Halo Halo Kitchen is a casual Filipino Restaurant located in Phoenix Arizona. You might be wondering WTFork is Filipino Food?…………. Filipino Food is a fusion cuisine that was developed from natural surroundings with influences from Spanish, Malaysian, Chinese, Japanese, Indian and American Cuisines.

When you walk in you see it’s a grocery store of different foods with a DJ Table in the dining room. You walk into a cafeteria line, a cooked fish case, a breakfast menu and pictures of food on the wall. There is much to absorb in this little place. If you are not familiar with Filipino Foods I recommend to research the menu some because it’s difficult to tell what the foods are by the pictures and the names. Everyone just points to what they want. I did some research and here is my cheat sheet of some of the offerings. But don’t worry….the people behind the counter are friendly and helpful.

When you enter it looks like this.

Then you walk threw the cafeteria line.

Here’s a closer look at menu above.

Here’s the fish case.

This case sells out fast and had much more fish in there when I came in.

You pass these foods before you order.

It’s hard to tell what foods you are looking at.

We order, pay, grab a table number and find a table. There is what looks like a DJ Table and signs for karaoke next to a cabinet of liquors.

All the tables are filled except for one.

I ordered a fish that resembles a porgy and asked for rice and a vegetable.

The fish is served warm not hot but is fresh tasting and cooked well. The skin peels easily and the sweet moist meat comes right of the bones. This is a very good plate of fish. The vegetables are very homey and were braised in what taste like tomatoes, onions and garlic. In the mix are green beans, kabochca squash, eggplant and bitter melon…..The bitter melon was bitter for me.

My husband got the Sisig (sizzling pork).

He said it was tender delicious, very spicy and had an unexpected bitterness. The egg added that perfect sauce to it. He didn’t use what he thinks was a mayonnaise squirt.

Did I mention that there is a dessert bar in the middle of the restaurant?

This wasn’t my first visit to Halo Halo Kitchen but this was my first time trying the signature dessert.

Here is the Special Halo Halo………The regular Halo Halo is a dollar less and doesn’t have the purple yam ice cream.

Well here we go!

The top is purple yam ice cream. Next is a house made square of flan followed by sweet beans. The main part of the dessert is shaved ice with evaporated milk. There are pieces of coconut and jelled fruits and different beans. I think its a little too big for even two people but is very interesting. I like when you get a little tiny bit of flan or ice cream and a sweet bean with the creamy ice…that is good.

We clear our plates and head out passing some of the grocery goods.

That was my trip to Halo Halo Kitchen in Phoenix….. The fish entree and Sisig Pork and a bottle of water only cost $21.00 (subject to change) and the food was VERY GOOD and a GREAT VALUE! (special Halo Halo purchased separately at $5.50)

**********A FORKING GREAT VALUE!************

Halo Halo Kitchen is Worth a Fork!

www.HaloHaloKitchen.com

Everything is subject to change and your experience may or may not differ.

D&Y Chinese Restaurant is located in an older strip mall in Glendale.

They serve Chinese Take Out Food and also a Chinese Menu of Canton and Mandarin Foods that include fresh live fish. It’s not a fancy place. On both of my visits the dining room is partially used for a storage room.

On my last visit I enjoyed a fresh killed tilapia. It was prepared to perfection and it was so fresh it melted in my mouth. It didn’t even seem like tilapia and even seemed like a more expensive fish. We also had a Black Pepper Beef Dish that was ok but chewy. On my last visit the fresh fish was the sweet spot here.

I decided to try fish again….I remembered from my last visit all the fish offered were extremely reasonable in price and varied from under ten dollars a pound to $15.99 a pound so I didn’t even question the price when I ordered the rock fish. Last years fish prices were crab $15.99 lb, tilapia $8.99lb. striped bass $10.99lb and red grouper $15.99lb. Last year I had to go with tilapia because it was the only live fish left. I was so thrilled to get rock fish because it’s a general name for fish that hide in rocks. Many different fish are considered to be rock fish….I know that grouper and striped bass can go as rock fish.

The fish price board wasn’t posted this time. (insert shark music like from the movie Jaws here)

I thought that it was odd that after I ordered the owner steps out from the kitchen at just stares at me………for a few seconds……and doesn’t say anything. Did he want to say something to me? ….. Then he goes back into the kitchen……

In reasonable time our vegetable dish comes out……The Shiitake with Asian Greens.

This dish looks GREAT until I try to eat some………..The vegetables are in a sauce that is unusual in texture……….actually frightening in texture…….This is not a dish that we can eat because of the sauce………This might be a food that most Americans won’t eat……….and perhaps is for an inquired taste………It’s slimier than I can ever describe………..It might be great dish if you are accustomed to eating this sort of food…..But to me and my husband it was like snot mixed with a rubbery glue…..it has a frightful amount of boing to it like it’s shapeshifting………maybe Odo from Deep Space 9 is in here.

Now to the fish…….

I have no idea what went wrong here……..because anytime I ever ordered fresh killed fish anywhere the fish always came out really awesome……..The rock fish they served me came out very rubbery and tough……It was next to impossible to eat…..I think I pulled off maybe two ounces of flesh…..It didn’t taste so good either….It didn’t seem spoiled….but it also wasn’t sweet and mild either….and certainly didn’t flake at all………it was like rubber……..So sad….This fish died in vain…..I thought my husband might lose it as he gets very grumpy when he is hungry……..We also were having our meal extra late today and he was starving when we got here….. I was going to tell the owner how it was when he came around… Even though I do have a very strong fear of doing that because I have worked in restaurants and witnessed things that cooks do to food on re-fires…………When the man that I’m guessing was the owner walked by our table to ask how things were- ………… I couldn’t help it and made a face and probably rolled my eyes when he asked……………I was about to say something…….But my husband wanted him to leave, spoke up and just said, “ok” and the owner left real fast………………..

Our server didn’t ask how things were…..Our plates she removed were full of most of the food she served. She did ask if we wanted boxes but we declined.

When my husband got the bill he almost exploded.

Now be real people………From a place like this…..

Would you expect them to charge you $89.10 for a plate of rubbery tough fish that doesn’t even come with rice?

It was before tax and tip $116.13 all we ordered was fish, a vegetable plate and an iced tea and $89.10 was for the rubbery tough fish. I felt FORKING Bamboozled.

My husband would have complained about the fish if he knew how much they’d charge us for it…..He later was sorry that he didn’t complain. But on the other side it is expected that a meal that you pay for should be executed to at least technically passable.

I know now that in the end it is MY FAULT for not asking for the price of the fish.

We left hungry and with a much lighter wallet now.

I’m not a writer I just tell The Forking Truth.

My 2nd trip to D&Y Chinese was not Fintastic this time.

My 2nd Trip to D&Y Chinese in Glendale AZ was also NOT Worth a Fork!

Every THING is subject to change and your experience may or may not differ.