Filipino Restaurant Series: Josephine’s
5 Comments
Karen Hamilton
June 3, 2008
Filipino cuisine is the ultimate in comfort food. I may be a little biased, having been born in Manila and then raised by a mother who is an amazing cook…but I have many non-Filipino friends that can attest to the yumminess of Filipino home cooking (my husband included). You just have to be very open to pork in all its glorious forms.
The problem with my love of Filipino food is that I don’t know how to cook all the dishes that I enjoy. Living downtown and preferring not to drive also compounds the sourcing of unusual ingredients like kangkong and sampalok. Cue Josephine’s Restaurant, which for years and years has been my #1 place to patronize when my Pinoy cravings needed to be assuaged.
Photo by Curtis Carlson Photography. Lunch before my wedding “catered” by Josephine’s.
Lately, I’ve been harbouring traitorous feelings about Josephine’s. It is owned by family friends and former chef Mang Rene, of the original Broadway restaurant gem that was Mang Rene’s, was well loved by our family. With these ties, it is with extreme disappointment that I report the dreadful decline in the quality of the dishes that Josephine’s has been putting out.
The saddest change is in their menudo. Their menudo used to be so tantalizing that my husband and I never felt the need to make it at home. We’d simply order it to go from Josephine’s and enjoy the aroma of stewed tomatoes and pork throughout the car ride home. One could even venture to say that it was better than my mother’s (shhh). These days, the menudo is bland, watery, not as vibrant in colour. Key ingredients have changed. There used to be lots of raisin, tomato, potato, and sausage (okay, hot dog…). Now it’s more or less a monotonous sea of pork.
Bad menudo: the catalyst for change. I’m leaving the warm, once-delicious embrace of Josephine’s to flirt shamelessly with the other Filipino restaurants in the city. I’ll be sure to keep you all informed of my quest to find an authentic Filipino eatery to commit to. If I find one that’s really a keeper, we may go ring shopping and begin choosing baby names.
What do you think of Josephine’s?
If you have been to Josephine’s lately and care to disagree, please please comment! I want to know what is still good. Is the palabok still worthy? Has anything else suffered the same fate as my dear menudo? Give me the scoop!
Josephine’s Filipino Restaurant
2650 Main St | Vancouver
(604) 876-8785
Filipino Restaurant Series to date:
Categories: Food, Restaurants, mount pleasant
Comments
5 Responses to “Filipino Restaurant Series: Josephine’s”
Got something to say?
About Tiny Bites
Tiny Bites is a food blog that explores all things edible and imbibable in Vancouver, British Columbia. More >
Our Forum: Chefs’ Table Talk
Chat with other Tiny Bites readers and BC's restaurant pros on the province's newest food community forum.
Articles by Karen Hamilton
Read the food and non-food articles that I've contributed to sites other than Tiny Bites.
Tiny Bites on the web
You can find additional Tiny Bites contributions at these sites:
[...] it was thusly, fueled by my recent disappointment with Josephine’s, that we finally decided to give Sandy’s Cuisine a [...]
First, your food photography is awesome. Just wanted to get that out of the way.
Second, we’ve never tried Josephine’s restaurant but have been planning to for the longest time. But, if they are on the way down. . .it’s sad. Hopefully, that was just a bad day. We’ll have to get ourselves to Josephine’s one of these days: we just have to extricate ourselves from Rekados.
JS: Glad you like the photos. My lens is often an extension of my mouth =)
Wish I could say that it was just one time that left me unimpressed. This post is actually an accumulation of 6 months of consistent disappointment with the takeout we ordered. I had lunch with someone indirectly tied to the restaurant today and aired my concerns. He confirmed that there has been a change in chefs and said that he’ll pass on my feedback.
You like Rekados, huh? Been there twice and neither instance was noteworthy. What do you like there?
[...] was hyped to be much better than Sandy’s Cuisine, the restaurant that has recently trumped Josephine’s Restaurant as my Filipino restaurant of choice. Last weekend, my husband and I made the trip over to Cucina [...]
[...] Josephine’s Restaurant [...]