Tito Rey of the Islands is a rather elegant and West-sidish place, with wall panels of hand-bent bamboo and off-white table tops made of sanded coral.

Decor is one thing; imagining Filipino food itself on the Westside is a little more of a challenge, because there is something inescapably dark and brooding and downright funky about it. A taste for bitter vegetables and rather earthy meat flavors (there are sauces made of pureed liver). A love of the savage bite of vinegar, garlic and hot peppers.

However, coconut plays an important part too, and Filipinos are famous for their sweet tooth. Tito Rey is able to present a pleasing menu partly by stressing the rich and sweet end of things, and partly by putting surprising variety into the everlasting Filipino vinegar sauces and adding a number of its own creations. There are some remarkably attractive dishes here, such as the taro leaves, tasting like something between spinach and grape leaves, in a rich, sweet coconut sauce. Anybody could like chicken Sumatra, crisp fried chicken with a fascinating sweet and sour tamarind-mustard sauce.

Even the more eerie-sounding dishes can be instantly likable. “Salty egg and tomato” is a tomato stuffed with mayonnaise and a salt-cured egg that tastes curiously like cheese--a grainy and somewhat salty cheese, of course, a sort of non-dairy feta. Kare-kare, the famous dish of braised oxtail in devastatingly rich peanut sauce, is supposed to be spread with a sweet concentrate of dried shrimp called bagoong before you eat it. It may sound like a creepy idea, but it actually makes an odd sort of sense: a sort of protein-rich jam to go with both your peanut butter and the strong beef flavor of oxtail.

The most famous Filipino dishes are actually dim sum borrowed from the Chinese, noodles (pancit) and spring rolls (lumpia). They are far from being specialties at Tito Rey, and I positively dislike this greasy version of lumpia, though it is bursting with meat. Give me the rich, elusively flavored braised chicken and beef (adobo) instead, or the tamarind soup filled with chunks of chicken and bracingly underdone, faintly bitter eggplant slices. Go for the adventure, I say.

One reason why the Pilipino-language version of “White Christmas” doesn’t mention snow, of course, is the relative shortage of snow in the Philippines. On the other hand, Filipinos have a great deal of experience with ice. They are the great ice cream makers of Asia, and great creators of unusual desserts Baskin-Robbins is not yet ready to copy, like sundaes made with yams, corn and beans and topped with puffed rolled rice (“rice crispies,” as the menu aptly calls it). Sooner or later, everybody ought to have a dessert like the delirious bobo cha cha , made with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, “rice crispies,” yams and little glowing chunks of orange Jell-O.

Tito Rey of the Islands, 11829 Wilshire Blvd., (213) 479-7008. Open for lunch and dinner daily. Sunday brunch. No alcohol served. Parking lot in rear. MasterCard and Visa accepted. Dinner for two $20 - $45.