How to · 2026-08-18

Never Had Filipino Food? Start With These Five

New to Filipino food? Order lumpia, sisig, pancit, chicken adobo and halo halo. Five dishes in the order a first timer should meet them, in Al Barsha, Dubai.

The short answer, if you are standing in the doorway deciding: Lumpiang Shanghai, Beef Sisig, Pancit Bihon, Adobong Manok, Halo Halo. One crisp thing, one sizzling thing, one noodle, one stew, one dessert. Between them they cover most of what Filipino cooking actually does, and not one of them asks anything of you beyond a fork.

Why these five and not the famous ones

Filipino food often gets introduced badly. A first timer is handed the most extreme dish on the table, decides the whole cuisine tastes of that one thing, and never comes back. These five are the ones our first timers finish, and two of them, the lumpia and the pancit, carry the best seller mark printed on our menu.

The five, in the order to eat them

• Lumpiang Shanghai, first. Finger-thin spring rolls cut short, crisp the whole way through, gone in two bites. Nobody has ever needed persuading on this one, which is why it opens the table.
• Beef Sisig, second. Chopped meat seasoned sharp with calamansi and chilli, served on a cast iron plate straight off the fire and still sizzling when it lands. Nine of our Google reviewers name the beef sisig, and the long version is in our sisig guide.
• Pancit Bihon, third. Thin rice noodles tossed with vegetables and meat, mild by design and easy to share. Filipinos serve pancit at birthdays because long noodles are meant to mean long life, so if you are handed a plate at a Filipino party, that is why.
• Adobong Manok, fourth. Chicken simmered in vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, bay leaf and black pepper until the sauce goes dark and salty-sour. Adobo is the closest thing the country has to a national dish, and every Filipino family will tell you their version is the correct one.
• Halo Halo, last. Shaved ice under evaporated milk with sweet toppings buried beneath it. Halo halo means mix mix, and that is the instruction, not a description: stir the whole glass into one purple mess before your first spoon.

What to leave for the third visit

• Papaitan and Bopis. Both are offal dishes, both are deliberately bitter or sharp, and both land much better once you already like the cuisine.
• Ginisang Ampalaya with Egg. Ampalaya is bitter melon, and the bitterness is the point rather than a fault in the cooking.
• Sinigang is not a skip, it is the next step. Sour tamarind soup, the dish many Filipinos quietly judge a kitchen by, explained in our sinigang guide.

Ordering when you do not know the words

Every main dish comes with one free rice, so a main and a starter already feed one person without adding anything to the order. Tell us how many are eating and what you do not eat, and we will build the order with you on WhatsApp before it reaches the kitchen.

No pork is served at Pinoy Tambayan. That is the first question most mixed groups in Dubai ask, and it is worth answering before you invite anyone rather than after.

For four people or more, the boodle fight removes the ordering problem entirely: seafood and rice spread down banana leaves, unlimited rice and iced lemon tea included, no menu decisions to make between you.

Where to do this in Dubai

We are opposite Dubai International Academy in Al Barsha 1, and we are open 8:00 AM to 1:00 AM every day, so a first Filipino meal can happen at breakfast, at lunch, or after a late shift when nowhere else feels open.

Come hungry, order the five, and if the table gets comfortable, finish the last of it the way most of these dishes were meant to be eaten, with your hands.