Eat your fill of Filipino-style food at DelCiano Pinoy Cuisine

There was no bread to be had at DelCiano, the new Filipino restaurant in south Arlington, when we stopped in for a mid-afternoon Saturday lunch.

Someone had come by that morning and ordered every single piece of the pandesal, traditional buttery yeast rolls that are made with salt and sugar and are apparently addictive if you can get your hands on them.

Forlorn and a little confused, we scanned the menu for suitable carbohydrate replacements. The pancit ($9.99), long Cantonese noodles, slick with soy sauce and studded with pieces of bok choy, carrots and onions, would have to suffice.

So would the crispy egg-roll wannabes: the lumpia ($7.99), fried cigars stuffed with seasoned ground beef. They were a touch too greasy for even my taste, but the sweet and spicy chile sauce offset any offensive oil.

The lechon kawali ($9.99) also flaunted a surplus of fat — and some might take issue with just how much. These chunks of pork-belly fritters, fried in coconut oil, were artery-clogging bombs, teetering close to inedible in their fat-to-pork ratio. But the lechon’s dipping sauce, a popular liver-infused Pinoy condiment called Mang Tomas, kept things from going completely off the rails with its sweet and heady mixture of breadcrumbs and sugar.

DelCiano, in business for two months on nutritionally dense South Cooper Street, modestly bills itself as being influenced by Filipino cuisine. Our server said the kitchen seeks to put its own stamp on the fare, and it seems to be going over well with the clientele, who took up seven of the eight tables on our visit. All were familiar with the food.

So when we walked in, it was as if a nonexistent record screeched to a halt. Shortly after we were seated, our server queried: “How’d you hear about us?”

I couldn’t let on as to the purpose of our meal, so I just kept on ordering. In addition to the items above, we tried the 6-ounce bistek ($9.99), served with white rice. Marinated in soy and garnished with green onions, it was a more familiar entree, chargrilled, tender and satisfying.

But the tangy, near-sour flavors of two other dishes — the pork adobo ($9.99), chunks of tender meat, and the chicken sinigang soup ($9.99), like your grandmother’s chicken soup, but not — were new to many of my dining companions’ palates.

Notably, the littlest ones at the table were horrifically crestfallen when we learned the kids’ section of the menu didn’t exist, even though it is still included on the menu.

No chicken fingers and fries for them! And the lumpia burger, with its attractive picture and description, was not an option either.

Alas, they ate the bistek and noodles. I thought they might like the halo-halo ($5.99), a gorgeous concoction of shaved ice topped with a scoop of lavender-colored ube ice cream (made from the purple yam and a hallmark of Filipino desserts), jack fruit and tapioca pearls, all over evaporated coconut milk. But I must have briefly forgotten who my kids were.

As I contemplated the check and enjoyed as much of the generously portioned fragrant dessert as I could, a surprise visitor came to the table: an order of fresh-baked pandesal!

The kids’ hands went to the basket faster than you could say Pinoy.

This story was originally published February 20, 2017 at 11:19 AM with the headline "Eat your fill of Filipino-style food at DelCiano Pinoy Cuisine."