Lolo & Lola

Review

The Filipino schnitzel

Around 30,000 people with a Filipino migration background live in Austria. This makes Filipinos the fourth largest ethnic group from Asia in the country, most of whom live in Vienna. Filipinos are considered Catholic and conservative, and from the 1970s onwards they were actively brought to Austria by the city of Vienna to work in the care sector. Little is known about their culture in Austria, and almost nothing at all about their food culture. This is also due to the fact that the family plays an extremely important role in Filipino society and Filipino cuisine mainly takes place within this framework. Earl Valencia came to Austria at the age of eleven and after completing an apprenticeship as a chef/waiter in Pörtschach, it was clear to him that his own restaurant serving Filipino cuisine had to be his goal one day. First, however, he worked at Motto am Fluss, known as a professional forge, from 2010 until last year, when the opportunity arose to take over a small, former Indian restaurant on Spittelberg. So small that he had to resort to optical tricks and not only tiled the walls of his Lolo & Lola - Oma & Opa in German - but also mirrored them, making the cramped mini restaurant on the ground floor of a Biedermeier house appear a little more open.
Earl Valencia also put a lot of thought into the cuisine, using local ingredients, reducing the sugar content of the dishes, which is otherwise difficult for Europeans to tolerate, (unfortunately) dispensing with the aromatically dominant fermented shrimp paste and the typical local specialties such as scalded duck eggs. And he tried to make the Filipino cuisine, "which is very meat-heavy, pork is never really missing", vegan - not least because of 1070 and Spittelberg etc. Earl was all the more surprised that it was the meat dishes that were in particularly high demand in the first few days. Adobo, for example, the original meat stewed in vinegar, soy sauce and spices, is replaced at Lolo & Lola by lightly marinated loin, which the kitchen gives an extra crispy coating of panko breadcrumbs (€ 15). And the "Sizzling Sisig", pork belly with chicken liver and egg in a hot ramekin, is always the first to sell out. Kilawin, a Filipino version of ceviche, consists of raw zander and mango chutney. You can't taste the pikeperch, but it's still good (€ 10.50). And particularly pleasing: there is even Filipino San Miguel beer. Summary: The attempt to make Filipino cuisine palatable to the Viennese is a success. But we could certainly do with a bit more of a challenge.

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